Overview

Tito’s Rube Goldberg Machine

Built as a part of a traveling exhibit,

VirtuOso connects to a drawing app that charges your vibrator while you make art. The longer you doodle, draw, or write using the app, the longer you can use your virtuOso vibe! You can also set your virtuOso to 'live mode' for instant positive reinforcement as you make art ;)

With virtuOso, you align the body's built-in reward system with making art. By autonomously—and autonomically— triggering reward for creativity, it becomes more tangible, achievable, and frequent. The more practice, the more pleasure!

My role

This project was a collaboration with Gabriella Garcia who let the idea development, video, design. I was the creative technologist on the project and was responsible for the creative development, technical direction, fabrication and programming of the vibrator.

Team

Gabriella Garcia

Key Technologies

Arduino

Javascript, HTML, CSS.

Exhibits

Virtuoso was show-cased at the NYU ITP Spring show 2019.

How it works

Full demo video.

In its current iteration of the device, it has 2 modes:

• Charging mode: The device reacts to using an MSPaint-style sketch via the USB port and time spent drawing with the app is converted into minutes of use on the device. For every 10 minutes spent on the app, the device can run for a minute.
• Live Mode: The device triggers the vibration motors and LEDs while the paint app is being used.

Project Documentation.