Dear younger Me

If you were given a window into the past, what would you say to yourself?

Overview

Dear Younger Me is an interactive window installation designed, built, and exhibited with collaborators Sam Chasan and Tong Wu. The piece invites people to share their joy, their love, their advice, their regrets, and their heartbreak with their younger selves via text message. Each message is printed out onto a continuous feed of paper, slowly filling the window and allowing passersby to read messages others have sent to themselves.

A live, searchable archive of every message sent to Dear Younger Me is available online at www.dearyounger.me. All code for the project is available under the MIT Creative Commons license on Github.

Shown At

ITP Pop Up Windows

ITP Winter Show 2018

FABRICATION

Dear Younger Me is a 8’ x 5’ frame of 2”x4” studs covered with 1/4” plywood. A space was cut for an oversized mailbox with a hand router, and the mailbox was cut to size with an electric nibbler. The children silhouettes were milled from birch plywood on a TechnoRouter CNC before being painted black, fitted with RGB LEDs, and mounted to the flat. The entire flat was primed and painted with latex paint. The lettering was laser cut from two layers of foam core and painted with latex paint.

Software Development

Primarily development for Dear Younger Me was done in Python 3. MySQL and Arduino C++ were also used to control various elements of the installation. All code for the project is available under the MIT Creative Commons license on Github.

TOOLKIT

  • Arduino

  • Python 3

  • MySQL

  • Twilio

  • AWS

  • Illustrator

  • PHP

  • JQuery & Ajax

  • HTML & CSS

  • Vectorworks

  • MasterCAM

  • Techno CNC Router

BILL OF MATERIALS

  • Arduino Nano

  • RGB leds (ws2812b)

  • P95 light diffusing acrylic

  • (10x) 2’ x 4’ studs

  • Birch/luan plywood

  • Foam core

  • Latex paint

CATEGORIES

  • Interaction design

  • Physical computing

  • 3D design & printing

  • Web design & development

  • Woodworking

  • Digital fabrication

  • Installation

My role

  • Concept creation

  • Interaction design

  • Software development

  • Web development

  • Woodworking

  • Digital fabrication