From 22nd - 23rd September I’ll be exhibiting DON-8r at the Designersblock Exhibition in the Farmiloe building in Clerkenwell (if you’re in town come and say hi - I’ll be there in the evenings and weekend). I am exhibiting along with some other folk who have uploaded their work to design portfolio site Arts thread so off the back of that they gave me a quick interview about DON-8r, robots and gamification - here’s a copy/paste of it:
Tim Pryde’s DON-8r robot proved a huge hit at New Designers this July and we are thrilled to see the University of Dundee graduate as one of the ten designers selected for Designersblock from the ARTS THREAD site. With less than a week to go, we caught up with Tim to hear all the latest news on the robot charity worker.
ARTS THREAD: What will you be showing at DESIGNERSBLOCK?
Tim Pryde: I will be exhibiting my charity aiding robot, DON-8r. Each coin donated to DON-8r not only helps activate it for a short length of time but also goes towards supporting an affiliated charity. I hope to use the exhibition as an opportunity for DON-8r to raise money for The Pluto Appeal.
ARTS THREAD: Your ‘DON-8r’ project gained quite a lot of international attention since your degree show, what’s the current status of this project?
TP: I have recently been exhibiting DON-8r in Aarhus, Denmark as part of the NEXT technology exhibition and festival. This gave me the opportunity for DON-8r to appear live on national Danish TV!
I have also received interest from charities including The Science Museum for exhibitions later in the year. DON-8r is still only a one-off prototype model, however I plan to seek funding to further the design and produce more.
ARTS THREAD: You seem to have a love for robotics – where did this passion first spawn from?
TP: As I child I played a lot with LEGO, often making robots using their ‘Mindstorms’ kit. I loved how robots could perform such specifically intricate tasks, however I was never really drawn towards the notion of creating highly autonomous and intelligent robots.
Kacie Kinzer’s Tweenbots are a great example of what I find interesting with robotics – they are robots but very much human reliant ones. This dependency on human interaction from an object is what inspired DON-8r – I felt that it very much related to the dependencies charities also have from human support.
AT: Your work touches on engaging the public, via gamification, is this something you would like to explore further?
TP: My DON-8r project, in particular, began with research, culminating in a dissertation exploring the potential for learning through video games and gamification. This led through a few projects into how I could use game dynamics as a means to support a good cause.
What I have come to learn is that gamification is something which is widely touted by many who don’t quite understand good games. (Margaret Robertson of Hide&Seek game design studio has a great post on what she calls ‘pointification’ which pretty much sums up my gripes with gamification).
My interest in gamification is to look at it as a process rather than an outcome – the outcome should be something fun and engaging, inspired by games but not necessarily a game. I am very keen to further explore this area as a means to explore how we interact with products, objects and digital technologies.
ARTS THREAD: What else are you currently working on?
TP: Currently I am working at Mint Digital, designing physical objects that help to enhance our interaction with the internet and other digital technologies.