Purpose
The abacus (plural abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool that was in use in Europe, China and Russia, centuries before the adoption of the written Hindu–Arabic numeral system and is still used by merchants, traders and clerks in some parts of Eastern Europe, Russia, China and Africa.------ from wikipedia. As a Chinese, I was learning abacus when I was at elementary school. However, abacus was going to disappear from the education after that, and the usage of abacus is less and less. You can still find a few who play abacus quite fluently and the performance when they play abacus at my sight really interest me a lot.
In this project, I want to design a interactive installation based on the algorithm of Chinese Modern Abacus, which has one bead on each rod in the upper deck and four beads each in the bottom for decimal computation.
As a tool, abacus is a tool to calculate and store data before the appearance of Arabic numbers and calculation. However, in our digital lab platform, I want to design a interactive installation simulating the algorithm of abacus to achieve the purposes below:
1: Pattern Cognition: Understanding the numbers due to the patterns of abacus(Not calculation).
2. Experience Cognition: An interactive experience in relation to the sound of abacus beads and the behavior of fingers.
3. Data into human performance: Through the design of beads and interactive behavior, this installation will reveal the updating data of visitors' interference instead of only numbers changing.
Interactive Process
The interactive experience plays the key role to achieve the purpose listed, and two most importance factors are:
Beads: The "beads" are key symbols in the outlook of this installation. I want to use objects which can straightly represent what human beings are in our normal life. Hence, when visitors play with the "beads" in our digital platform, they will realize what this installation reveals actually is about the adapting data of humans which is stored and calculated in a way of how abacus works. So, I come out several ideas which can be representative of humans in some certain aspects:
- Perfume -Alcohol bottle -Boxing glove -Toilet paper
Experience: The experience through interactive process can be revealed in several aspects when it's comparing to the experience of playing abacus.
- order-sequence movement of "beads" - sound feedback - cognition between pattern and numbers