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Touchable Tent: Prototype Aurora

In October I was invited to join a cohort of sensor and open source software hackers at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry for a week’s residency leading up to the sensing symposium Art && Code 3D.  What an amazing experience, surrounded for a week by some of the brightest folks in creative computing.

On site at Carnegie Mellon University School of Art, the residency cohort spent our time together building a number of different sensing and 3D projects.  I’ve been wanting for a while to explore the potential for physical interaction with digital interfaces from a non-upright body position (such as sitting, lying, reclining, floating, etc).  And I’m always keen to explore more immersive, enveloping interaction environments.

Working with students and staff at CMU, I prototyped this wood-framed sleeping tent which performs as a full-body touchscreen.  The software system currently supports up to four points of contact from participants lying down inside.  Thus it could be used by multiple visitors, or more to the point, multiple limbs.  Now I can get started on a gestural vocabulary for feet!

Big thanks to Golan Levin for organizing Art && Code 3D, and inviting me over to play.  The tent would not have happened without the support of the creative community he has fostered at CMU.  Many thanks to my impromptu team, especially Meg Richards, the Touchable Tent’s certified rock star. Full credits:

  •     Heather Kelley  Concept, design, management
  •     Meg Richards    Software engineering
  •     Eric Brockmeyer    Architecture
  •     Alex Rothera    Projection design
  •     Dan Wilcox    Production support
  •     Shawn Sims    Production support
  •     Joshua Blake    Kinect consulting
  •     Adelaide Agyemang    Construction

Touchable Tent: prototype Aurora uses:
openFrameworks
MSALibs – MSAFluids
ofxKinect
libfreenect
We are intending to share the tent’s source code – check here later in 2012 for the GitHub link.

Special Thanks :

  • Golan Levin
  • Drue Miller
  • Marge Myers
  • Lauren Goshinski

Video music: Future Boy (Damien Di Fede)
future-boy.bandcamp.com

 

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