Snap-a-tron Ultra 2000 Deluxe

Context

During my time at Kaliber, I had the opportunity to design and develop a redesign for their interactive installation, the Snap-a-tron Ultra 2000 Deluxe. 

Their building houses an antique telephone exchange that has been converted into an AI art machine which uses plugs and Polaroids to transfer AI from your screen to your hand. The physical AI machine turns your photo into a digital work of art by ‘prompting’ the AI using the plugs on the control unit.

Read more about it on the casepage.

Challenge

The Snap-a-tron was fully functional, but the question was whether it could be improved. The interface for example uses a fairly basic 90s-style design reminiscent of games like Fall Out.

For the redesign, I decided to build on the original challenge:

How to let people experience AI through touch and feel rather than on a screen.

Design process

I examined the current functionality of the Snap-a-tron, its design and its interactions. Research was conducted into the original operation of the telephone exchange and the timeline of interactions linked to the Snap-a-tron. Then I looked at the flow and experimented with new interactions, features and ideas. Among other things, this resulted in the addition of the dial on the telephone exchange, which used to be used as the final step in making a call, and is now used to print the result.

On top of this, research has also been carried out into new styling that fits within the context. A synthwave style was chosen, which fits well with the combination of retro and futuristic elements. The design includes a grid that serves as feedback for the user, allowing them to see how far the process has progressed.

Development

The Snap-a-tron was designed using existing technology, meaning that only a new design for the Arduino connections needed to be implemented.

The technology from the telephone exchange consists of the proprietary Kaliber-build tech stack. You only need a single library to create a web application. It consists of a build stack and server, including React and Express as frameworks. 

The same structure was retained and first made to work for a keyboard to facilitate testing, and then easily transferred to the Arduino connections.

The grid in the design that serves as feedback for the user is made with the animation tool Rive, which allows you to create interactive animations. It is easier to create the animation in Rive and then simply manipulate it using code. 

Solution

The result is a high-fidelity redesign for the Snap-a-tron and developed scenes that can be linked to the current telephone exchange. The design allows the user to travel back in time to the era of the telephone exchange, whilst maintaining the same flow and interactions. In doing so, the futuristic design bridges the gap between a retro and a futuristic era, providing the user with an enhanced user experience. Users can experience AI first-hand through various interactions with the telephone exchange, resulting in a Polaroid photo.