king talk

It‘s almost two days ago that we launched the decoded conference, an event which will interconnect people from the field of design and programming.

The decdoded conference is focusing at the development process of interesting projects within the limits of design and code/technology. The projects should be inspiration and build a base for further discussions. At this conference we will online show projects, that have been done or which have been prototyped already. Ideas and visions have to be brought into reality. The conference will foster the cultural interchange between the fields of design and tech. Topics and projects about generative design, gaming and human computer interaction will be presented by the speakers.

Our featured speakers are:
Mario Klingemann – Schönes aus Code
Moritz Stefaner – Ästhetik von Information
Benedikt Groß & Hartmut Bohnacker – Generative Gestaltung
Tilman Reiff & Volker Morawe – Games, Art & Testosterone
Massimo Banzi – Tinkering with Arduino

Like the decoded concept itself the the organisation team is a mixture of the fields of code and design. we as envis precisely, a design studio for interface and interaction design, are organizing and hosting this event together with our nerdy coding friends from reppa.net. We are looking forward to see you there…

You can find more information about the conference and ticketing at
www.decoded-conference.com

Today I received my birthday present. It´s a Kosmos Xplorer Kit with a metal detector for self assembly. The functionality of this detector is pretty simple. It generates quick electrical fluctuation of the current, a search coil is one part of the oscillator. The number of the vibrations per second (frequency) depend on the properties of the coil. If you hold it close to metal (iron, aluminum, nickel, copper, silver …) the frequency will be influenced by that. A small sensor mounted at the board recognizes this state and sends a signal to a piezo speaker (beep!) and to a red led (blink!). This little and cheap piece of technology looks like it wants to be hacked   ; )

While i was trying to get some informations about the new Arduino TinkerKit development i stumbled upon this video from last years »Arduino toyhacking workshop« in London 2008 (workshop 2009 video is here). It´s just a quick overview, but you can find more detailed videos of each project here at tinker.it. The idea of toy hacking is not actually new, but I still like it. Just go home and look around what you got and then tinker it. It´s doesn´t matter if it´s a toy keyboards, RC cars, a singing Santa Claus… whatever  ; )

So if you would use a toy keyboard you could make your own »piano shirt« like the girls from kobakant did. Mika Satomi and Hannah Perner-Wilson often work with soft conductive and resistive fabrics to create wearable electronics from cheap, basic and off-the-shelf materials. That´s what it´s all about… You don´t have to spend much money and time for a quick ´n´dirty prototype. You just want to tinker around trying to get an idea if your concept is working or not by using materials which you have already at hand.

Toys are just an amazing source of cheap technology to hack and reuse. »Lowtech sensors and actuators« from Husman Haque (see article about primal source) and Adam Somlai-Fisher is a great example of this approach. You can download their PDF (1,1 MB) and learn something about personalizing your toys with the help of Arduino e.g. the sound responsive cat.

One result of ours is the toyhack of the famous »Big Mouth Billy Bass« which was originally constructed by the american toy company Gemmy Industries. We thought that it´s cruel to let Billy sing his same old song again, and again, and again… So we connected a microphone to his mouth and mp3 EQ signals to his back. Now he´s enjoying his life as a karoake fish. This hack was the result of a »getting started with Arduino« Workshop at the FH Joanneum was realised with the help of Christian Perstl and Daniel Fabry.

If you have some interesting projects about toyhacking in mind, just contact us. Thanks.

Say »Hello!« to our new vintage toy called Roland R-8 Human Rhythm Composer, one of the hottest drum moduls of the 80´s. The possibility to connect a MIDI Trio (In/Out/Thru) via the Logilink USB to MIDI interface to our computers, allows us to tinker around with some generative and physical computing stuff. Last week we bought this little masterpiece for about 50 EUR at a german website for online classifieds (www.quoka.de), which is my favourite site for getting cheap second-hand articles. Some results will follow…

The fine people at Arduino have released the new, enhanced, extra jumbo Arduino Mega. Nicey!
It is a larger, more powerful Arduino board. It’s based on the on the ATmega1280 (datasheet), which has 128 KB of Flash (program) memory, 8 KB of RAM, and 4 KB of EEPROM. The board has 54 digital pins (of which 14 provide PWM output), 16 analog inputs, 4 hardware serial ports, I2C, and all other goodness you expect from an Arduino board. The Mega is compatible with most shields designed for the Duemilanove, and includes the same automatic power selection, auto-reset on upload, and pre-burned bootloader. The Mega will be appearing soon at distributors throughout the world. Check the buy page for the one closest to you.