As described in earlier post we had a number of inflatable elements each of which we needed to be able to measure the height electronically. This one provided to be much trickier than expected…

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As you can read in previous posts, we had stacked two inflatable bags in a yellow bag used to transport sand (big-bag). Now the question remained: How are we going to make the stay upright and stable?

Early Configuration

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To create a changing floor we early on decided that it was best to use inflatable elements. This is the story about finding the tools to electronically inflate and deflate the elements.

Pandora’s Box
After having found the container bags described in an earlier post, we also started on trying to inflate them. So we needed valves. Now it so happened that Joris dad’s used to thinker around with washing machines and he had valves lying around. Also the same Joris had already managed to get his hands on a small compressor.

Problem with these valves however, was that they work on 220V. Which is dangerous stuff. Thus, we needed to take caution to seal off all dangerous parts of the valves. We created a box which contained all the better-not-to-touch-ware.

The Doomday Device in question

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To create a changing floor we early on decided that it was best to use inflatable elements. This is the story about finding the inflatables with the right properties and using them.

Skippyballs
Coming from the design proposal we presented we imagined the inflatable elements to be skippyballs or alike. These however are usually rather small. We came upon fitness balls that did have the proper diameter and where reasonably within budget (15€ a piece, we needed 15) though not cheap. There were bigger problems with these balls than money though. They were very bouncy, had a tendency to roll when you don’t sit exactly on top and were hard to attach things to.

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Since we haven’t been posting (we’re sorry for that), here’s a quick description of the final design as we decided upon it at the design presentation.

Concept

A space that is continuously learning from the situation and adapting itself to create the best user experience it can. It is a sort of organism consisting of different elements with their own specialties working together.

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As the final presentation is coming closer and closer, decisions had to be made today. We were still not sure about some concepts and discussed these today. One of these points was the communication. We want to make the communication between the elements of the lounge visible for the users. The choice fell on the concept that we make the communication visible with light traveling trough tubes. All the input-lights will travel to one central point (at the moment named the unit) and from there the lights will travel to parts of the lounge that react on the users input.

After deciding about these options we divided tasks and worked in smaller groups. The whole concept story is written down. The inspiration and motivation behind our concept was documentated. For the whole idea and for each element apart.

Also we worked out some more specific technical details of the wall to make sure it came move the way we want it to. When this was decided, we made a model that shows the technique in the walls. We are going to use this model during our presentation to give a clear view on the working of the walls.

In the meeting with Thomas was noted that the form of our lounge is quite random and not really substantiated. Today we made a start in Rhino to merge some forms and the results for today are shown in the picture below. The forms will not touch the ground in the center, but some will be grown on top to form a ceiling, but that will be a job for tomorrow.

So stay tuned for our final design!

G.E.N.

After morning meeting it was quite clear what was still missing. We started working with creating a story of our Lounge for Friday presentation in PowerPoint.
It is a long story but we didn’t miss anything: starting from overview of last presentation, explanation of name, the concept, from story to interaction, communication, design and materialization, and finally going to elements + technologies.

KUDOs economy is getting more detailed and more interesting/interactive. The goal is to work together to form more complex and comfortable seat. And a bargain: a solution for a chicken-and-egg problem, who helps who?

We worked further on the technical aspects of the wall elements. Is it possible to be built? Is it the easiest and best solution for our concept?