7/7 easy chocolate&lemon crunch frozen yoghurt

froyo time!!!!!!

I love froyo!!! It’s one of the ‘new’ things I learnt to like in ny, I didn’t have any back home….. then during bootcamp, I made friends with a bunch of people from hawaii/cali and from them converted to a froyo addict lol Anyway I realised I was spending way too much money on pinkberry, so I decided to try my hand at making some of it

what you need:
normal dairy yohgurt
greek yoghurt/double cream
milk

in a ratio of 3 : 2 : 1 so if you have 300ml of yohgurt you’ll need 200ml of greek yohgurt/double cream and 100ml of milk.  Basically mix it all up in a bowl until you have a satisfyingly goopy texture,  which will form the base of your froyo. For a thicker ‘fro, use more cream/greek yohgurt; for a thinner ‘fro, use more milk

chocolate&lemon crunch

7 lemon biscuits (I used the meyer’s lemon thins, which goes for 2.99 at trader joe’s)
150g of chocolate (basically half a block of a family bar)

1. crush your biscuits – bare hands if you’re uncivilised, or for the more civilised way; ziplock bag and rolling pin until you get cookie crumbs
2. break your chocolate up to lots of small chunks, microwave on high for 1min until gooey
3. mix your crumbs with biscuits

final steps:

1. pour your froyo mixture into the biscuit mix
2. stir until evenly distributed
3. put in the freezer for 1hr
4. take it out, stir
5. back in the freezer for 1hr
6. take it out, stir
7. back in the freezer for 1hr
8. take it out, stir
9. chuck it in the freezer until it’s frozen-ish (I like mine smooshy soft, but idk maybe you like hard froyo, what do I know?)
10. eat!!!!

you can alternate variables by using flavoured yohgurt (strawberry yohgurt for strawberry base etc etc) or using different types of cookies, adding toffee crunch etc etc etc

Permanent link to this article: http://interface2011.coin-operated.com/2011/09/77-easy-chocolatelemon-crunch-frozen-yoghurt/

6/7 ribbon brooches

blanket sitch

 

add pin & finish the bottom edging

add pin & finish the bottom edging

 

example worn

 

Made some simple decorative ribbon brooches for winter! I recently bought a bunch of cheap wool cardigans in preparation for cold, but they were all really plain and in boring colours (i.e. dark brown, navy, black…. why do so many people wear black in winter?!?!?!) Anyway the lack of bright (over)saturated colours made me feel a bit depressed, it’s bad enough that it’s cold and windy so why make it worse by wearing the dullest darkest colours in winter??? So I made a bunch of ribbon brooches in bright colours that I could stick on to anything (coats, jackets, skirts, hairbands, bags etc… anything!) Pretty simple and cute I think

Permanent link to this article: http://interface2011.coin-operated.com/2011/09/67-ribbon-brooches/

7 in 7: Day 7: Robot Face Tracker

My constraints for this piece was to use processing and the face tracker. I only gave myself 2 hours to do this piece as well.

 

Permanent link to this article: http://interface2011.coin-operated.com/2011/09/7-in-7-day-7-robot-face-tracker/

DAY 7 7in7

For my last project I wrote a processing sketch that basically oscillates back and forth between pre loaded video footage and live captured footage. This sketch toggles the two video files based on frames per second, which can be modified to fit many different scenarios. this actually serves as the base for a larger project that I want to explore.

The applet had some trouble uploading to openprocessing. So I will demonstrate in class.

Permanent link to this article: http://interface2011.coin-operated.com/2011/09/day-7-7in7/

7 in 7 Project #7: The Hush Box

Goal: The new space on 16th street, 12th floor is quite noisy during lecture hours, due to the fact that the old school ad agency concept for the space back fired… The Hush Box would control the amount of noise so no instructor should have to keep going outside and hushing everyone every 30 minutes.  The cubes will light up measuring the decibels and sound levels, Green being quiet to Red being the loudest.  People outside would then become aware if they’re being too noisy and would then have to quiet down and respect their surroundings.

Inspiration: Makerfaire’s Radioshack pavilion.  The 12th floor lab at the 16th street.  Decibels.  Traffic light.  Homeland security color scheme.

Approach: Would need to assemble together big LED lights, sound sensor, arduino boards, the case would be made of snowed plastic or Chinese lantern paper and also batteries, then hot glue gun parts together.  When all this would be assembled, the sound sensor will light up the LEDs to measure the or gauge the amount of noise it receives.

Anticipated Constraints & Issues: The lights changing colors accordingly.

Permanent link to this article: http://interface2011.coin-operated.com/2011/09/7-in-7-project-7-the-hush-box/

7×7 6: Portable Night Light

Project 6: How To Not Be Afraid of  The  Dark

Another strange, useless artifice, a portable night light. The idea for this object is to be towed behind someone as they are walking down a dark hallway in the middle of the night. In the video you will notice that there is a strange jump, the shade fell due to the uneven concrete floor in my apartment. I resumed filming from an estimated point from which the devise failed. I have a long-term idea for this piece. I would love to put a motor in it and use an Arduino to control its movement. I would possibly create several of these portable night lights in different colors.

Result: YouTube video below + photograph

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEeWY6t0hx4


Materials used and their limitations:

Door hinges, wire, flash light, round cardboard box, about $10 in coins, aluminum foil, wheels. I used a box filled with coins as the base. The reason I used coins is because I wanted to add weight for steadier rolling. I punctured a hole in the lid of the box and placed a small flashlight through it. Next, I placed a glass vase on top of the light. I connected two door hinges together with wires and placed 4 wheels to the bottom of the hinges to which I added the box with light and vase.

 

 

 

Permanent link to this article: http://interface2011.coin-operated.com/2011/09/7x7-6-portable-night-light/

7 in 7 : cookie monster

 I did not make this!!

Source: http://www.doobybrain.com/2009/02/01/cookie-eating-cookie-monster-cupcake/

Yap, I am really hungry. Based on the spirit on the whole project “Do it by hand” I spent some time to finish the robot. It’s not hard since there is a instruction together with the toy. Put a new bag of cookies and push the button on it will start moving. I start to think about transmitting food supply. This was not easy because one has to consider foor conservation and convenient at the same time. So I choose cookie for now.

I do hope that one day the mechanic arm can work so that it will take cookies out. It’s cracky when it moves!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYWuPv4sffs&feature=channel_video_title

          

Don’t know why it look so dumb….

That is for now.

From the 7 in 7 project, what I learned and enjoyed is that do it by hand. It’s not a constraints at first, but I realized it will be an important factor for the project. I do not want to give any thought too far away for me to achieved. I want to know what is my boundary so far. Thus, most of the things stay very simple and even without technique difficulties. To me, it’s fun to enjoy the process of try and error. They are not as simple as I imagine and took much more time than I thought.

For instance, I did not know how to carve a bread into sculture; combining straw is so difficult to think because it require 3D concept; I do not know how to squeeze the tweeter gadget into the egg shell and finally, the food will hinder the moving robot. There are many situation I have met and these experience, I believe, is something unexpected similar to the real interaction. One never know exactly will happened. It looks simple but it never is. I do think about the technique problem because right now, it is difficult to do something complicated. It need a certain time to learn hand-made stuff and these experience will inspire the maker into another thought. The food project is merely a starting point. Once I have these experience now,  I start to know how a simple idea connected to another and then came to a new design. I think I will keep doing the project once a week if possible. It will keep me thinking about prototype and interaction.

 

Permanent link to this article: http://interface2011.coin-operated.com/2011/09/7-in-7-cookie-monster/

7×7 5: Kitchen Mixing Utensil

Project 5: How To Mix Your Ravioli

This project proved to be very difficult, and in my opinion, failed. This needless object was supposed to rotate around the circumference of the pot. The spoon in the middle was meant to mix the pasta in the boiling water. First mistake was attaching the spoon to the very center of the rod. The spoon did not end up mixing the pasta, instead, it just revolved around the center of the pot. The second problem was keeping the wheels on the edge of the pot. I used magnets to add weight to the wheels so they wouldn’t fall off, and it helped, but the wheels were too small to stay on the edge.

Result: YouTube video below + photograph

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsl0pkGgb_w


Materials used and their limitations:

Stove, pot, salt, wooden spoon, 2 magnets, 2 small wheels, metal rod, wires, erector pieces, rubber band. The wheels were too small and kept falling off the edge of the pot.

Permanent link to this article: http://interface2011.coin-operated.com/2011/09/7x7-5-kitchen-mixing-utensil/

Week 3 Readings

Why We Need Things, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

With our own evolution comes an “increasing dependence on objects for survival and comfort” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1993).  In this essay the author presents objects, which we often don’t even think about, as being dangerous.   Although they are man-made, they are not necessarily under our control.  They begin to take on a life of their own as creating an object always suggests the next incarnation of the object.  I never thought of objects in this way, but here the author compares objects to parasites, whose survival is at the expense of the human host.  I sort of disagree here with Csikzentmihalyi, because hosts usually have no control over the parasite that is feeding off of it.  However, I believe we do have control over objects, we just choose not to use it.  We are the enablers that allow these objects to take on a life of their own, however this also gives us the power to stop them. The thing is we do not have the will power to do so, and maybe this is the point the author is trying to make.  I agree with the comparison to the parasite only in that both objects are potentially dangerous to their host.  As he mentioned, objects have become a projection of our selves since the beginning of time.  A spear to a Native American is something that over time became so embedded in their lives, just as the objects that people keep throughout their home are expressions of themselves.  The big difference that Csikzentmihalyi does not mention, is that in the case of the Native Americans, a spear was a basic necessary tool for survival.  Contrarily, many objects that people keep today are excessive and go beyond the basics.  It is ultimately up to us to decide when to disable the power of objects and in turn protect ourselves from them.

The Computer Revolution Hasn’t Happened Yet, Alan Kay

What I found most intriguing about this lecture was the comparison of computer processes to biological processes.  It was really insightful when he mentioned that objects such as a dog house are not scalable.  The scaling of the size of the object is not equivalent to the scaling of its strength, therefore we have to re-think its structure.  However, he discusses how cells scale by factors of a hundred and even a trillion.  In addition, they hold 60 billion information components each, and only 50 cell divisions are necessary to make a child. In comparison to these processes, the computer cannot be regarded as large, fast, or complex.  Kay suggests we need to look at biological processes and figure out how they do it, and how we can adapt this to computers.  This was in 1997, so looking back on this now do we believe computers have adapted in this way?  Has the computer revolution begun?

Everyday Things, Norman

I found this reading especially interesting because it brought up endless issues that we as designers face.  Norman suggests a sort of psychology of materials, and talks about the affordance of materials (the perceived and actual properties).  For instance, glass is to see through and to break, wood is for solidity to write on or carve in. He also says that when simple things need pictures, labels, or instructions, the design has failed.  When I think about how many objects today contain one of these things, it almost seems inevitable.  I think this relates to the point he made about the focus of aesthetics taking away from usability.  Designers often have this notion that things should blend in and be hidden, which blinds them to the real issue at hand – design.  How do we get the heart of the design to be front and center?  He discusses visibility, and how the crucial parts of a design should be visible.  Feedback should also be present to let the user know if they are using the product correctly or not.  How do we grapple with the idea that what may be the best design solution, may not be the most visually pleasing?  Do people want something more aesthetic even if it not necessarily usable? I think some do.  How do we switch the mindsets of people to be focused on design functionality instead?  These are issues that designers have to face, and a great design will ultimately combine functionality with aesthetics – it just takes a little more creativity, thinking, and working to get there.

Permanent link to this article: http://interface2011.coin-operated.com/2011/09/week-3-readings-2/

Day 7: 7-in-7

Day 7 (Yayyyy!): Digi-Wallet

On this last day I was thinking of all the food and coffee that I buy in the city, and a possible way to map my spending.  I came up with a digital wallet prototype that would tell you the amount of money you spent that day, and the amount remaining. It would reset every 24 hours and take into account the amount of money that you start with each day.  It would somehow recognize the cash/change in your wallet, and I was thinking it could eventually be hooked up to your credit card, where you could set the balance you would like to start with each day.  So how would this work? I have no idea. Maybe program the wallet somehow to recognize money. I am sure it is possible somehow I just have not really thought about it enough yet.

Permanent link to this article: http://interface2011.coin-operated.com/2011/09/day-7-7-in-7/