Sensor Squid Sparks Student Sharing

Call it "tangible interface design," "interactive tactile collaboration," "computer-human interaction" designed to enable "creativty interventions," what have you. By any name, Archie the Sensor Squid is a six-foot-long cotton and polyester-stuffed replica of a squid-like creature with a wireless input device that allows students at Arizona State University (ASU) to collectively operate a computer controls in its tentacles (all 10 of them). Archie -- based on the genus of a giant squid, Architeuthis (greek for "chief squid") -- is the brainchild of Becky Stern and Lisa Tolentino, students in a new media arts and sciences doctoral program offered through Arts, Media & Engineering (AME), a joint program of ASU’s engineering and arts schools. “It’s like a shared computer mouse that several people can use together,” Stern said. Archie facilitates goals of AME: to make technology people-friendly, to increase community awareness through media technology and to inspire constructive interaction and creativity. “Nobody has complete control, so it makes us develop working relationships and learn team decision-making,” Stern said. The AME students are using Archie to update each other on their research projects.