Universal Design

RHYME presentation and workshop in Nordplus network

Birgitta — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 10:21:28 +0000

RHYME members Anders-Petter Andersson and Birgitta Cappelen were invited to contribute with lecture and Polly World Workshop at the SPEDUTEC meeting in Goethenburg from November 2nd to 4th.

“SPEDUTEC is a project supported by the Nordplus Horizontal Programme under the Nordic Council of Ministers. The aim is to increase understanding on theory and pedagogical and technological practice on learning through assistive technologies (ATs) in multisensory environments. Furthermore, our goal is to build a new Nordic-Baltic network on the topic. The main working methods is sharing knowledge and experiences, and mutual learning.”

Birgitta and Anders-Petters lecture was called “5 Generations of RHYME tangibles” and described the RHYME project through 4 generation of observations and development and the current 5 Generation platform used in the Vitalising Welfare Technology course at AHO in October 2015.

Intensive Design Work is going on

Birgitta — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 19:46:26 +0000

Visit at ALMAS House to experience existing Welfare Technology

Intensive work in the Class Room

Material and shape explorations

Polly World on Vimeo

Birgitta — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 11:23:45 +0000

We have created a little video about the physical interaction i Polly World (not the social screen based App interaction). The video is shot by Alexandre Chapell and edited by Mariko Rhode and Birgitta Cappelen. Thanks to Sara, Anders and Berit and their children for their contribution.

Developing 4th generation, distributed and social media

Birgitta — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 12:33:55 +0000

Currently we are working intensively with the development of the 4th generation of Co-creative Tangibles. The 4th generation of Co-creative Tangibles are in the project plan defined as “distributed and social media”. In the RHYME project this means that the users can co-create across different media, space and time. For instance that a sibling can interact through a smartphone or tablet from another place, with her sister or brother and the Co-creative Tangibles at home.

In the 4th generation we try to accomplish, develop and realize as many of the ideas, suggestions and wishes as possible, that we have received from the users, care persons, families and experts from several fields throughout the whole project. These many ideas, suggestions and wishes have been articulated through participation in the many workshops, tests, interviews, discussions and observations during the whole RHYME project.

Some of the users’ wishes, such as dynamic microphone input to the music together with different forms of sensorial stimulating input sensors in a mobile interactive thing, has been a major technological challenge. These user wishes have compelled us to develop six different hardware platforms throughout the project, which was not something we planned to do, but had to do because of its importance for the users and music therapists.

Including direct light response and projection in the tangible objects has also been an important user demand that has been a great design challenge. We try to include and prioritize as many user wishes as possible into a new 4th generation of distributed and social co-creative tangibles with new shapes, structures, surfaces, hardware, software, music, set design, positive experiences and mastery levels, personalization and interaction forms. Here are some pictures from the ongoing development process:

New hardware solutions under development:

New shapes under development:

New materials, surfaces and joinery under development:

New light solutions under development:

New APP with graphical user interface under development:

RHYME at Innovation camp – sound and light in health care

Birgitta — Tue, 28 May 2013 12:31:22 +0000

14. May 2013 members of RHYME development team participated in an Innovation camp about innovative sound and lighting technologies in health institutions to gain new perspectives, user-insights and a wider network within the field. The Innovation camp was arranged by Innovation network “Dansk Lyd” together with OPALL (Offentlige-Private Alliancer) and Innovations network “Dansk Lys” in DTU’s (Technical University of Denmark) new Innovatorium in Lyngby, outside Copenhagen. Read the program (in danish) and about the results on Opall’s home page.

RHYME at CHI 2013 in Paris

Birgitta — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 18:51:15 +0000

During the CHI 2013 Conference Jo Herstad and Harald Holone presented their paper Three Tensions in Participatory Design for Inclusion under the Design for Children track on May 1st. In the paper they discuss the challenges in “real” Participatory Design in relation to the RHYME project, especially the challenge of working with children with severe disabilities. The CHI Conference is the leading conference within the field of Human Computer Interaction.

User testing 3rd Generation in March

Birgitta — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 10:22:31 +0000

During March we will user test 3rd Generation of RHYME Co-creative Tangibles at Haug.
3rd Generation of tangibles are mobile and all built on iPod Touch as the running computer. Additional we have developed several mobile breakout card (iDevice, jDevice and kDevice) to extend interactional possibilities with sensors and actuators like speakers, LEDs and vibrators. All music is programmed in SuperCollider. More information will come soon.

Video of the 3rd Generation student projects are online!

Birgitta — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 01:12:30 +0000

Here are videoes of the student projects from the Sensorial and Musical Interaction course at AHO 2012. Stian Ruud recorded video during the exhibition 2. November and edited short video clips to put on Vimeo. All the Musicking Tangibles are wireless and run by iPodTouch and RHYMEs breakout card kDevice, which uses Bluetooth. The Tangibles use various sensors like pressure touch, RFID, microphone and accelerometers to play and vary the music. All music programming is done in SuperCollider. All installations has LEDs included in the textile that vary with the interaction and music. The Stump Drum also has vibrators as output in its arms. Watch the video clips here below. You can find more information of the project by clicking on the project names.

Whispering Willow

Amazing student projects

Birgitta — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 00:00:38 +0000

Friday 2. November the master course in Tangible Interaction, Sensorial and Musical Interaction at AHO, ended with an open student presentation and exhibition. Birgitta started the presentation by giving an overview over the RHYME project, the student courses led by RHYME from 2010 to 2012 and the design challenges we have in this field. It stared with a 2 week course in E-textile in 2010 to a 3 week course in E-textile and Musical Interaction in 2011 to a 4 week course in Sensorial and Musical Interaction this year. The first week the students created “sensorial sensors“, the next week 3 new Musicking Tangible concepts and the last two the developed one concept to a final working model. After the introduction the 6 student groups gave their presentation of their process to their end result: Stump Drum, Dynamic Rock, Cove, Chilli Net, Ebbe, and Whispering Willow. More information about each project will come later. Link to some process pictures. And below are some pictures from the exhibition:

RHYMEs Sensorial and Musical Interaction course started

Birgitta — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 13:07:54 +0000

The master course Sensorial and Musical Interaction course, which is run by RHYME’s development team (Birgitta, Fredrik and Anders-Petter) and related to RHYME, started at AHO 8th October. The course started with an excursion to StatsPed/Torshov Kompetansesenters large exhibition and introduction by Turid Horgen, who is a national authority on multi-disability and sensory stimulation. The goal was to get an introduction to the field and a hands-on experience of Multi-Sensory Environments. The first week the student assignment was to develop sensorial sensors. The focus was to explore the material possibilities when embedding sensors into diverse materials, creating shapes, surfaces and structures to motivate musical interaction for diverse users. The end presentation will be at AHO, 2. November at 13.00. Welcome!