Sketching in Hardware 2013

July 18, 2013
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, California, U.S.A.
Shigeru Kobayashi (Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences [IAMAS])
Sketching A New Product Ecosystem
Starting with‘Peripheral’Products
Sketching in Hardware 2013: PROJECTIONS

How might we sketch new product ecosystems
to facilitate mutual understanding between
manufacturers and 'makers' to creating innovation?
This is the most interesting design challenge for me. Japan is a so called developed country
with many highly skilled manufacturers. But there are many restrictions, especially for
product liability issues. If we made the relationship between manufacturers and users more
ﬂexible, we might be able to facilitate innovation within manufacturers.

Mike Kuniavsky
July 20, 2012
Portland, Oregon
THE NEW PRODUCT
DEVELOPMENT ECOSYSTEM
HOW WE WILL SKETCH
PRODUCTS AND REINVENT
MANUFACTURING IN THE
PROCESS
Mike Kuniavsky, The New Product Development Ecosystem: How We Will Sketch Products and Reinvent
Manufacturing in the Process, Sketching in Hardware 12, 2012
Mike proposed a new product development ecosystem at the last Sketching, consisting of an
Amazon like front end and rapid and ﬂexible manufacturing systems as the back end.

Shigeru Kobayashi | Sketching in Hardware 2013 | Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, California, U.S.A.
Introduction
Case studies
• Maker Conference Tokyo 2013
• konashi Make-a-thon
I was inspired by the talk. I’d like to introduce two case studies, then talk about a new
product ecosystem for ‘peripheral’ products.

Case 1: KORG’s monotron
Maker Conference Tokyo 2013
• A paid conference held at June 15 in Tokyo
• About 250 attendees
• 5 sponsors including Intel
• Keynote talks by Mark Frauenfelder and Eric Pan
• Sessions with speakers of manufacturers and makers
• Creating maker friendly products
• Maker × Maker (Manufacturer)
http://makezine.jp/blog/2013/06/nuchack_mct2013.html
Maker Conference Tokyo 2013 was a paid conference held at June 15 in Tokyo. There were
about 250 attendees. Keynote speakers were Mark Frauenfelder (Make) and Eric Pan (Seeed
Studio). I was a PC member and a moderator of two sessions with speakers of manufacturers
and makers: ‘Creating maker friendly products’ and ‘Maker × Maker (Manufacturer)’.

Regarding the ‘creating maker friendly products’ session, we invited speakers from Roland D.
G. and KORG. The planner of KORG introduced the maker friendly history about ‘monotron’.

monotron is a cheap analogue synthesizer. Initially, the product planner wanted to put
synthesizers back into the hands of customers to rediscovery the joy of the synthesizer, since
he thought that digital synthesizer have not been as attractive as analogue synthesizers.

In the development process, the hardware designer proposed putting tips on the back of the
PCB to let users hack the synthesizers since he felt that monotron is too simple for deep
synthesizer lovers like him.

After it's release in April 2010, user immediately understood the developers intent, and
hacked the product to create something new.The developers found hacked products at Make:
Tokyo Meeting 05 (a Maker Faire in Tokyo in May 2010) and featured the products on their
official website in June 2010. http://www.korg.co.jp/Product/Dance/monotron/welove/

Moreover, KORG decided to release the schematic in response to requests from makers in
November 2010.

1
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A A
MODEL TITLE
DATE DESIGNED BY
2010.10.13
LM324
12
13
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IC2D
LM324
3
2
1
IC2A
LM324
5
6
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IC2B
LM324
1a
9
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LM324
411
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CN1
SN74AHC14
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9 8
IC3D
2SK433
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2SC4617
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10K B
VR4A
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13 12
IC3F
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147
GND
VCC
IC3G
2SA1774
Q3
SS-23D03 a6MM KNOB GE)
SW1A
Bias
1K
R17
0.01uC8
1K
R34
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820
R2
100
R1
100K
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VCC
VCC
RIBBON10KB
VCC
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2.2K
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C9
100K
R24
0.01u
C10
NU
R31
1K
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pitch
cuttoff
pitch
PATCH SELECT
cuttoff
330K
R42
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1uC14
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XV09211YNPV20U1B10K
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VR6A
VCC
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VCC
3300pC21
220
R68
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XV09211YNPV20U1B10K
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VR2A
audio
audio
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R79
22K
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Headphones
TPS61071
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820K
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CUTOFF
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150K
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whole ribbon Vbe offset:
2SC4617
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2.2K
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10KR40
10KR38
2.2K
R78
LM324
12
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14
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LM324
411
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CN3
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NUR71
NUR69
2SC4617
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47
R48
47
R43
390
R49
1K
R33
4.7K
R32
10K
R55
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R47
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100pC32
1K
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R12
VA VA
CLEARSHAFT
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Bias
10K
R73
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47K
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10K
R63
4.7K
R74
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VR3B
VR6B
VR7B
VR4B
VR5B
VR2B
SW1C
FRAME GROUNDS
TP1 pitch TP2
gate
TP3
GND TP4
Vbias
TP5
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TP7
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LINE IN
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Any modification to any monotron will immediately void its warranty.
Korg or any of its affiliates will not accept responsibility for any damages, personal loss or injury that may result from any modification to the device.
SCHEMATIC
FOR PUBLIC RELEASEmonotron
Details of this schematic are subject to change without notice.
TATSUYA
TAKAHASHI
This is the circuit diagram of monotron. Makers can hack and expand a monotron easily with
the aid of the diagram.

About half a year later, monotron nominated at Makey Awards 2011 as the ‘best product
documentation’ in June 2011.

A few months later, KORG released derivative products of monotron inspired by hacked
products, monotron DELAY and monotron DUO, as answers in November 2011. The hidden
concept was 'what if KORG hacked monotron?'.

So far, KORG has been opening products by putting hints and releasing circuit diagrams, with
no claims from customers. Since these are not mainstream but ‘peripheral’ products, the
developers have been able to major advancements instead of being lead by the voices of
established customers or dealers.

Case 1: KORG’s monotron
Lessons learned from monotron
• Embedding messages for makers transforms a product into
an open platform
• The planner thought analogue is the key of putting
synthesizers back into the hands of customers, but open
platform is the key
• Even after opening the circuit diagram, everyone
purchased monotron to hack instead of making clones
(cost and/or respect?)
• Not a simple open components but an attractive and
hackable product is the key, and releasing hackable
products is an eﬀective way of open innovation
Still there are gaps between maker and player communities, but they are trying to approach
connecting communities.

Case 2: konashi Make-a-thon
konashi Make-a-thon
• Held on June 1 and 22 at OpenCU by loftwork, a global
open platform for creative talents, in collaboration with
Yukai Engineering, an engineering farm of robots
• konashi is a physical computing toolkit to create wireless
devices for smartphones and tablets created by Yukai
Engineering
I was a adviser of the make-a-thon

http://konashi.ux-xu.com/documents/
Technically, konashi is consisting of a Bluetooth Low Energy wireless module and software
libraries for Objective-C and JavaScript. But they promote not as BLE evaluation kits but a
physical computing toolkit to communicate with designers and artists to expand possibilities
of wireless products and services.

There were over 30 participants consist of iOS developers, engineers, web designers, artists
and planners. We divided into 6 teams randomly.

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/opencu/sets/72157633896214841/
I facilitated idea sketching sessions. As a result, there were over 230 ideas from about 30
participants in 2 hours.

In addition to the idea sketching sessions, we introduced the software library for Objective-C
in 1 hour with the aid of Grove toolkit. A conversion board for konashi and Grove were really
useful to let participants try various inputs and outputs in a short period of time.

https://www.facebook.com/CuttingBoxTool
Additionally, a student of IAMAS introduced his domain speciﬁc design tool to design boxed
to be fabricated with a laser cutter.

https://www.facebook.com/CuttingBoxTool

At the end of the ﬁrst day, each team presented what they will make by the end of the 2nd
day. Members of each team kept working together online and offline.

擬人化パッチ(仮)
トイレットペーパー編
大塚翔平田孝広間下知紀松川佳弘 Yuji Miyano 玉城絵美山岸昂介巽孝介
13年6月23日日曜日
http://kakeru.in/e-team/
This is an example of one of the six teams.

擬人化パッチ
擬人化パッチ(仮) トイレットペーパー編特攻野郎Eチーム
トイレ時間を有効活用
トイペケースを恋人にする
トイペケース恋人機能
→使用具合でコミュニ
ケーションをはかる
The selected idea was a patch to anthropomorphize a toilet paper holder. Usually, a restroom
is a public space. But once a person entered a restroom stall, the stall became a personal
space. ‘anthropomorphize patch’ is a way to personalize a restroom stall with a smartphone
application that plays voices by favorite characters.

2013年6月1日の夕方
Facebookで特攻野郎Eチームが集結
After the end of the ﬁrst day, they created a Facebook group to communicate online.

3日後の 2013年6月3日
トイペケースのガラガラ検出に向け、
間下主任が色々なセンサを試しだす
The engineer evaluated sensors and implemented electronics.

皆でトイペとトイペケースについて議論する
The team members discussed together how to realize the idea.

間下主任が実機(トイペケース)で実験開始！
They made various hardware sketches.

擬人化パッドのケースを検討
And the product designer found a way to realize good enough cases in a short time.

擬人化キャラの台詞を検討
恥ずかしい台詞がどんどん出てくる
They generated ‘embarrassing’ phrases, and iOS developers implemented an iOS application.

2013年6月16日(日)
Eチームが秋葉原に集まる
They worked together to ﬁnish making a prototype. In the end of the second day, all teams
presented their prototypes and all participants were really excited.

This is the movie of the ﬁnal prototype demonstrated in the end of the second day.

Another prototype by a different team. If a person drunk too much and feel like throwing up
while train ride home, the wearable device displays how deep he is drunk and send a
message to his wife in emergencies.

Why we didn't start with the technology, BLE
• Many applications have been proposed by precedent
manufacturers already
• Starting with technology and constraints will narrow
participants vision and they will think like 'what we can
make with Bluetooth Low Energy'
• Wanted to let participants create ideas of wireless devices
and services and make hardware sketches as if it were air

Collaboration with ‘wonderﬂ’
Shigeru Kobayashi, Online code sharing for ActionScript and physical computing Incentives for web designers
and developers, Sketching in Hardware 09, 2009
The toolkit is expanding to attract wider range of audiences. In 2009, I have introduced an
online IDE for physical computing in ActionScript in collaboration with KAYAC, ‘physical ×
wonderﬂ’, at Sketching 09.

konashi.js
Recently, Yukai Engineering released ‘konashi.js’, an iOS application to be combined with a
popular online IDE for JavaScript (also developed by KAYAC).

Lessons learned from konashi Make-a-thon
• Working on a team produces diversity
• Sketching wireless devices and applications in hardware is
not so diﬃcult anymore
• Toolkit enable people realizing‘peripheral’ideas (that can’t
survive in planning sessions with PowerPoint
presentations)
• Still there are gaps between prototypes and products, but
toolkit developers can be platforms

How might we sketch new product ecosystems
to facilitate mutual understanding between
manufacturers and 'makers' to creating innovation?
This is the design challenge I’d like to try.

Manufacturers Makers
Users
(e.g. players)
Hackable Products
and
Components
Hacked ProductsNew Product Opportunities
New
Product
Ideas
Consumer Products
This is a plan of the new product ecosystem between manufacturers, users and makers.
Manufacturers produce hackable products with grayscale licenses like the Creative Commons
license. Makers make deliberative products and communicate with other communities (e.g.
players). The communication ball will make manufactures more ﬂexible and facilitate
innovations.

Flexible Warranties
Company warrants to return your device to
factory defaults by making best efforts to
restore original firmware and functionality,
subject to any mechanical or electrical
damage due to modifications.
You Brick it, we’ll restore it:
Sunday, July 19, 2009
The Firmware warranty:
Tom Igoe, After Sketching: Best Practices for Opening Product Development, Sketching in Hardware 09, 2009
The idea regarding licenses is based on the suggestion by Tom Igoe at Sketching 09 in 2009.

http://opencontent.uct.ac.za/ﬁles/siteimages/image/degreesofopenness.jpg
What if we have Creative Commons like gray-scaled licenses regarding product liability
between 'full warranty' and 'at your own risk’?

Peripheral Products
Peripheral Products
Main Stream Products
It might be difficult to start changing from main stream for manufacturers. But we might be
able to start with ‘peripheral’ products such as musical instruments or wearable smart
accessories.

I feel signs of ‘peripheral’ products from new hardware projects such as C.24 by Miselu.

Sketching in Hardware 2013

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