The 2022 edition of the Studio 5 course is an evolution of 2021’s “PCB for Designers”, a first experiment we designed with the ambition of filling the gap between the ideation of electronic devices and their fabrication. The first edition of the course provided many insights on the students’ reception of the curriculum as well as many inputs on the class structure, schedule, content and organization in general.
The first difference is the title of the class. Sensing Ecology was chosen as a title to introduce a correlation with the brief which is focused on the relationships between elements of nature, the ecology, while introducing the recipient of the design efforts, which goes from designers to the citizens, in a context of urban Nature and citizen science.
Course structure
Regarding the structure of the course, we better defined the stages of electronic design, starting from the quickest means of prototyping a circuit to more complete ones:
- Hand-drawn schematics and components assembled on a breadboard
- Computer aided schematic and board design using Eagle software and CNC fabrication and soldering in the Fablab
- Reworking the circuit on the software introducing changes to have it manufactured and delivered by a factory
Throughout the three steps, we kept the same microcontroller, the extensively documented Atmega328p, and electronic components needed to create a working prototype, only introducing new components for input and output capabilities chosen according to each student’s design solution.
As confirmed by the answers submitted by the students in the final questionnaire, the new structure was appreciated by the students and it greatly improved the quality of the designs and it raised the level of electronic design skills for all the students.
Studio Brief
Reconnecting or strengthening the bonds between humans and nature: design devices that amplify humans’ senses or introduce new ones to enhance our connections with nature and natural phenomena.
While the design brief was left unchanged, it was introduced earlier in the schedule and we organised an exploration of a urban nature environment (Tongji University’s campus) to let students conduct a simple fieldwork research. During the first observation, students focused on finding natural elements that are interconnected with each other or that lie in a relationship with humans or other elements. It was helpful to start analysing these elements early, so that they could already explore the technical solution proper to the design direction that was forming, for instance studying accelerometer modules where a relationship of changes happening in space-time was identified as occurred in the case of Gao Shihan’s “Treelapse” project.
Rapid Prototyping
Along with the improvements on the course structure, we also conducted a rapid prototyping session during the second phase of the development, when the students already had a working circuit fabricated in the Fablab with the cnc machine. During this “very rapid prototyping” session, the students were asked to build the basic shape of their device, using simple materials found in the Fablab such as cardboard, scrap wood, elastic bands, straws, etc. At this stage the students only have a rough idea of what their device will be and will make, so the requirement was to “just make” whatever they felt was right, to have something usable and testable at the end of the following two hours. This exercise proved extremely useful for understanding sizes and scales, usability, interaction and ultimately gave the students a first platform to define which sensors to use, how to manage power supplies and gather more informations that cannot be anticipated.
It is worth noting that all of the students in this studio come from a study path in which thinking-through-making is not encouraged, in favour of planning, sketching, making 3D models and creating presentations. Making is an activity that normally happens at the end of the design process to present an idea that was already formed and accepted. When asked to make something without planning it ahead, at an early stage in the design process, and use the results of the activity to gather insights to move on in the design, the students are subject to a sense of surprise or confusion. It takes some efforts to “convince” them to just let their hands create what their minds can barely see.
Students’ final projects
Treelapse – Gao Shihan
Digital timelapse art generated with trees
We always think of trees as something that’s strong and firm, but actually there’s a lot of movement of trees. They grow, they move and they tilt because of the winds but we can hardly see them because for trees, time flows much slower than the way we human perceive time. It’s all happening in the ultra-slow motion that is tree time, so that what we see is a freeze-frame of the action.
In real life, we use photographs to freeze single frames of time. In order to compress time, photographers use a technique called timelapse. By capturing multiple single frames with a certain interval for a very long time, then play them back in real time, we can compress hours of time into just seconds, and see the movements that we cannot perceive before.
Since the tree moves in an ultra-slow motion, then why don’t we use the same concept to record the timelapse of the activity of a tree? Hence the name, Treelapse, a device that can record the movement of a tree. It can be strapped to a tree and the gyroscope and accelerometer inside will detect and record the movement of the tree. The data generated will be saved into a log file on the TF card. Then the user can remove the TF card and use the log file to generate a digital art that use an algrithm strongly connected to time and the data collected. In simple terms, with Treelapse, you can create a digital timelapse that is generated by trees.
Ivy Touch – Gong Longyu
When a hand leads ivy to nature, ivy leads a hand to nature.
Stone, wood, glass, paper, cement, soil, plastic. Ivy touches every surface she can reach, and decides with her hands (aerial roots) whether to live or leave. She winds her body and comes across universes.
Ivy Touch takes a hand to discover around the scene by touching all kinds of surfaces. Through neural network learning process in advance, the micro-controller analyses the relationship between the numbers gathered from color+grayscale sensors and the basic roughness condition of the surface. When a hand leads it to surfaces that are rough and close to nature(e.g. tree trunk, soil, stone, rough brick etc.), it will deliver the signal by holding the hand a bit tighter with the rotating servo motor and fishing lines. As for the smooth artificial surfaces like plastic, paper, glass etc., it looses up. Through the whole process, Ivy Touch plays the role of trigger as well, encouraging people to use their hand to touch and feel and explore nature.
Percuino – Gao Peizhong
Awaking numb perception by swapping with non-human senses.
“We don’t just passively perceive the world, we actively generate it.” In this age of the supremacy of information transmission efficiency, human consciousness is reduced to an appendage of visualization, which almost constructs all realities of the digital age. The designer aims to stimulate people’s awareness, re-enable rich perceptual dimensions to build information architecture, and pay more attention to urban nature outside the electronic screen. We do not pursue the efficiency of information, but the richness of perception.
In this project, Percuino awakes numb perception of urban residents by swapping senses with animals, empowering users to sense familiar urban nature with non-human senses. The designer made a modular wearable electronic device, using three replaceable circular PCB boards and sensors to represent three different animals – snake (infrared sensing), frog (motion sensitive) and sea turtle (geomagnetic orientation). Users can respectively insert these circular circuit boards into the main body of the device and wear it on the forehead to attain the perception of animals. Meanwhile, the information is transformed into changing vibration amplitude and frequency to form tactile feedback.
Lifecycle of Lilyturf – Yuan Jialin
Magnify a lilyturf, observe little surprise.
How long has it been since you carefully watched the growth of a plant? The neglected step grass, Lilyturf (Ophiopogon japonicus), is a pervasive plant with hidden secrets. There are little known beauties throughout the year — spring leaves, summer flowers, autumn fruits, and winter roots. It is submerged in thousands of plants and is willing to play a supporting role. However, since ancient times, its tubers have been used in traditional Chinese medicine to benefit the heart and lungs of people. Ancient scholars also used it as a free strap for binding books, enjoying the reputation of “book belt grass”.
This project focus on lilyturf, and uses a magnifying lens to take the viewer up close to observe the details of lilyturf. By rotating the little-guy knob to different season markers, the carrier block at the back will rotate to a different image of lilyturf with seasonal characteristics while the light in the box will also be switched to the corresponding seasonal color of lilyturf. This project aims to arouse people’s attention to the small natural objects around them.
Win(g)nable – Zhou Qingqing
An interactive game that tells the story of aphid’s offspring migration through tactile simulation.
This game tells the story of the migration of aphid colonies through simple interaction, which could be similar to the human experience of exploring other planets. When an aphid colony starts to experience over-population, the friction on their bodies caused by being confined in a crowded space stimulate the generation of winged offsprings in the females. When resources are depleted, the colony has a chance to survive by flying to a new location.
How to play?
- The red dots on the screen represent the aphids. The colony will gradually increase, all clustered together.
- Rub the box on someone else to stimulate the generation of winged offspring, represented by the green dots.
- If you didn’t provide enough friction, the red dots will saturate the screen, meaning that not enough winged offspring were generated and that the colony will experience over-population, resources depletion and eventually extinction.
- If you provided enough friction, the winged offspring will be able to migrate and guarantee the survival of the colony.
Soil-Foil-Bloom! – Lu Yijun
Gently pinch the device, then touch the surrounding soil, and you will see the petals blooming: this is the secret of the soil conducting electricity!
Soil-Foil-Bloom! is an interactive device designed to show people the conductivity of soil. It use soil and human finger as part of a conductivity sensor, by analyzing the change of capacitance, the device will be able to tell whether it is touched/planted into soil or not. You are invited to touch the device and the soil around it to see how the petals move, whether it is blooming or not.
Psyche – Qu Xinyu
A device to awake the city residents’ perception of nature, applied to the construction of the environment data platform for co-creation.
Citizens in urban nature pay little attention to the ability of the soil beneath their feet. So, this PCB device is a two-way attempt. This device mainly records soil moisture, sunlight, and generates specific images based on a score imported into Touch Designer. There are touch buttons on it that allow users to distinguish between different kinds of plants. Users use the device to explore a specific environment and record the data. By using the built-in library, it reminds users a place where life is born.
Walking unconsciously, being reminded by shoes, this kind of interaction is an interesting way to sense the earth arteries. The design focuses on the PCB circuit and appearance, so that people would be willing to wear it for fun. It features a lightweight and portable design and wearable stability. Later, we also hope to build a data visualization platform for users to get feedback and weave a network together with other users.