Artefact held a brownbag session with a guest demo’er around the topic of rapid prototyping for physical interactive environments, objects and ecosystems. We introduced NETLab Opensource Tools for Designers, which enables designers to concept, test and iterate ideas without deep programming knowledge. It becomes a tool that can be used to help designers “think through making” by throwing a quick project together that can be tested and evaluated for very little time and cost.
Our guest demo’er, Parker Kuncl, is currently a graduate student at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He’s been working extensively with this program in his thesis research and joined us here in Seattle to share what he has designed and learned using the program. He demo’d a few of his experiments including a spray paint can that allows you to “paint” graffiti sounds on a wall. He walked us through the simple process of building a working model by hacking a wii remote and using NETlab components to program it. More pics here.
So, what the heck is NETLabs anyway?
NETLab is opensource software developed by Philip Van Allen that enables designers to build and test physical experiences using sensors, wii remotes, effectors and actuators without deep programming knowledge. It includes drag & drop components for Flash, an application that handles communication from Flash to the outside world, an application that supports things such as control of DMX lighting and MIDI communication.
Netlabs screens and more info