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Red balloon, green balloon, sensors in the sky

Published: 17 September 2011 Publication History
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  • Abstract

    Spectacle computing is a novel strategy for vibrantly projecting information into the public sphere using expressive and tangible media. We demonstrate an example of this computing meme with large, glowing balloons that change color based on input from attached air quality sensors (exhaust, diesel, or volatile organic compounds). In two public installations (city street and public park) and a deployment with six everyday citizens, we invited stakeholders to playfully explore and actively participate in visualizing surrounding air quality. We also created a do-it-yourself (DIY) kit that includes a printed circuit board, electronic parts and instructions for building the air quality balloons. In a workshop, six non-expert users successfully assembled functional balloons, validating our technology as a DIY tool for public air quality visualization. Our deployments and workshop highlight play and spectacle as essential elements for public participation and activism. We outline design guidelines for future spectacle computing projects that engage stakeholders with environmental data and empower them to transform urban landscapes.

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      UbiComp '11: Proceedings of the 13th international conference on Ubiquitous computing
      September 2011
      668 pages
      ISBN:9781450306300
      DOI:10.1145/2030112
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Published: 17 September 2011

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      1. spectacle computing
      2. urban computing

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      • (2024)Toward Accurate Environmental Mapping using Balloon-based UAVs2024 IEEE 21st Consumer Communications & Networking Conference (CCNC)10.1109/CCNC51664.2024.10454723(135-142)Online publication date: 6-Jan-2024
      • (2023)Sustainable HCI Under Water: Opportunities for Research with Oceans, Coastal Communities, and Marine SystemsProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581291(1-16)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
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