how it works There are two chairs. One triggers the lightning strike with the push of a button. A random pause occurs and then the thunder hits the other chair. The thunder lasts for about 9 seconds and then the interaction restarts.
theme The overarching theme for our class’s exhibit at Canal convergence was a storm. This is because storms bring people together for better or for worse because they build communities. Within this theme, we decided to convey the story of watching storms in the distance and counting the seconds between lightning strike and thunder. This is an educational and fun experience that brings back memories of childhood.
research We were able to visit the Tonalea Middle School twice to engage with 150 middle school students about community, water and storms! We did many exercises with them to understand how they feel about storms. One of the exercises was to recreate a storm using classroom products. This showed us how the students think creatively and what they used to recreate sounds. We also sat down and talked with them in groups to learn about activities they do before, during and after storms. These stories gave us inspiration for interactions we could create.
design & prototyping Before even begining the form development we devloped our idea from a simple inspiration from counting the time between lightning and thunder, into chairs where people could sit and share the enjoyment of this experience. We inintially prototyped this idea with a camera flash and a blue tooth speaker taped to the bottom of a chair. With out idea locked down we began to devlop our form but quickly realized that, with a budget of only $300 and two weeks to make and install our chairs, we had to keep the design as simple as possible.
We used IKEA chairs because we needed a cost-effective and time efficient way to make two translucent plastic chairs that would hold up against thousands of users. When designing the chairs we tried to keep the building to a minimum, as time was of the essence. The building was therefore fairly simple. We laser cut and CNC milled the polypropylene sheet and bolted the cutouts into the chairs. We made the base out of plywood and added a coating of waterproof paint to protect it. The final, and most complicated part of this build, was the electronics and coding. We started with little to no experience in either discipline but learnt a lot with some help from our engineering friends. We created an electrical circuit that connected our lights and speaker system to power, from a car battery, and to our control board, a raspberry pi. We then coded the interaction on the raspberry pi using python.
IND 360: Fall 2018 Industrial Design III
Students: E. Meling, H. Ripley Instructor: Magnus Feil