Posts in Interactive
The Infamous DJ Jacket

One of my first classes at ITP was Physical Computing. Some of my classmates came in with some knowledge of the subject but to me this was completely foreign. At this point I didn't even know how to connect an Arduino with a breadboard but this ended up being one of my favorite classes and got the most out of it.

For our midterm we were asked to create a media controller and after a few brainstorming session with my group members we came up with the idea to create a wearable that controlled basic DJ functions allowing the DJ to step away from the computer and to engage with the audience in a more performative way.

This was a fun idea but highly ambitious since no one in our group had any idea of how to accomplish this. This is the great thing about ITP, if anything it teaches you how to figure shit out and be an expert problem solver.

We got a jacket from Kmart and just went to town using a variety of different sensors, Max Msp, Arduino, Ableton Live and we were actually able to pull this off. Unfortunately at this point into ITP I was terrible at documenting my work and progress so I do not have much to show for this but I was able to put together a short video that demonstrates some of the basic functions of this wearable.

Let me know your thoughts. I really want to get back at it and create a 2nd version of this that can actually be used on stage.