SMART FRIDGE POETRY MAGNETS

 

INTRODUCTION 

        The common variety of fridge poetry magnets consist of a large collection of magnets labelled with words which can be rearranged into lines of poetry. As a result of work undergone at the Future Applications Lab in Sweden we have developed an initial concept to explore new digital poetry magnets that distinguish themselves from their analogue counterparts by being able to learn a basic sense of grammar through user interaction. This then enables them not only to correct grammar but to automatically generate poetry.

 

 

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF CONCEPT

Each magnet holds a lexicon of words and their associated parts of speech (POS) such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, and adverbs. Magnets learn through positive interactions what parts of speech are preferred neighbours. For example: 

A user aligns two magnets to make the words "eat food". The respective magnets register that a noun followed by a verb is a viable combination.

The magnets record which combinations have taken place and keeps track of how many times each combination has occurred. This information is then used to help a user to automatically select new words or automatically generate whole sentences.  The desired outcome of this is to explore the possibility of an emergent abstract poetry, as well as a whimsical, playful approach to poetry creation. There may also be educational applications of the Smart Fridge Poetry Magnets whereby automatic grammar correction could help non-native speakers of a particular language. Lastly, the magnets could be encoded in various languages, and their words could potentially be replaced with new vocabularies.

 

The flow of interaction with the magnets is as follows: 

1. The user selects a magnet and places it on the fridge. 

2. The magnet communicates with its neighbours and finds out what POS they are. 

3. A magnet can have its current word changed by depressing a button on the magnet. The magnet then selects a new word through a probability distribution based on the history of its left and right neighbours. 

4. The user then selects the next magnet to place on the fridge. This can be placed to the left or right of any words already on the fridge.  

5. After a certain period of time, each magnet connected then learns that its left and right neighbours' POS are valid with respect to its own POS. The probability distribution is updated.

6. Communication between magnets is effectuated through bi-directional infrared communication. Magnets have to be aligned side by side to communicate but their alignment need not be perfect. 

PROTOTYPE TECHNOLOGY

The hardware prototypes of the Smart Fridge Poetry Magnets each consist of the following:

• A microcontroller 

• A 16-character LCD display 

• Infrared based transmitter/receivers on each side of the display (to communicate with neighbouring magnets) 

• An SD (SecureDigital) memory card interface which enables us to load different databases of words into each magnet 

• A button to change the displayed word 

PROJECT TEAM

Pierre Proske – concept design, aesthetic design and application programming

Johan Bodin – electronic circuitry design and implementation, systems programming

Mattias Rickardsson and Kavita Thomas – programmer/artist and computational linguistic researcher respectively. Mattias and Kavita worked on the initial concept design of the devices.

The Future Applications Lab in Sweden assisted the development of the Smart Fridge Poetry Magnets by providing funding, a workshop and materials.

 

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

The spatial requirements of the magnets are minimal, however the batteries for each magnet when fully charged last 6-8 hours, so they will therefore need to be carefully monitored if used in any lengthy presentation. Currently 10 of the devices have been built.