Planning

Working out what patterns will best portray the weather data. This is still a work in progress as we start to cut out the sides for the weather automata below.

Experimenting with low relief to give the illusion of energy and water being used in the farmhouse. The idea is that the cut out areas will light up with yellow and blue lights to represent lights and water being used in the house.

We have been back and forth on this exhibit for months and have not being able to decide what way it will work. This week we made a decision on how it will function. Relief. As you will see the weather (sun, rain and wind levels—almost real time from the Read more…

We have started to think about how the data physicalisation will look and work. The following is the first draft of the 3D designs for the actual exhibit at Techniquest.

Discussions this week centred around the ‘Flatholm Island’ sustainability picture… and how we integrate the audience interactivity with the weather data to portray the sustainable living and island. A dolls house was suggested. The playful aspect of the exhibit would involve the audience jumping on the ‘rain’ pressure sensor map Read more…

Along with presenting the Flora and Fauna on the map… we are aiming to show some sentiment and words from the logbooks. See below for some early designs around this.

Lets have a go at making the printed circuit board (PCB) shell duck. The back side of the PCB (see below) would make an antenna so it can work as a capacitive field. It has some small tabs that we can solder on some wires to create the antenna. The Read more…

The first step for us has been to determine the survey points on Flatholm island for the chosen Flora & Fauna (seagull, shellduck, spider, slowworm, wild leek, bluebell, butterfly and moth). Once we have a good idea that these are accurate, we can start to really refine the aesthetic and Read more…

Light bulb moment. We have been trying to think of ways of making the uninteresting weather data more engaging. We have now started to think about interaction as a way of answering this question. For example… the data updates trigger the weather toblerones as well as the solar panel, water Read more…

The bigger environmental story is important to us on this project too. We are hoping to pitch an aspect of the physicalisation against the global environmental data picture as a way of highlighting the vulnerabilities of our local environmental picture. Especially the impact that things like transport, agriculture, waste and Read more…