The project was to incorporate the Internet of Things into a product designed by Bauhaus. The chosen product was “Carpet for a children’s room” by Benita Koch-Otto. This exercise was to explore alternatives in IOT technology.

Painter Wassily Kandinsky was a professor at Bauhaus and his theory on color harmony influenced Koch-Otto. The theory discusses the relationship between shapes and colors. Shapes with acute angles have an intensity in characteristics while shapes with obtuse angles evoke a calmer feeling in comparison. Similarly, colors more closely associated with white intensify in energy, and colors similar in value to black bring a calmness to the viewer. Kandinsky declares that combinations of intense shapes and colors and combinations of calm shapes and colors are harmonious.

The proposal was to integrate IOT into the carpet to collect data to support the theory by Kandinsky. The ‘experiment’ was disguised in the rug for children to interact with. The game involved having sets of triangles, circles, and squares light up and change colors. The child would press down onto the tile in the rug to choose their favorite color and shape combination. By collecting the decisions made on a collection of rugs, the data would grow and viewers can see which colors are preferred on corresponding shapes.

ESP8266 Arduino was used as the microcontroller and a membrane switch as the sensor’s to construct the proof of concept. The open-source Node-RED platform was the instrument used to move data received and sent by the rug to draw the appropriate graphs and visualize user response.