This two-week Physical Computing class had many of the students exploring the fascinating world of Arduino - sensors and microprocessors - for the first time.
Their unique challenge? To design a device that enables two-way communication between any pair of cognitive entities: human-to-human, human-to-object, human-to-animal, or object-to-object. And the message had to be translated, not just passed along. Translation, in this context, meant transformation: taking a sound, gesture, visual cue, or movement and converting it into a new form, understandable by a recipient who would otherwise be lost.
To respond to this challenge, students could explore concepts like: Changing sensory forms, such as sound into vibration or light into motion; encoding and decoding messages by simplifying them into universal patterns like colours or signals; - and translating emotions and expressing abstract ideas, such as urgency, calmness, and excitement, through sensory experiences.
Massimo Banzi is the co-founder of the Arduino. He is an Interaction Designer, Educator and Technologist.
He has worked as a consultant on innovation projects for clients such as: Prada, Artemide, Persol, Whirlpool, and Adidas.
He spent 4 years at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea as Associate Professor. Massimo has taught workshops and has been a guest speaker at institutions allover the world.
Before joining IDII he was CTO for the Seat Ventures incubator. He spent many years working as a software architect, both in Milan and London, working on large web projects.
At just 26 years old, he became a pioneer in the commercial internet by serving as the webmaster for Italia Online, Italy’s first major internet provider and web portal.
Massimo is also the author of “Getting Started with Arduino” published by O’Reilly. He has contributed to the Italian edition of Wired Magazine and other publications.
Massimo started the first FabLab in Italy which led to the creation of FabLab Torino and was the first curator of Maker Faire Rome, a large innovation event in Rome.
He currently teaches Interaction Design at SUPSI Lugano in the south of Switzerland and is a visiting professor at CIID.
Jose Chavarria is an Interaction Designer and Creative Technologist with a background in Industrial Design Engineering. He's a CIID alumni and has been working in the Interaction Design field since 2015.
Jose started as an Interaction Engineer and later became an R&D Lead at a design studio in San Jose, Costa Rica where he created interactive art installations. He then joined CIID as resident faculty, managing the digital fabrication lab and mentoring students.
After that, he worked as a Creative Technologist and Strategist for an architecture firm, designing AR and VR solutions, digital products, and interactive installations.
Jose's work has been recognised by the Core77 Design Awards in 2021 for Speculative Design and Costa Rica Design Week in 2022 for Interactive Design.
Passionate about human perception and Life-Centred Design, Jose aims to create technology solutions that benefit all forms of life, not just humans.
But in short, he builds stuff and wears hats.
