Synesthetic Dice: Sensors, Actuators, And Mappings

Abstract: How bright can you cry? How loud does the sun shine? We developed a multisensory and multimodal tool, the Loaded Dice, for use in co-design workshops to research the design space of IoT usage scenarios. The Loaded Dice incorporate the principle of a technical synesthesia, being able to map any of the included sensors to any of the included actuators. With just a turn of one of the cubical devices it is possible to create a new combination. We discuss the core principles of the Loaded Dice, what sensors and actuators are included, how they relate to human senses, and how we realized a meaningful mapping between sensors and actuators. We further discuss where we see additional potential in the Loaded Dice to support synesthetic exploration - as Synesthetic Dice - so that you can eventually find out who cries brighter.