It is the start of a new semester, and a new project. We are team EnterNet. Our goal? To explore new possibilities and potential within the “Internet of Things” (IoT).
At its core, the IoT is “the network of physical objects […] which are embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity, which enables these objects to collect and exchange data”. [Wikipedia]
Over the course of this semester, our team would like to prototype a number of different concepts. Ultimately, we will select our most successful idea to see through to a relatively polished state by the semester’s end.
Of course, the first step in our process is finding these ideas. During our initial brainstorming as a group, we found 6 different categories or “buckets” that encompass the concepts we are most interested in pursuing:
- Creatures
- Whatever function a piece of technology may serve, it is always more appealing if it feels like an entity rather than an “it.”
- Wearables
- Wearing connected technologies makes data readily accessible and can even provide people with new, artificial senses.
- Artistic Visualizations
- The Internet contains a whole world of digital data; our goal would be to visualize this data in a beautiful, tangible way.
- Online Communication
- We can use physical elements to interact across long distances in more meaningful and emotionally engaging ways than our standard digital communication channels allow.
- Online Collaboration
- Ideas in this bucket involve multiple people around the world influencing the control of a single physical setup.
- Smart Objects
- This includes a number of items like smart blocks, interactive tables, and drones.
We have been fleshing out more specific ideas within each of these “buckets”: refining them, building upon them, and even combining ideas together.
In the following week, we hope to select a few of our most promising ideas to start exploring in depth.