Qiro -
Puppet Speaker

Interaction Design | Body Language of Machine
Teamwork: Simon von Schmude, Ningyuan Xu
Supervisor: Prof. Carola Zwick

Working Prototype: Transducer, Amplifier, Poti, Bluetooth, NFC

We chose a transformation that gradually increases in physical volume of a cube in order to visualize the changing volume of sound. There is a second cube hidden inside of the first one, that – when tilted out – can increase the volume to almost twice the original. This is made possible by a folding surface in between the cubes, that resembles the visual appearance of a mouth. A visual representation of sound volume as physical volume allows for a more intuitive way of controlling said sound volume. A puppet shaped speaker could be turned on and set to a volume by just opening its „mouth“. This metaphor can then be used for other interactive gestures, like the pause function.
Qiro demonstrates, that even an abstract geometry is able to be enriched by the additional dimension of body language with plausible gestures allowing for intriguing layers of tacit interaction.