First Ideas...

For our tutorial we had to bring in our first ideas/mock up models of possible projects we want to attempt. I found that I was having HUGE blocks on coming up with anything I could push beyond the most basic of ideas. However I came up with a few that I thought I could develop and refine to turn into an interesting and unexpected experience for the user...

The ideas I came up with were...

1. The association of colors with smells.
I wanted to set up an experiment that would be more like a game where colored boxes are placed in a line. Each box has a hole in the top where the user smells, however all the lids of the boxes are mixed up so the color does not match the smell of the box, e.g. the blue box might smell like banana and the yellow box might smell like bubblegum. The user then lifts the lids of the boxes and matches them up so that the color of the lid matches the smells they just smelt.
The problem with this idea is that not everyone associates the same smells with the same colors. Although i would try to use obvious smells e.g. berries for red, this would take the unexpected element out of the project. Also I am not sure what kind of experience I would be aiming to give the user with this project.

2. Having an object that looks plain and boring until a light is shined on it.
This project would play with shadows and the sense of sight as it would be taking something boring and turning it interesting. This is modeled off a similar idea where people take rubbish and model it so that the silhouette the shadow creates is off a completely different object e.g. a motorbike.
A way I thought of expanding this idea is by involving touch in it by a shape to begin with but then having certain parts of the shape that the user then has to adjust or pull away e.g. paper flaps. It would then become more interactive than the user just shining a torch at it.
The problems I have with this project is how difficult it would be to find and execute an appropriate shape that worked for multiple users.