Progress presentation for the "Engineering Magic" final project for a class in Tangible User Interfaces at the UC Berkeley School of Information.

1. Engineering
Magic
Finding Inspiration in Magic,
Mysticism, and Superstition
to Inspire Natural
Interactions
with
Photo (cc) Martin Lissmats
Technology (http://flickr.com/photos/
dalyswe/243821461/)

2. Dowsing and Divining
Dowsing is the ancient
art of detecting things
underground, like water
or precious minerals.

3. Divining Rod
A divining rod is a Y-
shaped branch of willow
or hazel that points down
when a dowser detects
something underground.

4. of course...
All of this is nonsense.

5. but...
Vibrates
it might make for a fun more
WiFi detector violently
the
stronger
the
signal.
“I pay not one
ha’penny for my
wireless. Verily!”

6. Justification
And remember,
Mystical artifacts and
superstitious objects “Any sufficiently
may not work as
advanced technology
claimed, but a part of us
is indistinguishable
wishes they did.
#om magic.”
This is an Arthur C. Clarke
AFFORDANCE! so why shouldn’t current
technology intentionally
evoke past magic?

7. Challenges
It’s just a stick.
What kinds of interactions can we
give it without making it seem
technological?
How do we convey detailed info
like SSID?
Do we even want to?

9. Any other magical objects?