Social Object: Berlin Things Con

This is like the most important time for the project, by exposing our idea and our work we get the feedbacks from the public opinion, and in this type of conference, mostly opinions from the experts, too. And this is why I worked so hard to have my things finished to a level that is presentable. 

The second model is a smaller design but with exactly the same function, I made it a week before the conference, was a rush so didn't record the making process, which is a shame.

The conference was very interesting, sadly I didn't make that many contacts. As I feel most of them were going for the talks and workshops, not so much for the show. But I still got some fairly interesting contact nonetheless.

I was invited to another conference in Berlin as well end of September this year, its all about wearable tech for that conference. The guy told me to contact him if I am interested in that conference, and I really am, is just the time is 23-26 September which is like the end of FMP probably cant attend that conference.

The conferences was kind of interesting for me as it was about technologies and lots. Sadly the workshops I attended was not that attractive to me for some reason. Talks were generally good to see some of the things happening in this world now, but at the same time it looked like there were some speakers were there to advertise their business, which I am not that convinced to see.

The overall experience with Things Con is quite new to me, I have attended several exhibitions as exhibitor to show cast my work, but mostly within the field of art and craft or product/furniture design. This was the first for a technology based conference. I have mixed feeling for the Things Con, I really like to see talks and workshops and networking with people through my work, but i don't feel comfortable with both happening in the same time, because you can't focus on one very well, and the public attention to your work falls dramatically, and this did happen. So I had mix feeling about it, still pretty beneficial and worth going nonetheless. 

                                            Time lapse for Berlin Things Con

Social Object: The Making

So its time to build my project into a usable product, since I have done the similar project in my BA, I have general understanding of how the things would go. And to be honest I have no design on how the product is going to look like, I mean, unless I can etch my own circuit board and have control with everything, I wont be able to design a very slim product with high precision.

So I kind of making it up as i go. And it is quite a challenge since I like my product to look like futuristic and  clean. therefore I start up just building a container to hold my arduino board, and I started from that point slowly adding more components to it.

At this point, I have everything mocked up and soldered to a prototyping shield for Arduino, that way I can have a nice even platform to work on and can still use my arduino board for future project.

I attached my radio wave detector to arduino board and that whole piece will be the main body of the product.

The white square is my peltier unit, and a temperature sensor attached on the "heat" side to monitor the temperature.

Attached a switch to the rear of the body, the switch turns on the arduino and the detector but it also acts as a safety should the user cannot stand the heat, they can shut it down immediately.

Test the thing every now and then during the making process is extremely important, as I had some awful experience when I finished everything then to find out some wired has come off the solder, a real pain. That is why carefully put everything together and making sure nothing is wrong can save you a lot of time when building projects like this.(for some reason on the the LED doesn't lid, couldn't do much with it as it's built inside the detector circuit board).

This two photos are sort of fail example. This is when I attempted to attach the body to an arm strap sort of thing and failed. I did not use this material in my final product but it's worth recording it as I spent so much time on how make it.

This is when I started to paint the final product, I did this several times, paint on and using sand paper to sand it of, to create a much nicer and even finish.

And this is the final product photo, I tried to make it as professional as I could. I am glad that I didn't fail that much, still lots of room for improvement, but at least didn't fail that much.

Social Object: The Code

Here is the code I used for arduino, it is a very simple code as the radio wave detector is shop bought, and the only thing im extracting from is an analog value.

As I said, this is a very simple code, but it works fine for my project. And simpler the code can be, the less thing that can go wrong, even if they do, it will be much easier to find and fix the bug, so I am generally happy with this code. 

Social Object: Nomophobia

Let's take a closer look at something that just starting to emerge since the last two decades, Nomophobia. Nomophobia stands for No-Mobile-Phone-Phobia.Its the fear of being out of contact from mobile phones. To some others the term "phobia" may be a misuse as it to majority, it's caused by normal anxiety. 

With the changes of technologies, new challenges are coming up on a daily basis. New kinds of phobias have emerged, the so called techno-phobias. Since the first mobile phone in the market in 1983, it has become one of the mainstreams in the majority of societies. Shambare, Rugimbana & Zhowa (2012) claimed that cell phones are "possibly the biggest non-drug addiction of the 21st century, and that colleges students may spend up to nine hours every day on their phones that can lead to dependence on such technologies as a driver of modern life and an example of "a paradox of technology". that is both freeing and enslaving.

Society today has become over dependent on technology. which may not be a bad thing but we need to watch out for the potential problem it could cause us if not careful. Personally I have this type of "anxiety" too, I believe most people have it as well, and it is a challenge to fight against the desire of having mobile phones by out hands. This is probably the reason why it pains me so much to develop this project as I do not want to be the subject under my own design. But on the other hand, I understand the consequences of this if without proper attention. 

The researches and the awareness many people trying to put up are convincing, the fear of loneliness with the presents of technology have driven mankind into a endless cycle. You don't want to be left out, so you share, post, networking over the social networks, the more you networking over internet, the more you are isolated in the real world, then you feel left out and then back to the beginning. The truth is, we can do batter than this, we have the capability to learn, to adapt from different situation, and we are able to indicate the problems we have. So why not take the chance to make a difference before it's all too late? 

My project seems to toggle the area of Nomophobia, but really what I am trying to express through this project, is no difference from all the videos and researches wanted to say. Internet is harmful to our social life when not being used correctly, the symptoms are  already clear, the only thing that matters is what do we choose to do? 


External Read:
Mobile phone overuses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_overuse

Internet addiction disorder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_addiction_disorder

Break Free from Nomophobia: http://web.archive.org/web/20080404075714/http://www.mid-day.com/web/guest/lifeatwork/lifeatwork/article?_EXT_5_articleId=1071008&_EXT_5_groupId=14



  

Social Object: Peltier Unit

Peltier effect, also known as Thermoelectric Cooling, is commonly used in mini fridge, it acts as the cooling agent. The Peltier effect is the presence of heating or cooling at an electrified junction of two different conductors and is named after French physicist Jean Charles Athanase Peltier, who discovered it in 1834. When a current is made to flow through a junction between two conductors A and B, heat may be generated (or removed) at the junction.

Peltier Module uses this effect, with two pieces of ceramic plates cover the each side of the junction, when a current flows through, one side becomes freezing cold (down to -30 degree Celsius) the other becomes burning hot (up to 70 degree Celsius). This effect can be used to generate electricity, measure temperature or change the temperature of objects. Because the direction of heating and cooling is determined by the polarity of the applied voltage, thermoelectric devices can be used as temperature controllers. 

The most peltier unit runs 12v DC, but with my experience, anything lower than 12v will still work, just the matter of how effective it will be. For this project I'm using 9v battery, a brief test confirmed that the effect will still take place with 9v input. And so the Peltier Module is my feedback mechanism.