ReportsKyushu University, Takagi Co., Ltd., and National Institute of Technology - Kurume College collaborate on "IoT in Our Lives," a joint design engineering project2020.12.22
The Akita Laboratory of the Faculty of Design at Kyushu University carried out a joint design engineering project in 2018 and 2019 as part of their education and research activities together with product designers and engineers from Takagi Co., Ltd., experts in electrical and electronic engineering from the National Institute of Technology – Kurume College, experts in system design engineering from Kyushu University, and students in the design strategy department. This project explores the ideal form of the IoT (Internet of Things) in our daily lives from the perspective of both design and engineering, with the purpose of proposing “ways of feeling” and products which enable us to feel the ambiguous and complex connections between people more richly.
The IoT senses this world, aggregates, analyzes, and links information, and presents us with something easy to understand. However, this world of ours is vague and complex. We thought that there is something lost by cutting and condensing information. In this project, we designed and created a prototype of a system that would enable us to sense this world more richly through the IoT.
In March 2019, we held a hands-on exhibition for the public at the Workshop Collection in Fukuoka, and in October 2019, we held a special exhibition at the Design Common at Kyushu University’s Ohashi Campus, where we presented our research on how to design dynamic contexts that arise in the complex relationships between people, objects, and information from the perspective of philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotics.
The six prototypes
- Wamulettes: A talisman that uses light to convey the “temperature of the feelings” of support
- MaMaTaMa: A spoon that can reproduce the taste of a home-cooked meal by measuring the amount of seasoning
- Fountain of Knowledge: A water basin-shaped terminal that shows information using the movements of water
- I’m at home: Indirect lighting that connects distant family members using light signs
- HAPTEL: A telephone that allows communication not only by voice but also by touch
- The Weight of Memories: A scale that records voice and the child’s weight and links them to help parents and children recall memories
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Kyushu University Faculty of Design Akita Lab