Project Tinkerbell
Digital Wayfinding // Locative Media Proposal
I am trying to make something that is both useful and pretty. something that is personalized. responsive. maybe even inspiring.
Project tinkerbell is a ‘locative media’ concept that allows pedestrians to find their ways to and from places, without maps, gps, or sixth sense. Essentially ‘Tinkerbell’ is a personal guide that leads you from place to place, but which also looks cool and creates an aesthetically interesting and exciting streetscape feature.
basically, tinkerbell consists of a series of RGB LED pixels that are somewhat lined up in a linear fashion, either on/in the ground, on building facades, along power/telephone lines. individuals would communicate with these pixels either via RF or via cell phone/PDA.
3 ways to use Tinkerbell
1. companionship - if you want company, tinkerbell will light up and simply follow you where you go, your RFID lapel pin or cell phone would emit a signal to the nearest LED pixels which would illuminate based on your proximity to them.
2. Wayfinding - you type in an address into your phone, send it to tinkerbell, and she leads you to where you want to go. once you get there, you can put in another address and she’ll take you… say you’re new to boston and you need to find your way from South Station to the ICA, just text google for the ICA address then send it to tinkerbell, she’ll take you there…
3. Exploration - your friend tells you that williamsburg (brooklyn) is sweet. but you’re from atlanta and don’t know new york. your friend emails/texts you a route, which you forward to tinkerbell. once you get out of the subway, tinkerbell shows you the cool vegan fast food hang out, the experimental sound art gallery, the old sugar factory, then the hole-in-the-wall bar where your pal met his girlfriend. there might even be a website where you can post and download routes from known and unknown users.
All this would look really cool on a place-making level.
For implementation, I have also been thinking about a self-powered wireless strategy.
Marin Soljacic, an assistant professor in MIT’s Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, works on WiTricity, wireless electric transfer that is efficient and doesn’t hurt living things. I am imagining that these pixels could recieve power from some initial broadcast source, then could repeat this signal to the next pixels. Susanne Seitinger at the Media Lab has made ‘liberated pixels’ which are solar powered, addressable, wireless, and assignable. these pixels could be employed in this system, and the solar power could be used as a power boost for the wiTricity, instead of a primary power source. In a more complicated scenario, these pixels could also be the nodes of a WiFi mesh network for an urban environment, where they would create light and internet access, all wirelessly.
At some point I thought I’d be able to build a working prototype, but i think its probably too late in the semester for that.
So my project deliverable will be
a PR campaign (i.e. video, text, graphic)
a proof-of-concept
Wireless power links
http://www.mit.edu/~soljacic/wireless_power.html
Liberated Pixel Links
http://cities.media.mit.edu/projects/liberated_pixels.html