Urban Toy (CLU Light It For Humanity Competition/ May 2011)

There is a poor use of public space in Romania. The urban activities are mainly taking place in bars and pubs and just a few choose to spend their time in squares and other public spaces. The main reason is that this spaces don’t offer any attractions or a proper environment for urban and leisure activities. In the small town of Baia Mare in the northern part of Romania the historic part of the city offers a great variety of public spaces but they are unattractive and dark. Because of this there is an issue regarding social interactions and the use of urban space. Young people in Romania choose to spend their time in front of the television or on the internet and when they go out they hang out in bars and pubs. Another important issue in Romania is recycling different materials. This issue can be transformed in the solution that provide raw materials for the development of urban and lighting projects. A great source of raw materials is provided by the government project of renewing the auto park in Romania. Another source can be plastic bottles that are now polluting Romanian environment. For energy we can use piezoelectric tiles. The project Urban Toy comes to solve the urban space issues in Baia Mare by creating an interactive light display in the historic center of the city inspired by several vinyl and interactive toys. Urban Toy is an interactive surface with a series of led lighting spikes that is connected to the internet, it has radio and Bluetooth transmitters and motion sensors. People can interact with the surface by internet choosing the light color, music playlist for the silent disco and several activities that can take place using the surface features. In this way people will interact with each other, they will collaborate to play and transform the urban space as they like and they have the possibility to view the results and enjoy their creation. They will have a more active social urban life. People today are extremely connected to their gadgets and the to the internet. Urban Toy intends to use this to interact with people. There can be events like silent disco, light concerts, silent concerts and other, and the music, light color, light shows can be voted and changed by people on the internet or by using their cellphones or different gadgets. For silent disco and concerts people can use radio earphones or Bluetooth headsets to listen to the music having the possibility to choose the songs by voting using cellphones or other internet connected gadgets. There can be several hotspots playing different music and having different light color. For silent concerts artist can use electric instruments without using speakers, transmitting the music by radio or Bluetooth directly to the earphones. Light can be voted or real-time changed using gadgets and different applications. Using the movement sensor the light changes its intensity and color around people. In this way there can be a light concert as people are walking around, encouraging to light games and a lot of fun.