Some days ago I received a package containing some electronic supplies. In the package were a handful of microcontrollers, various sensors, some LEDs etc. All the nifty tings that are fun to interconnect and send a current through.

But there was also a couple of dot matrix display, and that was the real killer for me. When I was a child at the age of about 8 to 12 years, I always dreamt of unpacking a brand new dot matrix display and connecting it to some of the gadgets that I were soldering together. I didn’t have the money (they were expensive back then) and I didn’t have the knowledge either, so I didn’t venture down the display avenue until much later.

So when I unpacked the display I got this special feeling that: “Wow, I am finally able to get hands on a dot matrix display and I’m able to connect it to the circuitry that I am working on”. It’s a little weird, because I’ve unpacked several displays and connected them many times since my youth, but the feeling persists.

While I could pass that feeling off and not think so much about it, I try and appreciate it instead. Appreciate the fact that I was longing so much for something that I’m now able to work with every day – and not least that I’m still able to feel joy doing so.

In this world it’s a privilege that one is able to work with something that is joyful.

Here at OhNoWire we work a lot with physical computing, i.e. developing and building interactive systems whose state and responses are determined by human input.

Of course, we are some kind of nerd species since we have begun working in the field of IT and electronics in the first place. I mean, we get kicks out of lines of software code and blinking lamps and buzzing noises.

For us, physical computing is about bringing out the fun of computing and electronics to ordinary people, and the key to how to do that is to make interesting and fun ways of interacting with the electronic gadgets.

Away from all the ordinary computer keyboards, digit keypads, push buttons etc. Enter touch-sensitive screens, video tracking of motion, location based services and “electronically enhanced toys” (filled with all kinds of sensors and wireless technology).

And physical computing and new interfaces are actually tickling the interest of ordinary people, it seems. They are interested in what the gadget will do if they move their finger to another touch field, their feet onto a different floor plate or their entire body just half a meter – and about what will happen if they whistle a tune or flip a cube filled with organic, pulsing lights.

Most technology in the future will be ubiquitous, no doubt about that, and more and more pieces of technology sport new interfaces.

So all in all, what’s cool about physical computing is that it proves that people may interact with technology in so many new and inspiring ways. That and many other, much more nerdy tings