Ceramic tiles are used extensively as decorative and educational pieces in mosaics and murals and as protective surfaces in bathrooms, kitchens and space craft. They are also often used to tastefully adorn three-dimensional objects such as lamps and vases. The programmable smart tile is based on the ceramic tile and offers the same decorative and tangible affordances of its traditional counterpart.

The sorts of programs that one writes for the tiles are those typical of cellular automata (such as Conway's "Game of Life" system). The tiles also include piezoelectric disks, making them interactive; for instance, one can program a tile so that it will change its color when it is tapped gently by the user.

Smart tiles provide children with opportunities to design, create, play with, and explore systems concepts such as emergence and feedback.

Each tile embeds a 5 MIPS mixed-signal microcontroller into the form factor of a 1-inch cube with the tangible affordances of a LEGO block. Each smart tile contains a two-contact mono audio jack which mates with its counterpart on the fabric to provide power and communication connections. Once every second, the fabric uses the line to charge capacitors aboard the tiles. During the second half of the cycle, this same line is used for multi-way communication among the tiles. When the fabric is connected to a computer, it acts as a conduit for new rules originated on said computer and programmed into the tiles.

Click on the picture to see a demo of the tiles in an array (here the tiles are simply flashing random colors), responding to touch, and being inserted and removed from the array manually.

The movie also shows how other sorts of craft devices could be substituted for individual tile in the array; here, a commercially available mechnanical automaton kit is controlled by a tiny "substitute cylinder". Imagine a room of physical automata all participating in the Game of Life.

image of 5x5 tiles with birdwatcher

image showing a 4x4 array of round tiles Here are computationally enhanced versions of commercially available battery powered lamps. Click on the picture to see these first prototypes in action.

Here, a user is programming a set of 5x5 tiles to become cells for the Game of Life. As programmed, the mosaic will start as a glider, and if you click on the picture, you can see the glider move across it.

This demonstrates a concept of emergence: there is no such thing as a "glider" in the rules, but it emerges from the interaction among the tiles.

image illustrating the programming GUI, currently showing a glider
image illustrating the programming GUI on a handheld computer Here, a user is using a handheld computer to program the 10x10 set of tiles to with three gliders.



This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. EIA-0326054 and REC0125363.


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