This is an overview of all who were involved in the neXus project. The neXus duo-device is the end result of Pieter Diepenmaat's master thesis project in Industrial Design Engineering at Hewlett Packard Labs and the IDStudiolab at Delft Technical University.
Take a look at a photos from
the neXus project.
This website provides an overview of the neXus project - Pieter Diepenmaat's 2006 master thesis project in Industrial Design Engineering at Hewlett Packard Labs and the IDStudiolab at Delft Technical University.
For his master thesis project in 2006, Pieter Diepenmaat developed the ‘neXus’; the worlds first dedicated location based gaming device concept at HP–Lab’s ‘Mobile and Media Systems Lab’. The neXus duo-device consists of a hand controller and a pair of headphones and is used by players to play physical mixed reality games. By using 3D audio, tactile feedback and playful gestural interaction the neXus allows a running player to navigate and manipulate both the physical and virtual part of the game world at the same time. In doing so it merges these two halves into one world and provides the player with a truly mixed reality experience. HP-Labs is currently prototyping this near future concept for further technical and user experience research. More information, including the concept video and HP-tech report, is available at pieterdiepenmaat.nl/nexus.
download the thesis as a HP Technology Report: 'neXus - designing a dedicated mediascape device'
After finding his love for conceptual interaction design with the award winning Gustbowl and honing his skills working on 'new ways of using sound in Windows' as an intern at Microsoft's MSX team, Pieter joined Hewlett Packard Labs Mobile and Media Systems Lab about a Master thesis project.
The assignment was to 'Research the design implications of current mediascape research on a dedicated mediascape device’. Pieter moved to Bristol to start the project at HP-Labs Europe, by researching mixed reality experiences. With the outcomes of his research and the first design iterations of what would become the neXus, he returned to Delft. He set up his workspace at the id-studiolab to integrate his ideas on the different aspects of location based game experiences in the neXus concept.
With the neXus design, including game concepts, finished on paper, Pieter looked for ways to allow people to experience important parts of this design. Unfortunately, due to time constrains prototyping was not an option. Therefore he decided to communicate his vision as clearly as he could using video. The result of which you can see in the video section of this website.
The neXus project, including the thesis booklet, the presentations in Delft and Bristol and the concept video was rewarded with a score of 8.5 (out of 10) and earned Pieter the title of Master of Science in Industrial Design Engineering.
Pieter Diepenmaat currently works as a freelance industrial designer form Rotterdam. His company pieter diepenmaat design collaborates with clients to develop current day interactive products as well as tangible concepts to understand potential future user experiences.
The HP Labs Mobile & Media Systems Lab is creating next-generation mobile & media experiences and developing the enabling technologies to make them real. They focus on communication, collaboration, and gaming. Their researchers (M&Ms) have expertise in experience design, media, networking, security, mobility, sensor, web, and device technologies and are located in the US, Japan, and England. They collaborate with industrial, academic, and business partners, and we create strategic linkages between our collaborators in the context of mobile and media experiences and technologies.
ID-StudioLab is a community of researchers, teachers and students, who share a focus on designing for user experiences. The aim of ID-StudioLab is to promote connections between people and projects within the faculty in the field of user experience.
ID-StudioLab's key ingredients are Design, Build, and Search. Design stands for our commitment to research that benefits designers, and to designer-related types of research. Search expresses the aim to find new insights, theories and guidelines. Build stands for the emphasis on realising experimental prototypes as a way to place hypotheses and theories in the concrete world of user experience.
Research at ID-StudioLab encompasses topics of experience-centred design such as the senses, emotions, intelligence, and inspiration. More precisely, projects in the lab address the product user's senses, emotions, the product's possible intelligence, and the designer's inspiration.
Several research groups from the Industrial Design Department joined to start ID-StudioLab, which is above all an informal forum in which staff, students, and friends share insights, skills, knowledge, and less goal-directed activities.
More about the ID-StudioLab can be found on its website
Workshop movement in Location Based Games (LBG) facilitated by Sietske Klooster.
Thank you to all who participated: Dennis Luijer, Anna , Masja Notenboom, Wouter van der Hoog, Joep Klabbers.
Workshop, facilitated by Wouter van der Hoog, to develop multiple LBG concept that make full use of the technological possibilities in 5 years time.
Thank you to all who participated: Coen Neesen, Jon Assink, Arnout Peeters, Jonas Piet, Joep Klabbers, Johan Landt.
Making a concept video takes a lot of preporation (although lego story boards speed up the process), but the fun starts when the cast and crew assembles and the shooting starts. So thank you to all involved in the making of the neXus concept video:
staring (in order of appearance):
Fay 'feme fatale virtuelle' van der Wall, Wouter 'highscore' van der Hoog , Vanessa 'bold gestures' Bellaar Spruijt, Joep 'killer mouse' Klabbers, Maarten 'the beast' Bekx, Olger 'shining' Star
stunt car driver:
Wouter 'Sunny' van der Hoog
director:
Pieter 'mixed.. reality.. action!' Diepenmaat
photography:
Pieter 'I am a lion' Diepenmaat, Maarten 'Sunny sidekick' Bekx, Wouter 'the making off' van der Hoog
photography bike racer:
Joep 'kreeft van Noordereiland' Klabbers
sound:
Pieter 'ssst!' Diepenmaat
grip:
Olger 'still sining' Star
editing:
Anoeska 'cut' Oosterhuis, Pieter 'paste' Diepenmaat
postproduction:
'postman' Pieter Diepenmaat
music by Squarepusher:
'Squarepusher theme'
'Coopers world'
A very special thank you goes out to Michelle Kuipers, Erik Geelhoed, Wouter van der Hoog and zo architects, Aernout Peeters & Maurits Lopez Cardozo.
Michelle for helping me in understanding the mind of long distance runners. (She currently designs and sells really nice bags and friendly monsters at michellekuipers.nl.)
Erik for making me feel imediatly at home in Bristol and providing me with the freedom to take bold steps.
Wouter for helping out in almost all parts of the project, from helping to set up the workshops through stunt car driving to helping to edit the final report.
Zo architecten for providing a homebase on both the first workshop and the shooting of the concept mvie on Noordereiland in Rotterdam.
Aernout for helping out with the modelling & rendering of the final neXus design.
Maurtis for starring on both the cover of the thesis, the poster and even this website (look to the right ->).
