In developing the Inner Ear, our goal was to create a ceramic shape that could transform mid-way through the project: from an object capturing vibrations to an object representing vibrations. Our development process balanced considerations around working with clay and electronics, and the logistics of fabricating and deploying these pieces with six households.

After many rounds of ideating, prototyping and testing, we solidified our final shape for the central module. We slip casted the central modules. We assembled the electronics and installed them in the central modules. The electronics include an Arduino, a microphone to capture vibrations, an SD card to record the data, an LED to show when the Inner Ear is recording, and a battery.

Photos: Sketches, Ceramic prototyping and fabrication at Slip Rabbit Studio (including Timea pouring slip out of the large and heavy mold), Electronics prototyping and fabrication at the UW HCDE MakeLab.

We recruited six participating households in the Seattle, USA area.

We dropped off the central modules at their house. Participants collected between five and ten vibration captures over the course of a week.

Participants pressed the surface to start capturing vibrations at a chosen moment. The light turns on and stays on for 15 minutes until  the capture is completed.

Photos: Packing the Inner Ear, the Inner Ear in participant homes (including meeting Simon the cat), Interaction model.

We picked up the Inner Ears from the participants’ homes.

We asked participants to choose only one data capture to materialize, as well as a moment within the 15 minutes of capture that they want to focus on. The small ring represents the whole data capture while the large ring is a zoomed in view of the moment they selected.

We downloaded their data from the SD cards. We prepared their data using a spreadsheet and processed it using a Grasshopper definition to generate a 3D model of the data rings.

We converted the 3D models to 3D printing machine language.

We printed the porcelain rings on the 3D Potterbot clay printer. We fired the rings.

We glued the rings to the central modules.

Photos: Testing data collection, Sketches, Ceramic 3D printing and fit testing at Slip Rabbit Studio, Glueing at Studio Tilt.

We delivered the new Inner Ears to the participants.

They chose what to do with their Inner Ears from that point on. It is theirs to keep.

In June 2023, we hosted a small gathering for participants to meet each other, and meet our team.

Photos: Inner Ears at the garden party, Inner Ears in Katharina and Beth's hands.