MERLETT
Exploring how we may emotionally relate to future products and machines when intelligence becomes physical, expressive and embodied.
8 Weeks
Grade: 9/10
Group Project
Sept 2024 - Nov 2024
Arduino
Soft Robotics
Sound Design
Interaction Design
Human-Machine Interaction
Shown at
MERLETT is an interactive material prototype developed during the Interactive Materiality course at Eindhoven University of Technology.
The project explores a future where intelligent products are not only controlled through screens, but through movement, touch, sound and behaviour. By giving a familiar metal tube subtle lifelike reactions, MERLETT investigates how people may start to read emotion, intention and personality into physical machines.
MERLETT is not designed as a useful product. It is a speculative object that asks how we might feel when materials start to sense us, respond to us, and behave less like tools and more like living companions.
Material Explorations
The project began with a material-driven design approach. Inspired by synthetic materials behaving like organic movements, the team investigated the material & sound qualities of everyday materials.
Using video and sound design, i explored emerging movements and unusual combinations of sounds that would fit the new versions of their counterparts to serve as initial inspiration.
FIRST ITERATION
For the first iteration, I looked at actuating the metal tube using two servos while it was hanging upside down. With this setup made in a single day, I connected a capacitive touch sensor and routed all the electronics through the tube.
Using servos, nylon wires and capacitive sensing, the tube could bend away, contract or shake depending on where and how it was touched. This helped us explore the first signs of a material that did not just receive input, but appeared to react.
SECOND ITERATION
The second iteration changed the tube from a hanging object into a suspended body.
This made the interaction feel less like controlling a mechanism and more like approaching a physical creature. I explored how an internal rotary-to-linear mechanism could make the tube contract and expand from within.
FINAL ITERATION
The final prototype brought the behaviour, sensing and form together.
An internal mechanism allowed the tube to expand and contract, while capacitive touch sensing through the metal wire made it responsive to proximity, touch and multiple hands.
This allowed the tube to contract and expand based on sensor input.
Instead of adding visible buttons or sensors, we used the metal wire of the tube itself as the sensing surface as one large capacitive coil.
This kept the interaction direct and material-based: the object’s body became the interface.
To make the tube feel more emotionally responsive, I added a contact microphone using a piezo sensor and processed the sound in Ableton.
Gentle touches created softer, more spacious sounds. Stronger touches introduced distortion and sharper processing. This made the tube react not only mechanically, but also emotionally through sound.
Make sure to watch with SOUND!
When louder transients were detected, the sound was processed with more distortion and less reverb. Conversely, when the tube was touched gently, more reverb and fewer effects were applied, creating a more empathetic sound.
Final Artifact & Interaction Loop
MERLETT rests quietly until someone approaches.
As the user touches, holds or presses the tube, it contracts, resists, shakes and changes its sound. The interaction sits between object and organism: simple technology, but with enough behaviour for people to start reading feeling into it.
MERLETT became a small study into physical AI: how intelligence might not only be seen on a screen, but felt through material behaviour.
As products become smarter and more autonomous, the question is no longer only what they can do, but how we will relate to them when they begin to feel alive.
