After the Work In Progress, I really wanted to make something that was puppet like. I had the idea of making a puppet that was attached to your hand that had 5 different elements (maybe carbs, fibre etc) and when your fingers moved up and down a table of values (maybe 0-20) they would move accordingly and be the visualisation of the intake of these nutritional values.
I bought some wood glue and string from the hardware store then moved to poundland for any inspiration before I went home and tried to bring the sketch to life. Amazingly, I came across these tiny wooden moving parts that were meant to be used as mini easels. I completely had my work cut out for me as they moved so elegantly. I bought four for £2 – what a bargain.
Before I knew what the puppet would be representing, I just started to make it. I stuck all 4 easels next to eachother then stuck that to a plank of wood I had. I then played about with the string. I wanted to make it so that if you pulled/pushed one element of it, another element of it would move but I also wanted it to be moved without the hand being attached to it all the time so it had to hold itself, this is when I added the pins. I ended up with two moving elements so I then marked off on the wood it was attached to; a 1 cm increment that ran 20 cm from base. Here it is…
To put it to the test and to see what information it could give me; I took fibre as a value (merely because I had kept a record of all of the fibre I had consumed from the previous 12 days.)
I then marked off the measurements from 0-42 and made the furthest moving element the NRV for fibre in one day (30g). So I attached the pin to the 30cm mark then took a photo each time I moved the nearest moving element to represent one day’s worth of fibre. Here is what I ended up with…
As a moving object that displayed the intake of fibre over a 12 day period vs the recommended daily intake of fibre, this ‘puppet’ worked. It was now a question of what else could be done with its data.
I then started to map where the puppet had moved so I would be able to track its movements. This was the most simple way I could think to map the movements.
I then made 2 other puppets. My next task will be to track and record other data and see what outcomes I can gain from this moving object.
Design Year 3 