Craig Pickard

Digital Fabric began as a way to explore the materiality of the physical world in a digital space.  The textile-based interface is comprised of an interactive surface that sits atop an ergonomically designed frame.  The user is able to interact with the piece of digital fabric by manipulating the physical fabric interface.  In much the same way that a piece of fabric is woven from elasticized fibres, the digital fabric connects a two-dimensional grid of nodes using computational springs.  A graphical user interface built-into the program allows me to change the properties of these springs and thus influence the behavior of the digital fabric. 

Tilt is the combination of a Tangible User Interface (TUI) and gaming platform.  We wanted to find a unique way of combining physical interaction with a digital game.  The idea was inspired by the old wooden labyrinth games that required the player to roll a ball bearing through a maze by tilting it along the X and/or Y axis..  To do this digitally would've been relatively easy to achieve using modern devices like smartphones and tablets, given the multitude of built-in sensors, but we wanted the project to have a more authentic arcade-type feel.  

Mechanical Bird was my first attempt at designing and building a kinetic sculpture.  Each wing uses a four-bar linkage to create the flapping motion.  The four-bars are each driven by a 24-tooth gear, which are in turn driven by a chain-drive system. A 12V DC gearhead motor, fixed to the base of the sculpture, drives the system.  Before beginning fabrication, I modeled the structure and mechanisms using Solidworks, then used an Epilog 75W lasercutter to cut out the frame from 1/8" plywood.  

The Instagram TUI is a physical interface for interacting with your Instagram feed. The images from your profile are projected onto the interface and touching each image allows you to zoom in and out of the image.  Two separate IR sensors allow you to seamlessly swipe your hand left or right through the air, cycling through your images.

During the summer of 2015 I was extremely fortunate in that I got to work with some fantastic people over at a startup called Arable Labs, inc.  During my time there, I designed and built a low-cost syringe pump for the purposes of testing some equipment.  The pump is controlled by an Arduino Uno, for which I custom-built a shield for the Schmalz Haus stepper driver, and uses the Arduino IDE's serial monitor to input values.  The pump itself is driven by a 12V NEMA-17 stepper motor, which turns the lead screw and drives the gantry forward or backward - this is in turn attached to the plunger of a laboratory-grade microliter syringe that contains the fluid.  The pump was designed using Solidworks and was cut from ABS plastic using a laser cutter.

As part of my Master's at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, I took a class called 'Homemade Hardware' that focused on the design and fabrication of custom circuitboards. Often using existing opensource hardware, such as the Arduino, and various breakout boards from companies like SparkFun and Adafruit, I designed and fabricated my own circuitboards. I utilized two different methods: acid etching, and CNC milling and placed the SMT components using a manual pick-n-place machine.  All circuits were designed using the freeware EAGLE PCB design software.