General Description

Whether marveling at the size of a sting ray’s wings at an aquarium or admiring your own pet goldfish in its simple round bowl, fish tanks are wonderful things to observe. Specifically, the varied colors, shapes, and textures of fish and other tank life are aesthetically pleasing and positively contribute to the ambiance of a room. While traditional fish tanks are designed for observation rather than interaction, in our tangible user interface midterm assignment we hope to design a fish tank that also supports interaction.

We have come up with three ideas as to how to create a fish tank that supports interaction as well as traditional observation. They include:

Idea 1: A miming fish

This fish tank consists of two identical fish, one that is interacted with outside the tank and the other resides within the tank. The former acts as the interaction input: people play with the fish and it remembers and transmits its movement to the other fish. The later acts as the interaction output: the fish receives the input and replays these movements of the other fish. While this idea is similar to the curly bot-esquefish, its advantage is that people don't have to continuously place it in and take it out of the tank. And this fish token resembles a distant embodiment, rather than the full embodiment token of a Curly Bot toy.

Idea 2: A "smart" fish

This fish tank consists of one smart fish (as well as a smart tank.) The tank acts as the interaction input and the fish acts as the interaction output. For example, someone might tap on the tank and the fish will hide in its home (such as a shell or castle accessory). Or someone might say the fish's name, the tank will recognize it, and the fish will swim to the top of the tank. Other environmental inputs might include light, movement, or other forces to the water or tank.

Idea 3: A curly bot-esque fish

This tank consists of one fish. This fish acts as both the interaction input and output. For example, someone might remove the fish from the tank and move it around. The fish then remembers this movement and the person places the fish back into the tank, the fish will replay this movement. Because our third idea resembles the Curly Bot interaction and output, it might not be as ideal as ideas one and two.

We are open to any suggestions regarding other interactions and features and are considering combining different features of the proposed ideas. Also, it's important to mention that our different fish variations utilize fake fish.

Implementation Ideas

And it might be necessary to use a non-conductive liquid instead of water for the fish tank. This presents additional problems, the properties ofthe non-conductive liquid may very well be different than that ofwater.

Materials for the tank