Maracas and Bumblebees

The spring term is over. The past few weeks I worked on a project of my own (for the first time, it felt like) that was originally called "Interfacing People Using Icebreaking Technology" but later got the catchier name "Samba Meeting". I wanted to create new situations for people to meet new aquaintances and friends, and since music unites people, it felt natural to make an installation that invites two people to play music together. It consists of two toy maracas, that instead of peas inside has a sensor that measures movement. By shaking the maraca you trigger different drum and percussion samples, and it is possible to play a rhythm together. Here is a link (about 10Mb's) to a .zip file with a movie clip of an early test.


Our teacher David Cuartielles is great with contacts, he got us an exhibition at the Malmö Museum the whole summer. The exhibition is called Implement, and feaures physical computing installations made by students from the undergraduate Interaction Design program at K3, Malmö Högskola. I hope my Samba machine will do allright there, since the exhibition is in a part of the museum that is the kids' experimental technology playground. I built'em real sturdy though, so they should be fine.

I have sublet my flat in Malmö, and I'm currently visiting my family and friends in Gävle. Not for long though! On Monday I am flying out of Sweden, into Vancouver, Canada! I won't stay for long there either though, as I'm taking the Greyhound Bus the next day into the U.S. of A and Seattle, to finally see the light of my life, my girlfriend Rachael, again. I will be in Seattle the whole summer, I'm really excited! Then I'm going bck to Vancouver to do a one semester exchange at Simon Fraser University.

Will keep everyone posted as to what I'm up to!