Digital Seeds
[October 20, 2006 - November 2, 2006]
“Digital seeds” came from an idea I’ve been developing. I call it “embedded knowledge”. Most physical objects have, embedded within them, some kind of knowledge or information that you unlock over time as you manipulate them. It’s like a seed. Think of how many years farmers have spent familiarizing themselves with seeds, and their subtle sensitivity to light, chemicals, water, and different kinds of soil. It is a science, developed from keen observation and experimentation over time. A new topic that came up during my investigations into physical computing was the idea of embedding knowledge into an object; joining together information that may not have previously had a physical connection of any kind. One example of this would be the barcodes that are scanned nearly every time we purchase something. Barcodes are just a simple pattern that when scanned help store & organize digital information related to an item in a store's inventory. This information is in a sense embedded into the object through the barcode.
For this project I decided to experiment with radio frequency ID tags (RFID tags for short) in order to create an example of how information might be embedded into tiny objects that might live in a classroom toy box. I created a little environment where you could place oversized versions of corn, bean and sunflower seeds into tiny planters.
Inside each one was the smallest water-proof radio frequency ID tag I could find. (Hence the jumbo size seeds). In the environment I created, there are 3 little pots that each have a resting place situated underneath a small cloth screen. Each resting place has underneath of it a RFID reader (which reads RFID tags… obviously) and a home-made moisture sensor.
When a seed is place in one of the pots, nothing happens until the seed is watered. After the seed is watered it triggers an animation of the growth cycle of the plant associated with each seed.
It seemingly sprouts out the top of the pot (via aligned projected image). Hence, if you plant and water a corn seed, you see a corn seed grow. After a period of time (programming ticker) the plant dies.
The same is true sunflowers and bean seeds.
If I had unlimited time and energy to devoted to this idea I could see it becoming more than just a fake version of growing seeds. For students, it could be an interface that simulates complex scientific and biological aspects of plant life cycles, accessed all through a tiny seed. Maybe, the amount of water, sunlight, and time of planting could all effect the quality of their plants growth, and they could learn in a simulation where time is accelerated and inter-relationships can be seen and understood with greater simultanaeity.