Kurbo

“The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” – Muriel Rukeyser, Poet. Everything in the world has already been discovered. But for a child, that’s not actually true, everything has to be discovered from the start. Today, urban children are spending time indoors more than ever before. Parents and educators are concerned that young children are not using their senses actively and don’t have enough possibilities for explorative learning. Current play experiences invite children to look at new, fictional worlds, which causes them to stop using their wild imaginations. With this project I wanted to ask, instead of providing new things for children to look at, what if we could equip the children with new ways to see and explore the world with?

This project was created as part of investigating how silicone can be used as a medium for soft robotics and HCI.

Pas a Pas is an interactive educational tool that enables children to learn and experiment through animation. It is designed to support and integrate in to an existing curriculum and is not meant to alter the natural learning pace of children. Pas a Pas incorporates physicality and the animated outcome of stop motion animation to bridge the gap between abstract concepts from maths, physics or arts - usually represented by graphs, equations or words - and reality. Pas a Pas contributes to an education that integrates 'play' and 'create' in to the learning process.Due to the inherent tangibility of stop motion animation, the concept fits into Montessori education methods - it is aligned with the idea of self-directed learning, indirect teaching and multi-age grouping.

Our inspiration for the Little People™ Apptivity™ Barnyard came from watching young children play with apps and toys. They didn’t view the world as “digital” vs. “physical” but rather moved fluidly between both modalities and even used them together. We therefore set out to reinvent our classic farm playset to reflect how children naturally want to play. The Little People Apptivity Barnyard represents a new level of interactivity, where the app and toy are fully integrated and augment each other. The app provides a rich, living world while the conductive playset and figures provide a new, tangible way to explore this world. Everything works with everything else, just as children expect!

The Practice Fusion iPad app empowers doctors to review and chart patients medical history while meeting with patients. The application liberates the doctor from the desk-bound keyboard and mouse, letting them engage more with their patient than with their technology. Our design delivers an EHR experience that matches the thinking and workflow of doctors. With a patient's entire history at their fingertips, they can see the context for the visit, and easily capture details about their condition through touch or voice. The complexity of the underlying system has been pushed to the back, giving the doctor a simple schedule-driven interface to guide their day. The iPad leverages a doctor's existing data in Practice Fusion's EHR and gives her a lighter, less intrusive tool for working with it.

Gaggenau Live allows customers to connect to the showroom from the comfort of their homes, via their mobile, tablet or desktop browsers. Customers who scheduled an online 1-1 tour can watch the sales consultant’s live stream and digitally interact with Gaggenau products. The solution provides an enriched, interactive and personalized experience by letting customers review details of their product of interest, configure the products based on their personal preferences, create a list of favourite products, view inspirational product/kitchen images, show their kitchens to sales consultants for guidance and invite family members, friends, architects etc. to join the live session. Gaggenau Live is also designed to digitally empower sales consultants by broadening their product demonstration abilities during a showroom tour and personalizing the experience through a consolidated customers’ interaction dashboard. The solution allows consultants to manage their appointments, review customers’ information and interested products prior to the live session. During the session, the consultant has high control over the experience by simultaneously tracking customer actions through an interaction analyser and tailor the tour instantly based on customer interest. High integration with the product catalog enriches product demonstration experience and allows consultants to push interested products to the customer's screen or configure the products on behalf of them and create an offer list. What makes the solution special is that it is designed to make customers feel like they are in control of the experience by letting them actually interact with the space and products rather than just staying as viewers.

Paper Phone is an experimental app which helps you take a break from your digital world, by printing a personal booklet of the information you’ll need that day. Printed versions of the functions you use most such as contacts, calendars and maps let you get things done in a calmer way and help you concentrate on the things that matter most.

Throughout our lives, we amass a myriad of personal belongings, from the teddy bear we received at birth, to the new shoes we bought last week. As our belongings accumulate, it is inevitable for some items to stop serving us, whether it be a shirt that’s no longer our style, or an old toy we no longer play with. However, just because an item no longer serves us does not mean it cannot serve someone else. Whome helps pre-loved items find a home where they can be appreciated and cherished once again.

“100 Years of Design” is a microsite created by Second Story to celebrate AIGA’s centennial and the profound impact of American design on our culture, bringing to life exemplary works from AIGA’s digital archives, insightful interviews with leading designers, and significant moments from the organization’s history.

Advances in computer vision and natural language AI continue to unlock new ways to explore the billions of images across our devices, websites, and the public domain. However, it remains difficult to express subjective concepts, such as visual tones (‘vibrant’) or moods (‘eclectic’) to current systems, where visual interpretation is shaped by culture and community and is personal to the individual.