Connect

Connecting communities through ridiculous Internet of Things devices

About Connect

Connect began as a partnership between NUSTEM at Northumbria University and the Life Science Centre, both in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. Funding was agreed in very late 2019 from the North of Tyne Combined Authority (now the North East Combined Authority). Agreed as a two-year project in late 2019, most project workshops actually occurred in the year to July 2023. That pesky pandemic again.

In Connect workshops, family groups tinker with mechanisms, craft materials, servo motors, microcontrollers and code. They’re challenged to build an internet-connected mechatronic device – we call them puppets – which exchanges simple mood messages with all the other puppets in the system. In response to those mood messages each puppet performs a routine of movements. It might express happiness, or sadness, or… love?

The puppets might be simple, decorative, silly, expressive… we provide a kit of parts, and families decide how they’ll use them.

In building the puppets together, we:

Explore how digital making can be self-expressive.
Work through difficulties and failures, in both physical and digital spaces.
Work inter-generationally, to build a memorable family experience.
Think about how groups of people connect and form communities.
Discuss personal information and safety issues in a world of ever-increasing connectedness.
Get crafty with cardboard and – let’s be honest – make ridiculous-looking things with googly eyes.

The end?

After 160 families and 31 workshops the initial incarnation of Connect is now complete, with more than 200 puppets constructed. We are not, however, finished. The project infrastructure remains online (the messaging broker and programming server), and Connect puppets continue to talk to each other.

Not the end

As of summer 2024 our plans are somewhat fluid, but include:

Restarting workshops. This is a question of ‘how many?’ – discussions are underway with potential funders.
Academic research. There are several aspects of Connect and its approach we wish to explore more formally. Included in this is a funded PhD studentship, starting late 2024/early 2025.
Publication of code libraries. Notably, the servo animation system, which exists as an Arduino library. It’s at once decidedly rough and also heavily tested (by a hundred nine year-olds). A MicroPython reimplementation is even less polished, but functional.
We’re keen to continue the thinking and approach of Connect, to deepen our understanding of computational tinkering.

If you’d like to discuss any of these directions, please do contact us: jonathan.sanderson@northumbria.ac.uk.