Tangible Interfaces and Language

What is a tangible interface that would communicate the idea of structure and language?

Lego pieces - relates to building and people can immediately identify with it.
Jigsaw/tetris pieces - Also relate to building and jumbling or re-arranging things.

That way these pieces could be scrambled around so that users can play with words and how these words are used in sentences.

Another way to go about it is to have an "alphabet soup" of letters.

I forsee some problems with these ideas though, they do not seem "mobile" enough and seem quite restrictive to me. I would have to work on these ideas more to make them more mobile. Also, if I am dealing with communication, maybe I do not need to use language at all.

Using Text with RFID

One of my idea developments on using RFID:

Using text to display words where people can make sentences in public using their RFID tags. It would be similar to Magnetic Poetry. Certain values could be assigned to certain letters. It would be like creating messages on city walls, that people can pass to one another.

The playability of words and what would draw people towards it and what would make it more exciting would be areas worth doing research on. Is it fun? Is it the best way to go about it?

Thoughts on Interactive Entertainment

This are some notes I took from a talk I attended at Games Conference Asia. Thought it might be useful in my project development. Talk was given by Steve Schnur, from EA

Interactive entertainment is about spreading information, exposure to new things in a fun and non painful manner. Even if you are using a virtual environment, the user should somehow relate it to the real world, even if it is highly abstracted.

Interaction is an essential communication tool and it is key that we maximise the user's experience.

Electricity and power in straight grids

This picture was taken along a stretch of road at Changi, near the airport, quite late at night. It reminded me of the importance of grid structures in cities or cityscapes.

RFID Tagging

A non visual form of tracking
In all new passports
In most cityscapes it used. E.g, ERP
We have not used RFID for anything that is playful or away from it's "business" use as yet.

I could either:
Use the RFID reader and read in RFID tags belonging to users
or
have 1 RFID reader and multiple tags of my own.

Maybe create a social interface, or a "social RFID parasite" in the city