Phase 2!

photo of Team Compass H2O's Third Place prize in the Extreme Wearables Designathon at Media Design Practices, Art Center, South Campus, Wind Tunnel, Sunday June 29, 2014

We’re presenting at WearableTechLA on Th, July 17!

Congratulations Team Compass H2O! We won 3rd place and we’re pitching at WearableTechLA on Th, July 17!

What’s the next gen for us?

Are we cleaning up what we’ve got? Or doing a complete new push? Are we working each at our own locations? Or getting together? Do we have any further support at the Wind Tunnel? Syuzi made a casual comment at the after party about all the new development we’d be doing. I imagine we might be hearing from someone at XWD / MDP about what we should be planning… but we should also think for ourselves on where we’d like to go.

Jury Feedback

Natalia Fedner clasps Compass H2O wristband to Juror Maggie Hendrie's wrist after the project presentations at Extreme Wearables Designathon presentations at Art Center, Media Design Practices, Wind Tunnel, Sunday June 29, 2014

Natalia attaches Compass H2O to Maggie Hendrie’s wrist.

Team Compass H2O had 2 opportunities to speak with the jurors. After the presentations they came by our design area, looked at the device and discussed it with us. And after the awards they gave us their feedback on our product. Based on their questions and feedback it seems that Maggie Hendrie may have been the juror most interested in Compass H2O. Maggie loved the wayfinding potential of our device, but was skeptical of the specific find water use. She felt that in the developing world the issue wasn’t really finding your way to clean water, but not having clean water at all. And in the developed world she didn’t see that many occasions when you’d really need to know where the water was.

* Sensing your body state is really interesting
* But being Super-Fitbit is not so interesting
* The wrist is going to become an increasingly valuable piece of real estate
* Wayfinding is really interesting

What Now?

Image of a participant in a Janet Cardiff walk holding a photo of a city at an earlier time, up against the present day city, wearing headphones, and walking forward.

Visitor on a Janet Cardiff alternative narrative walking / wayfinding tour

The good news about Maggie & The Jurors “freeing” us from our developing world use case is that it probably was a stretched vision. It was a real need. Extreme. But a compass probably wasn’t the solution. The bad news about letting that vision go is that it puts us back to Saturday morning and our many uses conversations. Sharon, Vivia, I, and others of us had a variety of Social Compass activities, like use for the blind, National Park tours, and Cemetery exploration games. In helping us on Saturday morning, Magdalena Paluch offered a wayfinding idea that if you’re visiting a new city you might like to access the past wayfinding experience of a friend or other interesting person. No doubt someone’s already created a Leopold Bloom in Dublin wayfinding experience (from James Joyce’s novel Ulysses)

We know Google Glass has played with Social Compass ideas. Thoughs about Museum Audio Tours and Janet Cardiff counterfactual walking tours also come to mind.

The Question

Will we polish what we’ve got and present it on July 17?

Or let go of Water Finding and back our process out to Needs again in a new development?

Please share your thoughts in comments on this post, or in new posts.