For my final Making Furniture Interactive project, I planned to create an ambient door with RFID. But after a week, my enthusiasm for the project began to wane. Because it was a concept for my service class, it felt too practical, and didn’t make me excited to work on it. Also, I had desires to make a more emotional project: an object personified.

However, I did kind of get an RFID reader working. My teacher let me borrow a Phidgets RFID reader to play around with. It works, but I don’t have it connected to any software, so it doesn’t do much.

But I do feel like I made some progress, so I plan to stick with RFID. Instead of the door, I now plan to build a desk lamp that activates via RFID only to the owner of the lamp. I’d then like to use muscle wire to wake up the lamp and have the bulb look up as if greeting the owner. Perhaps there would asleep be a sleep behavior when it turns off. The idea is to have it exhibit behavior that may create a greater attachment with its owner.

But first, I’ll have to see what the teacher says…