IxD and Assistive Technology
We’ve been fortunate enough to get some great publicity around our pilot study with the Kaspar social robot over the past couple of months. ABC News ran a spot with us on their TV bulletin and news radio. The new UNSW Disability Innovation Institute also…
A quick search of the title of this post sees me in good company. I’m not going to dwell on the fact this blog has been dormant for almost 4 years, but instead fill in this gap with a quick timeline of highlights (and a…
After almost 3 years of research, I have finally completed the first observational study in the Interactive Multi-Sensory Environment (IMSE) I have constructed. I’ve settled on the IMSE nomenclature to differentiate the space from a history of passive Multi-Sensory Environments (MSEs), like the Snoezelen room. Without…
Having just returned from participating in my first international conference yesterday, I thought I would post a few thoughts on SIGGRAPH Asia 2014 and my short trip to Shenzhen, China… My paper was accepted as part of the workshop titled, Designing Tools For Crafting Interactive Artifacts, and…
I had one of the greatest wins of my lifetime arrive this week in the form of a successful HREC application. Now that this giant hurdle is out of the way, I finally get to focus on putting together the observational studies that form the centrepiece of…
A sticking point for my PhD research thus far has been how to identify when children with ASD are expressing an intention through interaction with the environment that I have designed (if they are at all). An area that is proving useful for this problem is…
Recently, I was kindly asked to participate in the first UNSW Art & Design (previously known as COFA) in the new UNSW Galleries on campus. This student exhibition, titled Mighty Healthy, explores Design work that addresses health and therapeutic issues, and takes in a wide…
It’s a good time for me to do a quick technical update on the dome build, now that I have some (temporary) space to fully setup and test the structure. Finally, I’ve been able to layout all 15 lighting heads (RGB par 36’s) and connect them…
For just about anyone working on a PhD (at least outside Science), the core of your research is a moving target. The ever-shifting ‘research question’ is frustratingly elusive, and despite beginning the process with what you feel is a pretty clear field of study in…
As part of a push to have more people doing interesting and way cool stuff at COFA, Dorkbot will be kicking off the 2014 season of ‘people doing strange things with electricity’ next week. If you’re not familiar with Dorkbot, it’s a worldwide memetic event,…
Throughout 2014 I will be carrying out the observational study side of my PhD research (finally, thank goodness). The first stage of this will be conducted inside an interactive dome tent, much like you’d see used for camping (the tent part, not the interactivity). Without…
Recently I was given a bit of a hiding at my PhD Annual Review for not being clear about where my ‘contribution to knowledge’ is situated. For the majority of people who sensibly have no interest in postgraduate study; a PhD is essentially the creation…
As a part of the observational studies during my PhD, I will be filming participants interacting with the immersive space that I am now in the process of constructing. It is important that the children are able to feel comfortable to behave as they choose.…
Last month, Peter Wildman and I were involved with Electrofringe as a part of the This Is Not Art festival in Newcastle. It was a nice escape from teaching and PhD’ing, and a good opportunity to turn out a work quickly, rather than something that…
I was asked at the beginning of the year to curate a show at 107 Projects in Redfern. I knew that ISEA2013 was on the near horizon in Sydney (I’m speaking at the conference, and will bore you with those details separately) and thought it…
Bret Victor has become a little bit of a hero for me. Previously an interface designer at Apple, it seems that Victor was successful at the tech giant, but realised that his vision and theirs didn’t quite fit together and he left in 2010. He’s…
This is probably the longest break between posts I’ve ever had on this site. But here’s why: Distilling the last 12 months of wildly tangental and strictly (self-imposed) literary research into something resembling a clear direction for the next 2-3 years in just 7500 words…
Recently, myself and a couple of friends were asked to create an installation piece as part of 107 Projects‘ end of year show. The group exhibition, titled The Christmas Show, was built around the theme of what the Christmas tree means to us in Australia.…
I have a sign placed prominently above my mailbox: “NO ADVERTISING MATERIAL PLEASE”. It’s regularly ignored, particularly by real estate agents and pizza shops. I decided that a public shaming would be the most effective means of ending the tyranny of wasteful advertising and obviously…
There is a potential exhibition in the works, for which I’ve been doing some simple line drawing studies. These are all fairly self-explanatory; I just thought I’d put them up along with their Max patches for others to use. The first video of each ‘lineDrawer’…