IDEA DESCRIPTION:
It might be odd to think that, nowadays, with all the technology, anything/anyone could prevent
'the lovers' from communicating. Or that their communication might, one day, abruptly stop.
Yet, sadly/inevitably, within couples, we often exhibit poor communication - don't understand each other
(enough or put enough effort into understanding one another). Furthermore, with time/whittling of feelings/whatever,
despite/because of(?) physical proximity, 'real communication' between lovers can, sometimes, decrease to a minimum.
'Spending meaningful time together' is a well-known cure for all of that, which relationship psychologists prescribe.
It all seems to be about organizing those 'connection-moments' for yourselves.
As a designer and human being, I often challenge myself to come up with products/past-times that could provide those
'connection opportunities'. Recently, from all this time in the Fab Lab, I discovered that 'making' something together
is one, very legitimate, way 'of bonding'.
Imagine that, instead of heart-shaped locket/chocolates, you give your 'lover' an 'Infrared Romeo-Juliet Communication Device'
instruction kit and set out a date to come to a makerspace and build it. On the appropriate day, you come together
to engage in a variety of activities - designing, milling, soldering(!) and stuffing PCB boards, trying to program them in Arduino,
encountering 'uploading' problems, consequently, desoldering, rotating resistor/introducing orange jumper wire and soldering again,
finally succeeding and emerging to the light of day, clutching a PCB board between your four hands to, then triumphantly, snap it in half,
run 5 meters away from each other and use buttons to begin/establish the 'real communication'.
I guess being MODERN DAY Romeo and Juliet does have benefits, after all.
PROCESS DESCRIPTION:
FILES:
Arduino sketch for INFRARED ROMEO-JULIET BOARD - here.
PNG of the BOARD's traces - here.
PNG of the BOARD's interior - here.