The Remote Emote - The world made flesh.

I found an old friend's blog today (one of life's pleasures) and he has been building the most amazing thing at NYU on the ITP program.

The inspiration was from this thing our kids have, and he wondered how you could transmit the pattern and reproduce it elsewhere.

So, he set about building an mechatronic device to do this - you push the shape into one, and it transmits the shift in the pins and reproduces it in another device.

He calls this device the "Remote Emote" and details the design concept here

Dave outlines the final build on his blog here

As he is inventing a new paradigm (and it even shifts), he gets to name the bits. He calls the pins "thixels"

It ties in to a discussion I had with Simon Wardley after his talk at FOWA, about the internet enabling JIT manufacturing of designs close to the point of use.

Its an intriguing idea...I feel there must be loads of applications*, I just can't think of one straight away except maybe as a way of making dies/moulds for manufacturing from shapes pressed in half a world away...thoughts anyone?

* Postscript - asked a few people....cybers*x anyone?