Pop-Sci Core77 Design Challenge S p e e d - 1/20/03

Description of Design

Speed is a very relative concept, but is always related to a pair of factors –at least for human perception-: sound and movement. Based on this we designed an object which recreates the sensation of speed. Beat is the name of the product (a jacket). Beat is a system based on 3 technologies: Electrotextiles, Mp3 player, and flexible screens. All this work together in order to create a sports jacket which transmits the notion of speed to his user. We create this notion by stimulating your natural heartbeats and biorhythm, the basic concept is simple Beat stimulates your body and your mind with a repetitive low impact pressing effect on your chest and back (provided by an electrotextile which contracts and distends itself with an electric signal) and in order to reinforce this effect Beat has a Mp3 player/fm tuner with earphones -completely integrated in the jacket- which automatically or manually plays a selection of music chosen according the rhythm you stipulated for the pressing effect. The operation of Beat Is quite simple, you have a section of jacket arm that works as a touchpad (you can block the left or the right one to use only the one which fit you best) this area can be used as the same way as the traditional touchpad for laptops, you have a small display that show you the essential information, like clock, alarm, chronometer, Mp3/tuner, and rhythm set. To set your rhythm you just need to touch the pad some times to record it, just the same way which a drum player marks the rhythm for the rest of the band. As a sports jacket Beat is think to keep fresh his user, we use for this goal advanced textiles like Gore-Tex. Other advanced textiles are used to transmit the data in the jacket and as input zone (the touchpad).