Hasta La Ideas

A wearable 3D-printed eyeglass that monitors breathing and pupil size to measure what people find interesting online has been developed by students at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College (+ movie).

Developed by Sanya Rai, Carine Collé and Florian Peuch, students of the RCA and Imperial College‘s joint Innovation Design Engineering course, the Amoeba is equipped with sensors designed to monitor three instinctive responses that indicate a person’s interest in what they see.

This sensory data is collated to create an intuitive alternative to bookmarking and other systems for keeping track of digital content.

“We believe that with the advent of wearable technologies, where devices will be constantly mapping every moment of our lives, organising our personal data will be a monumental task,” explained the team.

“Amoeba can help ease this process by bringing only the most interesting stuff to the forefront, making sure we never miss out on the important stuff and saving us a lot of time and effort.”

Designed in CAD and manufactured on a 3D printer, the design is, according to Sanya Rai, “a statement piece to let the world know that the wearer is immersed in research.”

The Amoeba records breathing rates using heat sensitive receptors near the wearers mouth. It has a camera embedded into the lens to measure pupil size and sensors on an arm that measure the electrical conductance of the skin, which varies with moisture levels generated by sweat.

These three elements combined create a snapshot of data about the emotional response of the wearer when they look at content.

The data is then converted into a digital signal which creates a visual map that can be viewed with Google’s Chrome browser.

According to the development team, the Amoeba has several applications including measuring the impact advertising has on potential customers.

“Amoeba reveals the true underlying changes in a user’s bio-data in order to get an honest and unbiased feedback to product developers and the industry.”

Another potential area of use is in measuring student engagement in online education. “The drop out rate from online courses is over 90 percent,” the team said. “Amoeba will help to tailor learning platforms according to the subconscious reactions of the user and thus keep him motivated and engaged on the learning platform.”

The students are currently developing the Amoeba to be able to measure interest in all digital content such as music and film, not just websites.

“Our final vision would be to have Amoeba as an embedded feature in all wearable devices so that it can help streamline all content for the user, bringing to the forefront only the most interesting stuff rather than the entire daily log of data,” said Rai.

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content for intuitive bookmarking appeared first on Dezeen.

News: London’s Royal College of Art has appointed Dr Sharon Baurley to replace designer Tord Boontje as head of its Design Products programme.

Set to begin teaching in January, Baurley previously conducted her PhD at the Royal College of Art and has also undertaken post-doctoral research at Musashino Art University in Tokyo and John Moores University in Liverpool. Her most recent position was as a reader at Central Saint Martins college and she is also currently working on the Horizon research hub at The University of Nottingham.

“Design Products has a long history of innovation and a peerless reputation and I’m thrilled to be rejoining the college,” said Baurley. “At the dynamic juncture between craft, design thinking, and new technological capabilities and structures there is an exciting opportunity to create new design methods and routes both within Design Products and beyond.”

She continued: “I particularly look forward to working with my colleagues from across the school exploring and developing synergies between the programmes and especially to maximise the research and knowledge exchange opportunities for which Design Products is so well placed.”

Baurley will succeed Tord Boontje, who held the role for four years but left in September to focus on his own design studio. See projects from the course’s most recent graduates in our earlier coverage.

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new head of Design Products appeared first on Dezeen.

Royal College of Art graduate Lauren Davies has designed a range of copper, maple and glass tools to make scented oils, creams and cosmetics at home (+ slideshow).

The Alchemist’s Dressing Table project by Lauren Davies features a three-tier distiller for making scented oils, a scent infuser for creating creams and balms, and a double-sided copper bat for mixing eyeliner.

“The tools I’ve designed will enable women to forge a stronger connection to their personal beauty rituals and a more magical relationship with nature’s intricate mysteries,” said Davies.

The three-tier distiller features a glass globe and a stainless steel stand with a cork rim. Water can be boiled in the spun-copper bowl on the base, which is heated by an oil burner positioned underneath.

Steam passes up through scented plants that are placed on the first copper sieve and again through a second sieve. The top compartment is filled with ice and the spun copper funnel acts as a condenser, turning the rising steam underneath into a scented liquid that trickles into a glass, positioned in the centre.

Davies has also created a pan for melting oils and waxes, and for mixing scents and pigments. The pan is made from borosilicate glass and has a maple wood handle. It sits on copper hot plate that is positioned on a stainless steel stand.

For creating creams and balms from scented plants, Davies has designed a scent infuser. “The scent is built up over time as unscented fat traps the airborne scent molecules from the plant material above,” she explained.

The final tool is a copper plate with a wooden handle for making kohl eyeliner. A single disc of copper is place over an oil burner. Carbon collects on the underside and then the disk is flipped over for making the eye makeup.

“The black carbon deposit can then be mixed with almond oil for a smudged finish or aloe vera and witch hazel to allow a brush drawn line and used as eyeliner,” Davies explained.

Davies’ collection also includes a pair of copper tongs for picking up plant material, a maple wood stirrer, a mixing tool and four copper measuring spoons.

All the products are made from five materials. “The palette of copper and maple wood are chosen for their traditional and folkloric symbolism respectively,” said Davies. “Cork is used for its insulating properties, borosilicate glass for its heat resistance and stainless steel for strength,” she added.

Here’s a short movie featuring the alchemist’s table:

Other Royal College of Art projects we’ve featured recently include a field that was digitally printed with patterns and a collapsible paper dress that expands and changes shape with body movements. See all our stories from Show RCA 2013 »

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Here’s further information from Lauren Davies:

The Alchemist’s Dressing Table

The Alchemist’s Dressing Table is a collection of analog tools for the production of natural cosmetics at home, inspired by beautiful ancient rituals and the transformative powers of alchemy.

The palette of copper and maple wood are chosen for their traditional and folkloric symbolism respectively. Cork is used for its insulating properties, borosilicate glass for its heat resistance and stainless steel for strength. All components are fabricated in collaboration with London-based craftsmen.

Together, the tools form a statement piece; reigniting a dialogue about our relationship with nature and the materials we use. I believe this could be the future of cosmetics for the modern woman who has a desire to be more in control of what she uses on her skin and the impact they have on the environment.

The tools I’ve designed will enable women to forge a stronger connection to their personal beauty rituals and a more magical relationship with nature’s intricate mysteries.

The distiller can be used to make hydrosols and essential oils. Water is boiled in the spun copper bowl using an oil burner. Steam then passes up through the scented plant material sitting on the handcrafted sieve above. The top compartment is filled with ice allowing its spun copper base to act as a condenser. The steam carries the scent particles up through the second sieve and hits the condenser where it cools, turns into liquid and drips down into the collection glass below.

Oils and waxes can be melted in the pan over the hot plate and mixed with scents and pigments. The scent infuser is for the cold maceration of volatile scented plants to make creams and balms. The scent is built us over time as unscented fat traps the airborne scent molecules from the plant material above.

The kohl plate is for the preparation of black kohl eyeliner. Carbon collects on the underside of the copper plate from the almond oil burning in the oil burner below for a period of time. This black carbon deposit can then be mixed with almond oil for a smudged finish or aloe vera and witch hazel to allow a brush drawn line and used as eyeliner.

The hand held tools comprise of a pair of copper tongs to be used with plant material in the distiller or scent infuser, a stirrer for the pan, a mixing tool for use with the kohl plate and a set of measuring spoons (TBSP, TSP, 1⁄2 TSP, 1⁄4 TSP) to be used where accuracy is needed.

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Table by Lauren Davies appeared first on Dezeen.

Royal College of Art graduate Benedikt Groß has digitally “printed” a field with a pattern of oats and wild flowers (+ movie).

He began by investigating how digital technology is transforming farming. “You could say in the last 50 years everything was about mechanisation to increase scale and efficiency, but the next thing in farming is digitalisation and precision farming, where everything is going to be mapped right down to the single plant,” Benedikt Groß told Dezeen.

He explained that precision farming is already being used to apply exactly the right amounts of fertiliser or pesticides to specific parts of a field rather than simply coating large areas.

“Farming becomes more like a digital process or a printing process with these kinds of technologies on board,” he added. “Maybe a farmer in a few years is a person in front of a dashboard and is literally programming the landscape.”

To investigate how precision farming technologies might affect the look of that landscape, the designer decided to tackle problems associated with modern monoculture farming by controlling the mix of plants in a field and sowing them in the most efficient pattern. “If you have more diversity then you have to use less pesticides and have less problems with vermin,” he explained.

To test the process on a field in Germany, the outline of the area was first mapped using a tractor and GPS tracking. Groß then used custom software to determine the most effective layout, dividing the field into patches so 85% of the area would be covered by crops for biomass and 15% of the field would be reserved for a mix of five different flowers.

“The algorithm divides the field into the right ratio of plants and then tries to create small partitions,” he said. “The size and shape of that smaller partition tries to mimic traditional fields, when you had less of the problems associated with monoculture.”

The seeds were then sown according to this pattern using specially-adapted farming equipment, mounted to a tractor and pulled back and forth across the field like the head of a printer. Groß assembled the machinery by repurposing equipment from farming research and development companies, adding his own software to control where the seed was dropped.

“About 95 per cent of the equipment is R&D or right from the shelf of two agricultural companies, so the equipment is not that far in the future,” the designer said. “More or less everything was there and I just had to experiment in terms of joining the technologies together by writing some software.”

For the test run shown in the movie, the tractor had to pass over the field twice – once for the oats and once for the flowers – but Groß says the process could easily be completed with one pass if a hopper were mounted at either end of the tractor.

“It’s definitely possible [to do it in one pass] because with modern tractors, normally you have one machine in front and one at the rear so you are able to do two things in one step,” he said. “But the machine was 50,000 euros so it was not too easy to persuade them to get a second one for the trial.”

Although the technology is expensive at present – meaning only farmers with a lot of land can implement it – Groß is confident that the cost of equipment will come down as precision farming become more widespread. “In five or ten years the equipment I was adapting will be used every day.”

His system also ties into a shift in arable farming from food production to energy production. “With plants grown for biomass you can have more diversity more easily,” he said. “If you have a field for wheat it’s really important that the wheat is really pure because in the end it’s going to be bread, but with energy production it doesn’t matter because everything goes in the same bin in a biomass factory.”

In addition, European Union subsidies promoting diversity in planting to combat monoculture issues could enable farmers to earn extra money by implementing his design. “With the flower mix I’m using, you can get subsidies – a few hundred euros per hectare I think,” he said. “It’s really plausible that a farmer could get subsidies on top of an energy production deal.”

The first crop was made into biomass last month, and he’s now looking to work with scientists to quantify the impact that his planting system has on the environment and farming practice.

He started the project while studying on the Design Interactions course at London’s Royal College of Art. Other projects displayed the Show RCA graduation show this summer included electrical products made from crab shells and food that wriggles around on the plate.

Other farming ideas on Dezeen include communities powered by faeces, electric eels and fruit and an urban farming project on a New York rooftop.

See more stories about farming and design »
See all our stories about Show RCA 2013 »

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and Altered Landscapes by Benedikt Groß appeared first on Dezeen.

Royal College of Art graduate Jeongwon Ji has made her own bioplastic from crab shells.

Aiming to make a more tactile casing for electronic products, Jeongwon Ji extracted a derivatine of glucose called chitin from crustaceans and developed her own plastic from it by trial and error in the workshop.

The resulting material, which she calls Crustic, combines the chitin with water and small amount of glycerin.

“The Chinese mitten crab from Asia is one of the most invasive species and they are taking over the rivers in the UK,” Jeongwon Ji told Dezeen. “The crabs are unwanted here so I wanted to work out what we can do with them as a resource instead.”

The water-based mixture takes much longer to cure than conventional plastics but the ingredients are completely non-toxic, she explained. “Although production time is longer, this nontoxic process can improve the work life of those who manufacture our electronics.”

In the Design Products department of the Royal College of Art graduate show last week, the designer presented her material samples and experiments alongside conceptual electronic projects with casings made of Crustic, including an alarm clock, humidifier, computer trackpad, torch and WiFi router.

Although they were all made in accurate geometric wooden moulds, the material becomes rough and distorts as it cures, resulting in tactile and organic forms.

“I wanted to challenge the archetypes of electronic products by using tactile surfaces and making forms that look like they are made of something different, something natural,” she said.

A couple of months ago we featured a pavilion based on the structure of chitin in a lobster’s shell and in 2011 Italian designers Formafantasma presented a range of vessels made from natural polymers they’d cooked up themselves.

Other projects presented at Show RCA included paper-pulp helmets for cycle-hire schemes and living food that wriggles around on the plate.

See more stories about plastics »
See more projects at Show RCA 2013 »

Here’s some more information from Jeongwon Ji:

BioElectric

BioElectric challenges the archetypes of electronics through material exploration. Industrial processes have streamlined manufactured products, but what if we allow new materials to be expressive and tactile? Like many of today’s electronic components, the Chinese Mitten Crab comes from Asia. This species invades our rivers, and is an unwanted, local resource.

I extracted Chitin polymers from crushed crab shells, and perfecting chemical-free “slow production” methods to make bio-plastics for the casings of electronic products. Although production time is longer, this nontoxic process can improve the work life of those who manufacture our electronics.

Crustic

Crustic is a crustacean-based biocompatible plastic that Jeongwon Ji developed for her BioElectric project to enhance tactile pleasure.

The production time of Crustic is longer because the use of water instead of artificial chemicals. Crustic is made out of chitin derived from crab shells and water, combining with a small amount of red agile and glycerin.

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Jeongwon Ji appeared first on Dezeen.