This was a student-led project designed to explore the overuse of technology in modern society. This mug has been repurposed and coded to track how many sips the user takes per beverage. The idea behind its creation was to demonstrate how today’s society introduces unnecessary technology into everyday life.
The travel bit mug indicates how many sips have been taken through red strip lights. The technology that was used to create this was a TinyDuino. The mug is painted black with ink however when hot liquid is poured into it the ink clears and reveals the code that was used to create it.
I like the theory behind the creation of this project and personally believe it fulfills its job of demonstrating how society creates technology which isn’t always necessary but can be advertised in such a way that people feel that it is. For instance, Apple’s reengineering of the watch with the release of the Apple Watch, which keeps the same basic functionalities of a watch, but also adds other applications such as fitness trackers and social media integration. I think the Travel Bit Mug acts as a good eye-opener and conversation starter on the topic of over-engineering and unnecessary technologies. This project has opened my eyes to the understanding of how old products can be reused. From looking into this product I have also learned about the TinyDuino, which is similar to the regular Arduino however, it is much smaller and compact.
Here are some photo of the finished product;
Here is the original post about the project;
Materialising Digital Culture 