Final Object : Balancing Platform Slippers

This is my finished pair of platform slippers that I have used for the project Interactive Objects.

 

Hamilton Jayden

Balancing Platform Slippers

My design works firstly with the brain’s preconception of what the slippers are. I have created them so that they appear like ordinary slippers on top of two plush boxes.

Next it deals with balance, which is to do partially with the sense of touch and feel, and partially to do with the brains ability of coordination.

Whilst wearing the slippers to walk the user will be able to acknowledge the difference between heavy and light in their feet, as well as balance, and a lack of balance while they walk.

The idea behind the slippers is to create an experience that the user can compare with their usual everyday walking experience. I wanted to have a really heavy slipper and a really light slipper; this will confuse a person’s sense of coordination.

People who have used the slippers will hopefully acknowledge that feet are often taken for granted, and it isn’t until we confuse them that we really appreciate the job they do.

Instruction

The challenge of these slippers is to first put them on whilst seated, secondly to stand up and walk whilst holding onto something (a table, chair or friend) and lastly to walk in the slippers without holding anything for balance.

Do not try on slippers if you are not confident that you can balance yourself. Incorrect use may result in injured ankles, feet, and other body parts.

Test Subject

I have tested my completed slippers...

 I put them in front of the user where they appear to be ientical slippers...

 The user stands up and notices the weight difference...

 The user takes a step, holding up the heavy slipper and wobbling on the light slipper...

 Another step, lifting the light slipper.

 Standing on the light slipper and lifting the heavy one compresses the light slipper as it is made of foam.

 Standing on the heavy slipper is simpler because the heavy slipper is solid and does not compress.

 

Beer Cans

Tonight I was filling beer cans up with cement. Tomorrow in our Studio I will take these in (dependent on whether the cement sets in time.) and experiment with strapping them to my shoes and to see how other people feel about the off balancing of my shoes. 
Problem solving now comes into it as I start to prototype. I am yet to discover if cement is the ideal material to use, If it turns out to not be the best material I will investigate metals and others.
Tonight I had to overcome the problem of getting cement into the cans but did this using a mixture of pushing wet cement into the cans and pouring powdered cement and water into the can and mixing it up inside.

There was also the problem of emptying the beer cans...

Storyboard And Words.

Storyboard

My interaction is to do with how we treat our feet. Most of us do take our feet for granted, we think of them as smelly and gross, but we do not take time to thank them for their job of co-ordinating our everyday movements.

We learn to walk once and from then on never think about it again, it becomes second nature to us. What happens when our feet (or shoes) are altered? We lose our co-ordination with the way we walk.

I want to experiment with how we humans learn to adapt to changes in the weight of our feet and therefore how we learn to walk in a new way.

My interactive object is a pair of shoes that have attached to them different weighted objects. On one shoe is a heavy brick, on the other shoe some lightweight aluminium cans. In order to walk in these shoes you must make sure that you place even weight on the cans to ensure that they do not crumble under your weight.

The idea is to acknowledge the unfamiliarity of wearing differently weighted shoes, the crushing of the can when the user fails is a way of measuring this.

Weighted Shoes

One idea I have is a pair of shoes that appear to be regular shoes but once they are on the user realizes that they are both different weights, one light, one heavy. This will play with the users preconceptions of footwear.

I have inestigated some materials that I could attach to the bottom of the gumboots.

My first thoughts are bricks on the heavy shoe and aluminium cans on the light shoe.
Bricks are obviosly heavy and aluminium cans are lightweight and strong enough to support your weight if you distribute your weight on them evenly. The cans will crumble if they are stood on with an uneven weight; this will show if a person has failed.

Other objects I am yet to investigate are toilet paper and cardboard; these could potentially be on the light shoe as materials that will support a person and are lightweight.

Gumboots

 I will most likely be using a large sized pair of gumboots for my final object. This is so people of most sizes will be able to use them, and also so they can slip onto a foot without being moved.

Images found at

http://moon-boots.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/gumboots.html

Tug-Of-War

A concept I had for an interactive experience is a reenactment of a tug-of-war. An unpleasant experience that I myself has had as a child is when competing in a tug-of-war the other team lets go of the rope resulting in you and all of your team falling over in surprise on top of one another.

There is the feeling of pulling a rope and feeling it resist your pull; and the feeling of pulling a rope too hard and feeling the rope release at the other end resulting in your fall.

I wanted to create an object that allowed you to feel these two sensations of when the rope is tight and slack.

Firstly I thought this could be done using a large wall with a hole in it. Through this hole the rope is threaded. A peg is threaded through the rope on the hidden side, this prevents the rope from being pulled furthur. Randomly the peg would be removed, the next pull on the rope would result in the user falling over.

A model could be made of this using smaller materials to test it out.

Another idea is that there are three ropes, each with a different length of slack rope, if you pulled each rope as hard as you can, the shortest one would pull back against you, the longest one would be too long and so you would fall over, and one would be in between.

Again, these would need to be tested.

Spike Idea

An idea for an interactive sensory experience, that at firt seems to relate to touch and texture (and even pain), that I had involves a button. When this button is pressed a number of spikes launch out of the surface surrounding the button encircling the finger which pressed the button. Although it appears dangerous and frightening the button pressor should not be harmed as the spikes do not come out of the button itself.
The spikes disappear when the button is pressed once more.

 

Zoom

I recall a book from when I was at primary school that had pictures of objects zoomed in and out. the idea was to try to guess what the close up image was. One image appeared to be some sort of tree trunk covered in green goo. When zoomed out it was really a strand of hair with shampoo on it.

This is an interesting take on the sense of vision that could be worth some time to look into.

Senses

The first project of DSDN112 requires us to explore at least one of the five human senses of sight, taste, touch, hearing and smell.

It is important to know a bit about each sense, for example, where in the human body are there sensory areas.

.Touch or feeling can happen anywhere in the body where there are nerves, most obviously the hands but even the feet, scalp, knees, etc. Touch is also responsible for pain.
.Sight happens primarily in the eyes, it is assumed that all humans can see only the light spectrum which includes colours from violet to dark red.
.Hearing happens in the ears and may change over time as people lose their ability to hear certain frequencies of sound.
.Smell occurs in the nose. The nose can smell the difference between hundreds of different substances
.Taste occurs on the tongue. There are only five tastes, bitterness, saltiness, sourness, sweetness and umami.


During our studio time we were asked to come up with some interesting sensory experiences that we had experienced. These could be positive or negative. I came up with several:

The worst thing that I have experienced smelling was a dead, rotting pig that was washed up on the beach.

Sherbert can be so strong that when eating it it is so sour that ones face may cringe or shrivel and tears can be brought to ones eyes, how is it that some people love this sensational experience but others dislike it?

I think it is interesting that things such as music can appeal to some people but not to others. In this project I would like to explore things that some people like but others do not. One example of this is music from the band Korn; at first I disliked it, it was just noise to me, but now when I am in the mood to listen to heavy music I like it. My parents still don't like it.

Other areas that I could explore could be to do with textures of food when it is eaten.



When searching smell into google I found a device known as the Nasal Ranger which is used for measuring smells. Who Knew?

Nasal Ranger