How to clone sheep, Instructable >> http://www.instructables.com/id/Cloning-Sheep/

Materials and Tools

– 1 sheep volunteer
– 3D scanner
– 3D printer
– Mold casting material
– Plater of paris or other casting materials
– Casting equipment: mold release spray, cups, sticks, newspaper….

3D Scan

Get your sheep subject to sit still while you 3D scan them. Sheep tend to get super excited to representations of themselves and are easily distracted.
Once you have a clean 3D scan, you still might need to clean up the data, close all the holes and prepare it for printing.

3D Print

From your 3D scan you can now print out the first replication of your sheep. You will need to keep your original sheep close at hand though, to make sure the 3D print bears a close resemblance.
After 3D printing the first sheep clone must undergo a horrible etching bath to remove support material. Be nice to them and reward them for undergoing this process. It is not fun.
And, as the original, also it’s clones are fascinated by representations of the self and are easily distracted by them.

Mold Making

3D printing is not a cheap process, so in order to make multiples of your 3D printed clone sheep it is best to make a mold from it so that you can cast multiples.
Build a rig from lego and submerge half of the clone sheep in liquid polyurethane, which becomes rubbery when cured. Once one half was ready apply Vaseline to the surface and fill up the other half. This way the two halves do not stick together and you can open up the mould to safely remove clone sheep.

Casting

To make replicas of sheep you need to prepare the mold for casting. Make the hole in the mold (the result of how you mounted your sheep when casting the mold) cylindrical so that the casting material will flow in nicely and that it is big enough for air-bubbles to escape.
Use mold release to insure your casting materials will not stick to the mold. Use rubber bands to hold the two mold halves together.
Prepare your casting materials. Pour into mold. Let Cure. Remove.
The clones of your clone resemble your clone much more than your first cone resembles the original. This can lead to tensions and might require some effort on your behalf in making them all feel comfortable around each other.

Mass-Cloning

Now you’re all set to replicate your sheep as many times as you want. The casting process does not always run smoothly so do not worry if a few of your clones turn out different (missing parts of the body, or miss-aligned mold halves…) you should still love them and count them to your army of sheep.

Sheep Lights

Once you have mastered the art of sheep cloning, you can move on to making all kinds of sheep…

Video

Link: www.giftbox.media.mit.edu

Making-of

This work was created in collaboration with Leah Buechley, Emily Lovell, David Mellis and Edward Baffi in the High-Low Tech Research group.
Many thanks to Ellen Hoffman and everybody who helped assemble and pack the 1200 boxes!

The Tilt Sensing Quilt took roughly a year to complete. It is a great demonstration of how the process of crafting e-textile technology requires handwork, patience, and concentration. The work is repetitive and soothing, yet frustrating if you aim to complete too much in one go. It proved a much better decision to work on the quite a bit at a time and to enjoy the process, rather than seeing it as a means to an end.

Techniques for making the tilt sensors include: fusing, machine and hand embroidering, felting, etching and painting.

Applications

The quilt as a final artifact is a human-computer interface that can interact with a variety of custom applications. Current applications visualize the tilt of the quilt and convey a super rough height-map so that you could detect what kind of object the quilt is currently draped over or what state the quilt is in (hung, folded).

Video 1

Video 2
ignore the background conversation:-)

Construction

The quilt is made up of 3 layers (with an additional isolation layer between layers two and three):
1) Tilt sensors: 41 total
2) Rows: 9×6 rows connecting all 6 tilt sensor petals
3) Columns: 41 individual columns connecting all 41 tilt sensing beads via five 8-channel multiplexers

Along one edge all tilt sensor petals are interconnected. Along another edge all tilt sensing beads are connected via five 8-channel multiplexers. All traces finally connect to a LilyPad Arduino, which parses the array of 41 tilt sensors and sends the data via serial communication over Bluetooth (wireless) or via a USB connection (wired).

Tilt Sensors

Rows

Columns

Multiplexers

LilyPad

Bluetooth and battery

Installation

Very first prototype

This work was created during graduate studies in the High-Low Tech Research group.

Camera Vision Motion Capture Costume

Video

Textile Sensor Motion Capture Costume

Video

Pictures on Flickr

This project is part of the KOBAKANT Secret Life of Cows series. The radio featured in this particular example is a re-design of the Fab FM radio by David Mellis and Dana Gordon. It uses transparent materials to expose the secret life of cows within.

Front and back views of radio

Inside view of radio

Opening up transparent technology

This work is part of the KOBAKANT project The Secret Life of Cows.

Ever since people used technology, the button stands for a simple action that triggers mechanical or electrical functionality of various complexity. Push Button is a series of three installations in public space that play with this anticipation.

While Push Button is intended for installation in public space, it is currently installed as a prototype at the MIT Media Lab in buildings E14 & E15.
>> Project Website

First Iteration

In the first iteration a simple red button is installed in a public location, without specific context. The button counts the number of times it is pushed, but does not communicate the number back to the operator. It investigates the button as a magic device, the simplest of all interfaces. It plays with our relationship to buttons in our everyday life in which every interaction with them is met with a physical reaction. This button though, is an interface to something we do not see and have to imagine.

Second Iteration

In a second iteration, the Button is linked to a display that shows the amount of times the button was pushed. Here, the situation inherently changes, as operators will have direct feedback and the button itself and it’s operation are not the focus of the piece anymore. Instead, motivation and anticipation are shifted to the context of numbers. Will people press the button more often if the numbers ascend or descend? Will they anticipate reactions when appraching certain numbers

Final Iteration

A final iteration connects the button pressing and the counting by adding social context. Multiple buttons are placed in public places defining specific areas like Harvard, Cambridge and Central Square. The counters now not only display the number of times each button has been pressed at its current location, but also how many times the buttons in other locations have been pressed. This additional layer of context lends itself for competition and connects this simple interface with reasoning about one’s surroundings, feelings of home and place and personal relationship to public space.

An inter-district game that involves pushing buttons

Competition and competitiveness is very much part of our everyday. We frequently use numbers in order to compare competitive results. Such as the number of goals scored in a soccer game, the number seconds it took to run 100 meters or the number of votes it took to win a seat in congress.
Push Button is an inter-district game that involves pushing buttons and increasing scores. Buttons are mounted in different districts and every time a button is pushed, the number associated with the area it is located in increases by one. This number is displayed on a screen that is mounted in sight of the button. Current numbers from all locations are displayed on this screen.

There are no rules to the game and no instructions. This setup allows for an interactive pubic game that works simply by providing a scoreboard for inter-district competition. The numbers themselves don’t imply anything, they are an extremely reduced form of information. Yet the relationships between the numbers and the locations they represent address our competitive nature, insuring that they will be interpreted with meaning beyond the pushing of buttons.
No matter where you live you develop relationships with the districts and areas in which you spend time. You might live in one district, work in another, have friends in another and go for walks in yet another. With each of these districts you associate different feelings and are attached to them for different reasons. So what if these districts were to compete against each other? If things became serious and you had to pick sides, which district would you support?

The interface is reduced to the basics necessary for the game to work. The red button and the display are mounted on a street signpost. Inside the display box there is a small computer with WiFi capability. The computer transmits and receives information about current scores to a central server so that all displays show the same scores simultaneously.
The game aims to reach a population that has ties to the locations “participating” in the game. Our current choice of districts are: Harvard campus, Central Square and MIT campus. In addition to displaying the current scores from each district on the displays on site, the scores will also be displayed on a website. The installation lasts until the first district reaches the max score which is currently set to be ten thousand. We expect to reach this score within two weeks of installation.

This work was created in collaboration with Friedrich Kirschner. It was developed during the Spring 2010 course titled Dialogues in Public Space lead by Antonio Muntadas of the MIT Visual Arts Program. It was supported by the MIT Media Lab High-Low Tech research group and funded (in part) by a Director’s Grant from the Council for the Arts at MIT.

Team members: Yi-Chun Lu (Sasha), Cetus, Kao Chieh, Ming-Chun Liu, Cheng Ru Li (Kim), Lisa Hsieh, Jen Hisn Ying, Sarah Hirschman, Ho Kwan Yip (Mavis) and Hannah Perner-Wilson

ICEBREAKERS – Connecting the Masses in Transit

Icebreaking interventions on Taiwan’s MRT public transit system. Every day Taipei’s MRT mass transit system transports one million passengers (40% of the population), but despite boasting 94% customer satisfaction (compared to San Francisco 65%, Chicago 80%) the routine act of being transported from A to B is perceived by many to be lost time, a hole in their day. The Icebreakers believe this absence presents a unique opportunity for social activism on the most basic scale. The Icebreakers believe in the positive benefits of breaking the social ice that exists within the public space of mass transit.

Project website >> http://scumiticebreakers.wordpress.com/

The MRT Brown Line is a unique platform within the overall Taipei transit system. Narrower cars, above-ground travel, and a variety of program destinations mean that the Brown Line attracts a wide section of the community, and contains it more compactly than on any other line. This is an ideal site for public activism to promote interactions of any type.

Icebreaking agents are activists. They are upset with the lack of interaction happening on the MRT and take initiative by creating, installing and hacking the space in order to facilitate communication among the masses. We distribute our endeavors via how-to instructions that detail how to make, install and administer these interventions.

Three example installations demonstrate various levels of intervention. All of them aim to break the ice within the MRT. Ideally, interventions are located such that they will be encountered in routine acts of holding on to the handles and poles already present in the MRT, on the windows, and on the ceiling, where the eyes might wander in an attempt to avoid direct eye contact in a crowded car.

Beginner: Hand Puppets

This project is suitable for beginner Icebreakers. It involves buying puppets and modifying them to fit the handles of the MRT car.
The project situates itself in the realm of intervention, offering a quick and easy way for anybody wishing to break the ice to act. Existing puppets are simply modified to fit the handles within the MRT car. few or almost all handles may be covered. The intention behind this project is to offer passengers an avatar through which to engage in interactions with fellow passengers. Drawing upon the power of dress-up and theatre to bring people out of their usual set characters, this project offers them an alternative persona through which to ‘break the ice.’ This project also subtly plays on the fact that in the digital age, we all have our online screen names through which we fluently interact with strangers almost every day on the internet.

Intermediate: Piano Pole

This project is for intermediate Icebreakers. It involves hacking a toy piano and sewing a textile electronic interface that can be attached to the poles within the MRT car.
Installed by wrapping it around the poles within the MRT, this textile musical installation occupies space intended for holding tight. Standing passengers need a place to hold on, and might first experience this installation by accident. Once encountered, they can then decide whether to engage further in the musical experience. The choice to map a very concrete musical score to the pole creates not only the initial shock effect of accidentally triggering a first note, but also offers the opportunity of playing with it as an instrument. Unlike a game there is no concrete goal, but there is a wrong and a right way to play a song and this can create a certain incentive to continue playing beyond the initial surprise of discovery.

Expert: Give Me A Hand

This project is for expert icebreakers. It involves programming interactive animations that can be displayed on the MRT LED screens (currently being proposed to the MRT for advertising purposes) and promote interaction among and between passengers. These interactive animations will not be triggered unless five or more handles in any one carriage are being held.
Occupying the ceiling space of the car, this project situates itself where one usually focuses in a crowded car to avoid direct eye contact. This installation makes way for a range of different applications that, in the context of icebreaking, aim at connecting individuals. The handles in the subway car act as collective input devices.

Workshop documentation

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 8

This work was created in collaboration with Yi-Chun Lu (Sasha), Cetus, Kao Chieh, Ming-Chun Liu, Cheng Ru Li (Kim), Lisa Hsieh, Jen Hisn Ying, Sarah Hirschman and Ho Kwan Yip (Mavis)

>> How To Get What You Want