Boredom Fighter Twitter bot’s code now on Github
I have finally had some time to refactor some of its code and sanitise it. If you want to see how it worked, have a look on Github.
Archived entries for Design
Vibrating routine disruptor test
Lauren had agreed to test out one of my devices. Vibrating routine disruptor is fitted with an accelerometer to detect movements of the body. It measures how long you’ve been moving about (eg. walking) or how log you’ve been fairly still for (eg. sitting). At certain point when it decided you’ve been doing either of these types of activities for too long, it vibrates to suggest you change the type of activity.
This set-up was intended for an all-day use. To quickly test it before I make the ‘final’ prototype for someone to keep I had to change it somewhat. The threshold at which it decided your chosen activity took too long was brought down to between 4 and 6 minutes. As we were walking it vibrated regularly every so often. I didn’t want to push my ideas on how it should be used to Lauren, so I let her decide what kind of activities she wanted to do and how she wanted to react to the bot. She liked the idea of it inducing spontaneity. While she considers herself to be very spontaneous anyway, she found it hard to quickly think of something to do every time it vibrated. I think part of the problem was that it vibrated too often, forcing her to constantly come up with something novel to do, which really isn’t as easy as it sounds and it puts too much pressure on the user. She found it easier to let her mind wander and do spontaneous things unprompted, the bot turned into a bit of an annoyance rather than help. As a result she was feeling frustrated and it wasn’t a fun, relaxing experience.
Very kindly she agreed to help me test the device which actually suggest what you should do next, her assumption was that it would take the burden of deciding away, while still making you experience something novel and fun. My previous experiments suggest this is correct, so I will not be developing the vibrating type of bot any further.
BoredomFighter mark 1
Do you live in Brighton? Visiting? If you’re feeling a little bored, perhaps you should speak to the @boredomfighter1. He’s a friendly bot I’ve written who will give you some suggestions as to what you can do. Some of them are a little silly, like “follow a seagull”, but others may be genuinely useful, including info about gigs, comedy shows, films being played in cinemas etc.
Have you spoken to the @boredomfighter1? Would you like to feature in a short film about your experience? Let me know!