Robotic Wall Knows What You Want

Writing by Evan Ackerman on Monday, 9 of November , 2009 at 1:44 am

Walls. They’re all around you. They keep your roof from falling on your head, they keep your neighbors from seeing you naked, and they’re convenient to hang stuff on. But give them a little bit of articulation and a little bit of intelligence and they can be so much more. The Animated Work Environment Project aims to drag the carpeted cubicle wall kicking and screaming into the future with a dynamic system of interconnected robotic panels that automatically configure themselves into a variety of different workspaces, including my favorite workspaces of all: lounging and gaming.

This wall is not just reconfigurable, it’s actually smart enough to pay attention to what you’re doing and react accordingly. Stand up, and the wall will move itself out of the way, and the entire system of panels can be tweaked just by gesturing at proximity sensors. While AWE is designed primarily for work environments, I can’t imagine any reason (besides cost, of course) that it wouldn’t be valuable in your living room, as well. Multitasking and efficiency are getting more and more important these days, and if you can get a wall to make more efficient use of the space that it takes up, so much the better… I just hope that I’d be able to convince this thing to lay itself down nice and flat so that I can add my own customized “nap” workspace.

[ AWE Project ] VIA [ IEEE ]

Comments (4)

Category: Transforming

Add this post to

Del.icio.us -

Digg

4 Comments

Comment by Steven

Made Monday, 9 of November , 2009 at 11:28 am

OK, so the basic concept is almost intriguing, but what on earth are the top four panels for. The only useful things going on in the video only concern the bottom two panels. I just don’t understand how a wall that can curl around over your head can add anything to the computing experience…

Comment by classy

Made Monday, 9 of November , 2009 at 5:32 pm

kinda stupid

Comment by Evan Ackerman

Made Monday, 9 of November , 2009 at 6:09 pm

@Steven

I think the idea is that the rear panels that go over your head and behind you could contain a projector, or rear channel surround sound speakers. Most of the time, they’re not things that you need behind you unless you want to watch a movie or play a game, at which point you’d select “game mode” and the wall would reposition itself.

Comment by Spikey DaPikey

Made Tuesday, 10 of November , 2009 at 2:45 pm

Wonder if it’ll squash you like a bug when it goes rogue !!