Overview

Conceptual Considerations

Our group started with various explorations of wearable technologies, inspired by Leah Buechley’s Lilypad Arduino platform and her turn signal bike jacket (Buechley, 2010) and similar Arduino-based projects highlighted by the very active user community (e.g., HackNMod, 2009).

Thinking eventually gravitated to ideas revolving on David Phillips’s (2005) notion of identity as performance of self and whether that performance is actively engaged or passively triggered based on individual actions.

In terms of the active presentation of self, two sets of technologies were considered – those that enabled a projection of self, and those that resisted attempts to enter one’s “bubble”.

Regarding broadcasting components of self and identity, many options were available, but already partially or largely explored. Arduino-based musical instruments are common projects, for example – see, for example, the Ardrumo drum machine, which uses the Arduino and MIDI out to interface with Apple’s Garage Band to create a DIY drum machine (Ardrumo, 2010).

Another pre-Arduino example would be McRorie – an electronic one-man band, well, rather unique aesthetic and musical tastes (see left, McRorie, 2010).

Other potential active broadcasts of self considered involved connections with other wearable technology users. In networking or dating contexts, awareness of co-presence and broadcast of self (or, more truthfully, an augmented and sanitized component of self) could reduce the need for the idle chatter required to get acquainted with new people. As with many potential mobile/ubiquitous technologies however, “there’s an app for that” – iPhone apps (e.g., MobiMeet, 2010) already exist to exchange personal information and discover potential dating partners and friends based on GPS readings.

Of course, presentation of self need not be actively engaged. We often trigger perceptions in others through our automatic and subconscious action. Sometimes, as Greta Garbo famously put it, you want to be left alone. “Garbo bubble” technologies would facilitate an individual’s expression of this fact. For example, it would be possible to adapt theremin synthesizers (Pierson, 2009) to provide an auditory signal regarding personal space – when an object entered “the bubble” a sound would be broadcast as a warning.

We had some difficulty refining our concept, but eventually settled on building glasses with an attached capacitance sensor that would activate by the touch of the cheek when the wearer was smiling. This notion was interesting to us initially as a passive mood display mechanism, and we brainstormed possible uses from the banal (e.g., broadcasting emotion through LEDs or via Twitter) to the oppressive (e.g., used to mointor employees.)

The banality of the former did not appeal much to us, however – and the oppressive nature of the latter seemed all too consistent with technology’s historical role as a control mechanism (Hughes, 2004). We began to brainstorm possible uses for such a device, and

eventually came up with the dentistry idea. This gave us enough teleological direction to finish the project by deciding to add a music player.

Technical Considerations

Our design involved resolving three technical issues – building the capacitance circuit, activating a speaker through the tone command, and fixing badly nested loops resulting from integration of the two code samples.

Since our project was based upon sensing the touch of the skin when a patient opens the mouth, we started to build a simple capacitance circuit that will light up the LED when a person gets in contact with the wire or metal connection. This functions much in the same way as the old “Love Doctor” video game, which simply measures electrical resistance.

Based on available code (Badger, 2007), we connected a 100 kOhm resistor to pin# 8 (output) and pin# 9 (input) on Aurdino board and used a wire to connect the resistor and pin# 9 to use as touch sensor. The code subtracts the “not-touched” baseline (read from pin #10), yielding the “added” capacitance. Multiple readings are averaged out to flatten out spikes in capacitance and yield consistent readings.

Testing out with our first touch to the wire, it was not as sensitive as we expected. Calibrating values in the code, we were able to achieve the expected sensitivity to the circuit, activating the LED on touch as expected.

Tone production proved to be both simpler and more challenging than anticipated. The software implementation of Arduino tone production has been greatly improved in the newest version (v18). Rather than having to “teach” our Arduino the Hertz values for notes, we were able to use the new “tone” function and just give the relevant Western notation note names (A5, F#4, etc) and durations (quarter note, eighth note, etc.) each stored in separate arrays and defined by a separate list of codes (Arduino Tone Library, 2009).

We chose Mozart’s “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” as our iconic tune. We investigated other tunes but found that the current implementation of Arduino tones a non-trivial task. While the code is far more transparent than lists of Hertz values, coding tone and duration separately in two arrays and matching them in playback makes for a very laborious composing process. Future development would benefit from a tool that takes simple monotone music samples and converts musical notation into array information automatically.

We met some difficulty when trying to wire a speaker, but the problem was merely one of nomenclature. Our first piezo speaker, purchased at Creatron, produced loud buzzing with the rhythm we wanted, but no pitch differentiation. It turned out that we had a buzzer rather than a speaker, and that, although they are both piezocrystal devices, a piezo speaker is just called a “speaker.” A return trip to Creatron with more careful wording allows us to acquire the device we needed. A non-prototype version of this device would probably be linked to recorded (rather than square wave tones) music, as the prototype remains rather jarring and loud (the tone command does not allow for volume control – just pitch and duration.)

Integration of these functions was our final challenge. Our intention was to have the capacitance sensor trigger activation/deactivation of tune playing. On initial tests, however, there was a problem of nested loops – on triggering the music, capacitance readings would stop until the full tune was played. The tone code had to be revisited to allow for both playback and continual checks of state on the capacitance sensor. This was eventually achieved by reorganizing the loop such that at the end of each tone, a quick check on the sensor was made – if still active (e.g,. mouth still open) the next tone

in sequence would be played. On breaking the capacitance connection, the tune would stop and the red LED embedded in the glasses would turn on. Reactivating the connection started the tune again at the moment it was shut off.

Critical Making Reflections

Our final prototype was an implementation of a passively activated representation of self (i.e., determining whether a mouth is sufficiently open for dental procedures) and a subtle architecture of control (Lockton, 2006). Lockton’s explorations of architectures of control posited that designed objects – even those in our mundane everyday existence – are often used to subtly guide those who interact towards specific outcomes and away from others. In some respects, it is similar to Norman’s (1990) notions of affordance and constraints, with a more deliberately considered implementation of both to shape user behaviour.

While this is arguably another example of the aforementioned control concerns raised by Hughes (2004), in this specific context we argue this specific architecture of control is an acceptable intervention for dentists and patients alike. Dental procedures are, after all, rather awkward events for patients – it is unnatural to open one’s mouth for extended periods of time, especially when someone else is poking about with tools that are potentially dangerous. However, such procedures are necessary evils for good dental hygiene.

By agreeing to subject one’s self to dental procedures in the first place (or in the case of children, being subjected to procedures by parents/guardians), a patient sacrifices control in exchange for a greater good.

As Phillips (2005) notes, context is an important notion in the construction of performance of identity. And in this context, both patient and dentist have vested interests in ensuring quick and painless procedures – the patient to escape an unnatural social condition with minimal discomfort, the dentist to reduce error, increase efficiency, decrease potential liability.

Until the context of medical procedures changes, technologies such as Open Wide Goggles are helpful in making activities in this context more efficient and less uncomfortable.

Regarding this prototype, final product realization might consider connecting the capacitance sensor to other devices such as televisions (which also now common in dentists’ offices, arguably also to make the context less awkward) or perhaps personal entertainment devices such as an iPod. While this would provide the patient with some agency in determining their own positive reinforcement, there is a potential drawback of offering such agency. Some people’s music collections, for example, might not be well suited to the calm, sedate environment required for dental work. Given the context of use already requires the patient relegate agency and control to a qualified expert, more passive media such as television might be more appropriate to placate patients and reduce discomfort.

References

Arduino Tone Library (2009. Documentation on Tone Library. [On-line] Available: http://code.google.com/p/arduino-tone/wiki/Documentation Accessed April 13, 2010.

Ardrumo (2010). Ardrumo Project Website. [On-line] Available: http://code.google.com/ p/ardrumo/ Accessed April 13, 2010

Badger, P. (2007). Arduino as Capacitive Sensor. [On-line] Available: http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1171076259 Accessed April 13, 2010

Buechley, L. (2010). Turn Signal Bike Jacket. MIT Media Lab [On-line] Available: http://web.media.mit.edu/~leah/LilyPad/build.html Accessed April 13, 2010HackNMod (2009). Top 40 Arduino Projects of the Web. [On-line] Available: http://hacknmod.com/hack/top-40-arduino-projects-of-the-web/ Accessed April 13, 2010

Hughes, T.P (2004). Human-Built World: How to think about technology and culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lockton, D. (2006). Architectures of Control in Product Design. Engineering Designer, March/April. [On-line] Available: http://www.danlockton.co.uk/research/28-31-ED.pdf

Pierson, M. (2009). Arduino Thermin/Synth Walkthrough. [On-line] Available: http://blog.wingedvictorydesign.com/2009/06/20/arduino-thereminsynth-final-walkthrough Accessed April 13, 2010 McRorie (2010). Artist’s Website. [On-line] Available: http://www.mcrorie.net Accessed April 13, 2010

MobiMeet (2010). IPhone GPS-based dating application. [On-line] Available: http://www.mobimeet.net Accessed April 13, 2010 Norman, D.A. (1990). The Design of Everyday Things. Doubleday: New York.

Phillips, D.J. (2005). Context, Identity and Power in Ubiquitous Computing Environments. Social Text, 23(2).