The document describes several prototypes created as part of a project called "Make and Connect" that aim to enable social connection through everyday objects and routines. The prototypes include a Messaging Kettle that allows family members in different time zones to communicate via a smart kettle, an Ambient Birdhouse that teaches users about local birds, a Performance Apron and Talking Bottle for connecting people who are cooking remotely, and kits to empower non-technical users to create their own internet-connected devices. The overall goal is to explore how networks of smart objects can foster relationships between geographically distant people.

1. This may be the author’s version of a work that was
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for publication in the following source:
Brereton, Margot, Chai, Min Zhen, Soro, Alessandro, Ambe,
Aloha May,
Johnson, Daniel, Wyeth, Peta, Roe, Paul, & Rogers, Yvonne
(2017)
Make and connect: enabling people to connect through their
things.
In Soro, A, Vyas, D, Waycott, J, Ploderer, B, Morrison, A, &
Brereton, M
(Eds.) Proceedings of the 29th Australian Computer-Human
Interaction
Conference (OzCHI 2017).
Association for Computing Machinery, United States of
America, pp. 612-
616.
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https://doi.org/10.1145/3152771.3156182
Figure 1 The Messaging Kettle
consists in a companion device that
augments an ordinary kettle with
messaging, scribbling and virtual
presence. When the user turn the
kettle on to boil water for a tea a
heat sensor placed on the Kettle
Mate (left) reveals the activity. This
is shared with an analogous devices
located at a different home, so that
the routine of boiling the kettle

3. becomes visible over distance. The
users can also exchange voice
messages and scribbles using the
smart teabox (back).
Demo: Make and Connect: Enabling People
to Connect through their Things
Margot Brereton
Min Zhen Chai
Alessandro Soro
Aloha Hufana Ambe
Daniel Johnson
Peta Wyeth
Paul Roe
{m.brereton, mz.chai, a.soro, a.ambe,
dm.johnson, peta.wyeth, p.roe}@qut.edu.au
Queensland University of Technology
Brisbane (QLD) Australia
Yvonne Rogers
[email protected]
University College London
London (UK)
ABSTRACT1
Staying connected is vital to maintaining good relationships, yet
feelings of disconnection or
isolation distance, time differences, or simply busy lives.
Everyday interactions, family rituals and
habits are often lost, in spite of the pervasiveness of smart-
phones and personal multi-purpose
devices. This project explores novel ways of connecting people
over distance through smart objects
designed to facilitate routine activities. Our aim is to

4. democratize the design and making of the
Internet of Things, by researching and creating easy-to-use kit
technologies. This will enable
everybody to design and make networks of internet connected
things and people to suit their own
interest and needs, fostering new kinds of creative thinking,
designing and connection. The project
aims to connect families through their things to better enable
social engagement and
connectedness between generations, diaspora and for different
cultures.
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this
work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee
provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or
commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the
full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party
components of this work must be honored. For all other uses,
contact the Owner/Author.
OzCHI '17, November 28-December 1, 2017, Brisbane, QLD,
Australia © 2017 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).
ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-5379-3/17/11.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3152771.3156182
OzCHI 2017, Nov 28 - Dec 1, Brisbane, Australia
Human - Nature
Demos and Work in Progress
612
Figure 2 The Ambient Birdhouse is
an interactive device that allows

5. users to explore and learn about the
common birds that inhabit the
urban environment around their
homes in a playful way.
CCS CONCEPTS
• Human-centered computing → Interface design prototyping;
KEYWORDS
Make, Connect, Messaging Kettle, Ambient Birdhouse,
Performance Apron, Smart Bottle, Physikit,
Internet of Things Experience Kit
ACM Reference format:
M. Brereton, M. Z. Chai, A. Soro, A.H. Ambe, D. Johnson, P.
Wyeth, P. Roe, Y. Rogers. 2017. In
Proceedings of 29th Australian Conference on Human-Computer
Interaction, Nov.28-Dec.1, 2017,
Brisbane, QLD, Australia (OzCHI '17), 5 pages.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3152771.3156182
1 INTRODUCTION
The Internet of Things (IoT) is set to revolutionise our world.
The IoT is the notion of equipping all
objects such as yoghurt pots, shoes and fire hydrants with
internet accessible identification and
data sharing capabilities. It has been conceived from a distinctly
utilitarian view, with many
applications relating to business efficiency in supply chain
management and home automation.
Yet, it offers the opportunity for many new kinds of interface
and interaction. To date, there has

6. been little research into how people can connect, interact with
and interrelate through networks of
internet enabled objects. We propose to address this gap
between the great technical promise of
the “Internet of Things” and the lack of human-computer
interaction theory and tools to inform its
conception, and thereby enable its democratic construction. The
critical problems and
opportunities reside in: Making and Connectedness.
Currently making is the purview of dedicated amateurs with
extensive technical knowledge
gleaned from hours of fiddling. Despite all the publicity,
making your own internet enabled things
using e.g. Arduinos and Raspberry Pis requires considerable
technical knowledge encompassing
hardware and software (programming). We aim to make new
kinds of open source kits that fill this
gap permitting young and old to design and make internet
connected objects which have meaning
and can connect people in new ways. Keeping connected is vital
to maintaining good relationships,
yet feelings of disconnection or isolation from family or close
friends are common due to distance,
time differences, or simply busy lives. Everyday interacti ons,
family rituals and habits are lost, in
spite of personal multi-purpose mobile devices. We will explore
novel ways of connecting people
over distance through their everyday objects and routine
activities.
Demos and Work in Progress
OzCHI 2017, Nov 28 - Dec 1, Brisbane, Australia
Human - Nature

7. 613
Figure 3 Performance apron and
talking bottle in action: when the
user presses a button on the apron
the bottle will record the ambient
sounds together with any messages
or conversations.
Since Weiser foreshadowed the advent of Ubiquitous Computing
in our everyday lives there has
been an interest and research into more tangible and embodied
forms of computing [6,8]. Dourish
[5], in the Foundations of Embodied Interaction, argued design
should not focus on tasks,
requirements, apps or computing, but rather on interaction--
ubiquity, tangibility, and most of all,
shared awareness, intimacy, and emotions. IoT Research has
predominantly focused on the
technical challenges of connecting things across the internet,
typically for remote monitoring or
control [2]. More recent studies have considered user
experience, interaction and (expert) making
of the IoT but not issues of social connectedness nor end-user
design of connected things.
Koreshoff et al, [9] call for a human-centred approach.
Researchers have called for technologies to
support the reduction of social isolation and to support
intergenerational engagement and play,
identifying early requirements [1,10,11]. Today, there are many
kits for building computer
controlled things. However none support open, end user
building of connected things.

8. For example, Arduino and Raspberry Pi based systems are open
and connected but too complex
for end users to build with. Lego, Modular Robotics and Makey
Makey are accessible to end users
but not connected. Home automation systems are connected but
not open, restricted to remote
monitoring and control from smartphones. There have been
attempts to simplify programming and
building hardware e.g. Scratch and Ardublock environments and
Node-RED IoT environment, but
these still require a great deal of technical know -how: e.g.
loops, Javascript, electronics etc. We will
build upon emerging technologies with a focus on ease-of-use
and connectivity.
2 DEMO PROPOSAL
This demo will showcase some prototypes for IoT devices
designed to enable social connection and
explore the design space of internet enabled habituated objects.
The prototypes are part of the
ARC funded project Make and Connect, and seek to demonstrate
various ways of engaging and
connecting people through their objects and routines. We will
present a Messaging Kettle [3]
that augments an ordinary kettle with messaging capabilities, an
Ambient Birdhouse designed
to engage users with nature, a Performance Apron and Talking
Bottle [4] that allow people to
connect while cooking, Physikit [7] a system designed to allow
users to explore and engage with
environmental data, and the Internet of Things Experience Kit
that seeks to generalize the
functionalities found in the other prototypes so that people can
imagine and create their own

9. designs.
OzCHI 2017, Nov 28 - Dec 1, Brisbane, Australia
Human - Nature
Demos and Work in Progress
614
Figure 4 Internet of Things
Experience Kit
Figure 5 Physikit
The Massaging Kettle (Fig. 1) is an IoT device that allows
dispersed families to communicate
across time-zones over the familiar routine of boiling the kettle
to make tea. Modern lifestyle and
the job market forces many people to leave away from their
families of origin, often in different
countries or continents. Communication across time differences
can be problematic: the routines
never match, when one party has some spare time for a phone
call the other is busy at work, or
sleeping. The Messaging Kettle augments an ordinary kettle: a
KettleMate (in Figure 1, the device
sitting on the left of the kettle) includes a heat sensor to detect
when the kettle is being used, a
voice recorder and speakers. A Smart Teabox (in Figure 1,
behind the kettle), that includes a touch
screen with pen input and the computing and networking logic,
where the users can scribble
simple handwritten messages.

10. The Ambient Birdhouse (Fig. 2) is an interactive device that
allows users to explore and learn
about the common birds that inhabit the urban environment
around their homes in a playful way.
It is composed of a wooden casing that is shaped to remind
people of a traditional birdhouse nest-
box (or a cuckoo clock as several participants noted) and
embeds a 7-inch display and a high
quality speaker set in the hole where a bird would normally
enter the box to nest. At regular
intervals of approximately 15 minutes, the Ambient Birdhouse
plays videos of common birds, as if
a bird has landed to say hello. Occasionally it challenges the
users with guessing games. It is also
possible to explore the contents of the Ambient Birdhouse
through a set of 20 bird cards (see Figure
2). Each bird card gives access to one video that is played when
the card is ‘tapped’ on the
Birdhouse. Each card has a picture of the bird on the front and
lists detailed information about the
bird on the back. Additionally 10 more bird cards give access to
guessing games and video uploads.
The Talking Bottle and Performance Apron (Fig. 3) were
designed to connect with another
pair of identical devices located at another distant kitchen. The
bottle is semi-transparent and can
glow in different colors (Fig. 4) when users are cooking and
when a new voice message is received.
A button on the apron starts the voice recording through a
microphone located on the bottle.
While recording, the bottle glows in red. When a voice message
is received the bottle glows in blue
and pressing a second button on the apron plays back the
message. A third button on the apron

11. will make the bottle glow in yellow in the distant kitchen to let
a remote party know you are
cooking.
Finally, two kits; the Internet of Things Experience Kit (Fig. 4)
empowers the non-technical
user with the ability to make meaningful device that can cater
their interaction need without
requiring extensive knowledge of computer programming and
prototyping.
Demos and Work in Progress
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615
The aim of this kit is to (1) help participants to visualize and
understand how IoT technology
and device can help them to stay connect and communicate
meaningfully, (2) allow researcher to
learn how end user might fit sensors and IoT enabled devices
around their dwelling, routine and
rituals and (3) empower researcher to shorten the time in
producing the first prototype for data
collection and conducting workshop. We designed and
prototyped a collection of sensors that can
be wirelessly paired together . Multiple pairing can be performed
to form a complex interaction.
Physikit (Fig. 5) is a system designed to allow users to explore
and engage with environmental
data through physical ambient visualizations. It allows

12. participants to enhance their sense of the
meaning of data, embellish and appropriate the basic
visualizations to make them blend into their
homes, and used the visualizations as a probe for community
engagement and social behavior.
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Instructions: For this assignment, you will read a journal article
and conduct research in order to answer the questions
below. You must have citations for all aspects of this
assignment. Wikipedia is not a credible source of information.
Failure to cite your sources will result in a failure for the
assignment.
1. What is capital punishment?
2. Explain whether you are for or against capital punishment.
Pick a case from the Capital Punishment Timeline that provides
factual information for your stance on the death penalty (i.e.
wrongful conviction or a serial killer) or select a case with
which you are familiar (cite the source of your information).
3. Explain the Eighth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment
and their relevance to the death penalty. You will need a
citation for this, too.
4. Read and summarize the article on Organ Transplantation
Among Inmates (Virtual Mentor). Do you agree with this

15. practice? Why or why not?
Link to article: http://journalofethics.ama-
assn.org/2008/02/ccas2-0802.html