Lila

summer 2006, team project, extra-curricular activity

Michael Cruz, Julia Frederking, Philip Mendels, Joris van Gelder

Bronze IDEA 2007 Award

Lila is a piece of furniture that blends digital and physical play. Children can collaborate to make drawings with embedded animations. Lila consists of a giant touchscreen that features a drawing interface and a special table that folds out from behind the touchscreen. The table has round slots in which different pegs with abstract shapes can be put, which then show up on the touchscreen. Different combinations of pegs trigger different animations. The locations of the shapes and animations on the drawing depend on the positions of the pegs. The shapes or frames from the animation can be ‘stamped’ on the drawing.

Two students from Carnegie Mellon University initiated the project and were responsible for the general concept, the physical design and the interface graphics. Joris van Gelder made the animations. I programmed the drawing interface and the software for calibrating and reading the sensors and triggering the correct animations at the correct positions.