Rob Faludi

This active photo collage hangs on the wall near a computer workspace. It displays pictures that are dependent upon the current contents of the user’s email inbox, conveying general information about email in a calm manner, that does not interrupt other tasks.

Users will receive information regarding message senders, message aging, whether messages have been read, what categories they fall into and what threaded relationships exist between the messages. For class I made this presentation.

This assignment was to create a model for a single elevator (not a system of elevators) that would serve a 1000 floor building.

Current Elevator Model:

1. Elevator makes all requested stops in one direction at a time, then reverses and makes all the stops in the other direction.

2. The UP and DOWN buttons on each floor stops the elevator on that floor when it is traveling in the corresponding direction.

3. Floor buttons inside the car select stops at each floor, typically the next time the car passes that floor.

4. Floors that are not selected are skipped.

5. All selections are irreversible.

6. Elevators issue an alert as they arrive at each requested floor.

7. Car displays current floor.

Given a building that’s two miles high, with only one elevator and 1000 individual floors, the current model would clearly create a system that would immediately overload. All floors would be requested at all times, and the 20 second trip (estimated from single sample research) from one floor means that a single round trip would take slightly over 11 hours. The only possible model for such a system would be an airline model, using a hub and spoke system The elevator would take all passengers to the ground floor (or a sky lobby) floor on a scheduled basis. Then when that floor was loaded, all passengers would be redistributed to their destinations. Without mathematical modeling it is impossible to predict the best schedule, but here we assume that the elevator would serve 25 floors at a time, in order.

1000 Floor Elevator Model

1. Elevator makes scheduled stops only.

2. Each floor displays a schedule of service for that floor, typically two per day.

3. Outside of emergency controls, there would be no floor selection system inside the car, which would make only scheduled stops, like a train.

4. Elevators issue an alert well before they arrive at each floor, and again at arrival, similar to platform announcements in a train station.

5. Car displays upcoming and current floor

I’ve sketched the interior view of the 1000 floor elevator car.

This is a first-draft prototype of a slider control for a shower. The control is intended to move easily between warm and cool, with a double-reversal of direction required to select very hot or very cold water. The control utilizes some fundamental interactive properties. Water temperature is mapped to up and down, and constrained from accidentally entering unintended extreme regions. However it does break the cultural convention of having hot water on the left. For a revised version, I would follow the convention, and also add icons with conventional red and blue coloring. It would be interesting to test whether the knob could successfully act as a multi-function control to regulate water volume. My hunch is that it would be superior to have a second control instead, perhaps a lever that moved up and down. The prototype was fashioned with wood using a scroll saw and with a stereo knob on a screw using washers to help it slide.