The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Interaction Design
Image and video from the Singing Sock Puppet site (the image at the top right is a video, and can be seen on that website).
Next!
These are Matt Brown’s Singing Sock Puppets.
They’re like sock puppets, only they sing.
There’s a sensor inside that knows how wide the mouth is. Small like this, they go wah. Then bigger, a higher note: Wah. And bigger still, waaaah.
They can be tuned to different scales, so you can sing the blues or whatever key, you know. Playing with these taught me more about what a blues scale is than anything I’ve read, or seen on TV, or even – I’m afraid – than any of my music teachers at school.
They’re incredibly compelling to use. It feels totally natural to sing along with whatever’s playing. You can see that in the video there, although there’s no sound because I don’t want to be upstaged.
And these are cheap! It’s just a sock! And a flex sensor! And a small amount of electronics.
Cheap, interactive, fun.