The Northern Neurological Alliance have featured my work. This very important service is doing wonderful work for those living with dementia and other neurological conditions.
http://www.northernna.org.uk/campaigning/news/phd-north-east-designed-help-people-dementia/
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This is the most recent version of Paper Street View, I’m working on a video demo just now.
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This is the compass with an engraved face, it now also used a gyro which is not affected by magnets and has a button sunk into the leather. Everything has been aged and feels heavy and sturdy so that people don’t feel it’s too precious.
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The new compass and marker for Paper Street View (see below for more info), more to come shortly including new strings pots in fancy boxes and a much better interaction with the images. Still to sort out a face for the compass as you can see. There is also a tiny little extrusion on the bottom which makes it turn more easily on a table. Thanks to Danny Duquemin-Sheil for machining my parts.
Read MorePaper Street View – Version 2 Demo from Tommy Dykes on Vimeo.
Getting close to a testable version of Paper Street View. I have made some changes to the marker which is small, but with parts that can be added to make it easier to use. I’m also using magnets, after experimenting with weights I decided they had to be too big and cumbersome for the marker to be nice to use – it became more like a mouse than a marker or board game piece. The magnet marker can be picked up and slid around. Should it be dropped then it is stopped by the magnet and when knocked over it bounces back up. The retracting bobbins can also be attached to the board with magnets and rolled up maps can be held flat. The only issue with the magnets is the use of a compass for looking around, this has to be on a long mast so that it is not too close to the board. After much debate and trial and error I am going to have a marker for location and a device which i’m working on for looking around. There are also lot’s of ideas for it’s future use in the project which is great.
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Interactive Teaware was exhibited and presented at the Research Through Design 2013 conference (Praxis and Poetics). Here is the abstract and paper for anyone that’s interested.
Interactive Teaware was designed to support conversation and socialisation while having tea and coffee. We discuss themes emerging from the design of Interactive Teaware in order to propose characteristics that we believe constitute appropriate, meaningful and useable interaction design for older people living in care homes. These include the integration of digital artefacts into a resident’s daily life, as opposed to scheduled activities. Given that life in the care home is often associated with disempowerment, we propose augmenting residents’ existing abilities. We also assert that digital artefacts need to avoid negative stigmas through medical styling and instead enforce a positive and familiar identity through the use of associated materials, such as porcelain. Implications for design stem from insights gained through time spent in the care home.
ThomaDykes-InteractiveTeaware.pdf
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PaperStreetPrototype from Tommy Dykes on Vimeo.
This is the first working version of Paper Street View. The artifact uses paper maps and a physical marker with Google Street View. My aim is to provide older people in care homes a means to engage with and share places that are meaningful to them. The panorama will be projected large scale on to a screen. Among many other things, future work includes designing a familiar and easy used marker. To make a second artifact that allows you to look around and to also include zones of sounds and panoramas of the inside of buildings people are interested in. Bigger maps and smaller scaled maps also work, you just have to know the latitude and longitude of the corners of the map, and its dimensions. For further information on how it works see the posts below.
Read MoreI’ve just returned from a wonderful week of talks and poster presentations at Microsoft Research in Cambridge. Above is the poster I presented during the week. It’s an introduction to my PhD work.
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My first shot of a bare conductive pen led to a card celebrating a camp site in Montrose where I spent happy times with my girlfriend. As part of my PhD research I’m developing a workshop for older people, which encourages them to reflect on places that hold meaning to them. It’s going to include a combination of craft and prototypes I’ve developed (i.e. this). Hopefully these will get people chatting and sharing anecdotes and experiences around place. My plan is to have lot’s of maps at hand and perhaps a printer to get places on demand. I’m keen to introduce them to electronics in craft and hopefully get them excited about the novelty of lighting an LED. If all goes well I think it would be amazing to hold more workshops like this.
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