KINEIN: A Making Guide on Indefinitely Deploying a Kinetic Display as a Research Product

ABSTRACTLarge-scale kinetic displays have been present for decades, both as mesmerising art installations and as information displays. In this paper we present KINEIN, a kinetic display whose large-scale and indefinite deployment time distinguish it from the prototypical level of HCI research artefacts. It consists of 625 “tiles” or “pixels” mounted on a 25 x 25 matrix and operates through mechanical movement. Instead of a motor rotating each tile individually, KINEIN has a vertical column system that moves tiles sequentially. Situated at the entrance of a learning environment, KINEIN is not only a playful artefact for children to physically interact with, but also the first encounter for the school's visitors. We make use of the pictorial format to illustrate and contribute our Research-through-Design (RtD) process as well as its implications regarding large physical scale and indefinite deployment.