MiniBUG: from concept to production in a prototyping system

Authors:
Alicia Gibb;Robert Faludi;Dan Steingart
Affiliations:
Bug Labs, New York, NY, USA;New York University, New York, NY, USA;City College of New York, New York, NY, USA
Venue:
Proceedings of the fifth international conference on Tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction
Year:
2010

Citing 6
Cited 0

A malleable control structure for softwired user interfaces

Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Tangible and embedded interaction
Tangible bits: beyond pixels

Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Tangible and embedded interaction
Decoupling interaction hardware design using libraries of reusable electronics

Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction
The efficacy of prototyping under time constraints

Proceedings of the seventh ACM conference on Creativity and cognition
The research-practice gap: the need for translational developers

interactions
Visible synthesis

interactions

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Bug Labs [1] is an open source company attempting to democratize innovation through Linux-based prototyping devices. To scale our product line we recognized certain factors that needed to prioritized: functionality, connection, shape and size, and economics. While three of these factors were addressed by the original BUGbase, the original unit is relatively expensive. At a cost of roughly $800, the BUGbase is beyond the reach of many prototypers [2]. MiniBUG is in development---a smaller unit with a streamlined feature set and sale price of less than $100. This work represents the critical assessment of the original unit and the resulting miniBUG unit. The research collected was used to reflect on the process of designing miniBUG while considering price point, flexibility, affordances in the functionality, and the usability of the complete system.