Physical Computing Projects

CIID House Radio

We live in a time when there are infinite avenues for audio content consumption. While this is a great thing, people no longer know what their friends or coworkers are listening to. Moreover, the shared listening platform that the common radio provided is gone.

Inspired by the common radio, the CIID House Radio is a user-curated house radio that can air multiple media content: songs, news, podcasts or announcements. The content is taken in from CIID students and staff to provide a shared listening experience and an opportunity for discovery and new conversation. The device is made to reside in a communal space and air at a specific time every day so people can listen around it and hopefully recreate that lost, shared platform.

The form of the device was inspired by old-time radios giving it a unique aesthetic. To transfer content, the team designed plug-and-play devices (based on USB technology) affectionately calling them ‘Jack’. Jack gives you the ability to load and record content seamlessly. The LED lights are programmed to make the interaction and the visual display intuitive and aesthetically pleasing. The Jacks were made colorful to deliberately give the device a playful vibe.

Prototyping tools like Arduino and Processing were used for programming the electronic components. The team used multiple softwares and the laser cutter for the construction of the radio box and Jack.