Working on more colours for the fidget rings. There is a black and a white variety. Next thing is coming up with a different way to glue it so the parts won't separate.
Some fidget experiments I did, some worked others did not.
1. Fidget nail. I glued a tiny fidget spinner to my nail. Of all these experiments this one worked the best. I used the fidget spinner and thought it looked very funny. The only downside is it gets easily stuck behind things.
2+3. Using nail polish as a fidget. My plan was to slowly peel of the nail polish. This did not quite work because the nail polish gets very hard. You cannot peel it off easily enough.
4. Sowing a fidget to my sweater sleeve. I often scratch my upper arm, so it made sense to put a fidget in that place. The main reason this experiment did not work was because it was too warm to wear a fidget. When I did wear it I noticed I did not fidget with it, I’m not quite sure why.
Fidget pet in the wild.
I brought one of the fidgets with me to the pub and it worked great! People were constantly using it. It would take the fidget 20 minutes to die but in the 7 hours we were at the pub it did not die once. People were using it while having conversations or would pick it up when they saw it was dying.
I made two more fidget pets. These ones I 3D-printed, this made it very easy to quickly make a lot of prototypes. Another benefit is that there is a lot of room within the fidget. One of the fidgets has a button to fidget with, the other one has two switches. Both fidgets have a ring of light all the way around the fidget, this makes it so that you can see it from all sides.
The Electronics for this project were very fun to work on. I liked challenging myself to see how many components I could fit in such a small space. Another challenge was to make it seem more alive, to achieve this I programmed in a heartbeat.
1. Soldering on the microchip
2. I explored connecting the fidget to an app this way you can see how many times you have fidgeted. This was fun to do but also challenging. I had never worked with BLE (Bluetooth low energy) before and it took quite some time to figure everything out. I got it working for the most part and I’m sure I can figure out the last little detail.
3. Adding a vibrating motor. This way of signaling is more obvious than the LED. If you would ignore the LED for too long the Fidget will start to buzz every now and again.
4. Some late night soldering.
5. Testing wireless charging
The first working fidget pet. This one is made from 2 plywood halves that are held together by magnets. On the top is a little birthmark where the light shines through. The downside of this is that the light is not always visible. On the side there is a tiny switch you can fidget with. If you don’t fidget for a little while, the light slowly turns red indicating the fidget is dying. If you fidget with the little switch the light slowly turns green again.
1. The first working Fidget.
2. Crude prototype.
3. Shape of the Fidget
4. Resetting the LED from red to green.
5. The inside of the fidget. The red connector is for the battery. The black chip is the microcontroller. The white disk is the LED. and the little black thing is the switch to fidget with.
6. Fidgeting with the switch.
7. Fidgeting the fidget back to life. In the video it turns green quickly, the final one would be slower.
The goal for this project is to make a fidget that motivates you to fidget with it.
The fidget should encourage you to get up from your seat every now and again and take a little walk.
The fidget should feel nice and look pretty.
The fidget should motivate you to use it in a way that’s not intrusive to your workflow.
I settled on the idea of a fidget pet. The fidget lives in your pocket and on your desk and you need to use it to keep it alive. If you don’t fidget with it for a long time the fidget will slowly die. You will know the fidget is not doing well by a colored light on the fidget.
The shape
I decided to start making fidgets out of wood. It’s pleasant to hold and easy to shape. There should be a cavity inside for electronics. There also should be a little “window” where the light can shine through, so you know the “health” of your fidget.
1. A fidget with a rotary encoder in it. The rotary encoder clicks when you turn it. It feels very nice and is satisfying to use. The spinning disk is made from a coin and looks good.
2. First tryout for a shape. It feels very nice to run your finger along the indent. It is too small for electronics to fit in.
3. A second shape I made with multiple potential places for components to fidget with.
4. A third shape with a plastic band around it for the light. Because the band goes all the way around you can see the light from all angles.
An interactive sound piece using a Kinect and TouchDesigner Using my body I can manipulate the whistle. One of my hands controls the pitch of the whistles, the other one the speed. If I jump it triggers a different whistle.
I made a little scroll to give ideas of how to move to manipulate the sound.
A visualization I made in TouchDesigner of how I feel my brain works on ADHD medication.
The colorful part is my brain without medication, it is colorful and looks fun, but is also a bit chaotic. The white part is my brain on medication, it is way more organized but also looks a bit boring.
I made a football with a gyroscope inside to add an interactive part to the project. When you kick and move the ball around, the white sphere on the screen moves accordingly.
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Bend wooden rings. I did research about how to bend wood into rings. I researched 5 types of wood and 3 different methods. After I successfully made some rings, I did research about how I could mix epoxy and different powders to create colorful inlays.
1. Oak ring.
2. Oak ring with colored pencil inlays.
3. Spruce ring with charcoal inlays.
4. Spruce ring with copper powder “inlay”.
5. Tulipwood ring with clear inlay.
6. Oak ring (tall).
7. First test (unknown wood, sowing threat inlay).
8. Wood bending experiments.
9. Some of my inlay experiments.
10. Some more of my inlay experiments.
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Wooden camera parts. I carved some decorations for my camera out of spruce wood.
1. The whole camera.
2. Wooden lens cap.
3. Hot shoe cover, front.
4. Hot shoe cover, back.
5. Film advance lever.
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A toilet roll holder made from wood, leather and magnesium. The mechanism to change the roll is discreetly hidden away.
1. The holder in use.
2. The holder itself.
3. How to change rolls.
