How do computers work on their fundamental levels? Can we build communication networks from scratch – with rubber bands, rope and cardboard? How do analog metaphors for Drag & Drop look like?
Those were some of many questions which I asked the design students at the HfG Offenbach, when I was there in order to teach a one week workshop at the class for electronic media. Our aim was to answer those questions with limited materials: We had cardboard, welding wire, glue, rope, rulers and cutting knifes available. And we tried to build computers – or some of their parts – out of that material. Here’s a hispeed slideshow of the workshop. And below you can find descriptions of the students’ projects.
Speedway PRO 1000
Jonas von Ronström brought some good old arcade fun to our workshop: He built a racing game which worked pretty well – although the steering turned out to be a bit wobbly. No problem for Jonas, though. He quickly adapted his concept to the behavior of his machine and named the game „Speedway PRO 1000“, where the „PRO 1000“ stands for the German „Promille“ (permille in English), the unit for blood alcohol content. His drunken driving simulator was definitely a hit at our final party!
Joint
Joonsun Kim built this minimalist Angry Birds like shooting game. A counterbalanced collapsible shelf construction mimics the Angry Birds physics engine. With a slingshot and ping pong balls, you could shoot on targets inside the shelf.
Read about other projects