MAYA Sprocket and the Sprocket Pocket are MAYA’s second entry into the “design a fun wearable computing accessory in 24-hours because you really don’t want to work on Friday especially if Apple is launching a game-changing new product on Saturday Morning” market.
Following the fever pitch produced by our iBuckle accessory for the iPhone, we’ve decided to enter the iPad fray and develop something just for iPad owning cyclists.
It’s MAYA Sprocket!
Update: Although the application was available for a limited time on the apple app store (just long enough to have our fun and experiment with the social, technological, and safety issues with this sort of wearable display) we have since removed it and put the project in the archives. But if you love silly things and thinking about what we thought up in 24 hours or less, read on. And for those who love do-it-yourself projects, scroll down a bit to find out how to make your very own Sprocket Pocket!
Riding a bike in the city is between 3x and 12x more fatal than driving a car according to a report from the NHTSA. For the launch of the iPad we thought we’d create a simple app that could be worn by a cyclist as a display mounted on their back. The app just does a few basic things. If you are going to stop or slow down you can trigger a “stopping” sign before you stop. If you are going to be turning in a 100 yards, you can trigger a turn signal that will blink until you complete your turn.
It also has a few messages you can trigger by tapping the screen. That’s it.
To complement the new MAYA Sprocket app, we’ve also designed a new accessory for the iPad.
Something we call the “Sprocket Pocket!”
We made this for fun, and created a how-to film that you can view by clicking here so you could make your own Sprocket Pocket!
Click here to download all of the pattern information you’ll need to make a pocket (Sprocket Pocket Pattern.PDF).
Optimally you should make your pocket out of rugged sewn industrial nylon patch with integrated zipper and protective screen overlay. We show you how to make the Sprocket Pocket so that it can be ironed or sewn on to any garment in minutes.
Of course this is purely for entertainment purposes, so if you really do make some Sprocket Pockets and take them for a ride, do so at your own risk!
NOTE: This was a MAYAmake 24-hour project. The Sprocket Pocket, and the MAYA Sprocket iPad application were designed, prototyped, tested, manufactured in limited quantity (9 in first 24 hours were built and 4 were given away at an Apple Store just for fun to random bike riding iPad owners), packaged, and deployed all within 24 hours before the launch of the iPad.
Yes this is a silly example of having fun with an iPad. It’s also an example of “precycling” where we try to picture how you could recycle products after they aren’t expensive objects of desire. A $600 iPad today, will be a $300 one in a year, and a $50 dollar one a year after that, and soon you’ll be finding spare iPads in the cushions of your couch or in your cereal boxes as prizes for choosing NanoCrispies as your zap, spackle, and zop choice in the future.
So once that happens what do you do?
The first day we wore these around town people suggested all sorts of other ideas:
- Put it on the front as a networked programmable t-shirt graphic
- Wear it with a group to have coordinated networked protest graphics when you go on your next march
- Give it to crossing guards
- Sell advertisement on people (afterall isn’t that how the world goes round?)
- Broadcast coordinated imagery across a crowd of people at your next big football game to make a giant mosaic on everyone’s t-shirts
- Hang an iphone with the camera pointing outward from your back and an iPad in a Sprocket Pocket on your front and you’ve got a window right through your body where the sun shines through
- Put one on the front and back of your shirt and use it as a touch, tilt, tag football game (remember by this time iPads sell for $1 and are disposable)
- Wear it on your hand and play hacky-sack pinball with a group of friends