Platz! | Idea 2: Der Lehrstuhl a.k.a. Sitting Pretty

Before you sit down, the chair appears normal. After taking the seat, the chair back reacts to your posture immediatly. If you sit down bent forward, the chair back flaps onto your back. It presses your body a little, so that you don’t feel comfortable in that position.

When you move backwards, the chair back reduces the pressure. If you are in a straight position now, the chair back is also upright without pressing your back. If you attempt to lean back, the chair back also moves backwards, always keeping a little distance to your body. In this way you are continuously invited to take a healthly, straight posture, as long as you want to sit most comfortably.

Platz! | Idea 3: The aging Chair

The longer you sit on the chair, the more sensitive it reacts on slight movements of the sitting person and plays back some creaking sounds. Changes of pressure and tension become directly audible. Movements on the chair are proportionally translated into sound. It can be irritating as well as be fun to torture little herman.

Platz! | Idea 4: The fake

I got it all wrong. Herman can only be the idea of a chair, if you expect it to be one. This idea plays with that. At the first glance, Herman appears to be a properly solid chair, but when you sit down, you feel the thruth. The material suddenly starts to bend and go down to the ground.

No sensors and no electronics are needed for this modification. just a little replacement of materials and a few springs.

Platz! | Idea 5: The Embarrassment

When you sit down and touch the chair back, a lamp which is mounted under the chair lights up. The stronger you lean back, the brighter the light becomes. This should be a very simple and easy to learn principle, that invites you to play with it.

Having reached a certain level of brightness, the light suddenly flashes up and you hear the sound of a blow. Now the light is off and you can see or smell a little smoke coming up from under the chair. The system won’t work any more for a few minutes making you believe you destroyed it.

Platz! | Longing for smoke

Thanks to Niklas i went to Conrad and got myself this Mini Zero Blaster. The package promises to “shoot real fog rings”. Well, in a way, it does, but you better watch it yourself:

Platz! | Hot wire experiments

In order to produce a disgusting smell, Karl-Heinz advised me to burn some PE plastic. Now i did this amazing experiment, which reminded me of school lessons in physics. Well, i guess this part should be rather easy.

Platz! | Final presentation

Brandnew photos from the presentation of our short-term semester project, the extended Herman chairs.

The documentation of my little Herman is coming up.

Platz! | Documentation video

Idea

The task was to create an interactive extension for a simple Ikea chair. Why not extend it with a practical light source mounted below the seat? The interaction is based on a simple priciple: When you sit down and touch the chair back, the lamp lights up. The stronger you lean back, the brighter the light becomes.

After some time of relaxation, the unexpected happens: it goes bang and the light flashes up. Now the light is off and you can see smoke coming up from under the chair, spreading an unpleasant smell. The system won’t work any more for a few minutes making you believe you destroyed it. The electronical extension ironically becomes an end in itself.

Documentation video

[quicktime width=”300″ height=”240″]https://www.markuslerner.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2004/05/2004-11-08_herman_docu_320px.mp4[/quicktime]

Technical dokumentation

» Extensive technical description