Walk,Man!!

Domain

Hardware Interaction Design,
Speculative Fiction

Timeline

February 2024

Technologies Used

Microcontrollers, Relay Switch,
Arduino IDE

Overview

Designed as a commentary on our sedentary lifestyle, Walk,man!! reimagines the classic music player as a fitness companion, by making it work only if the person using it is walking.

The 1980s and 1990s were a great time for the music lovers. Music became more portable than ever with the advent of the Walkman, but it was also a time when computers became more prominent and so did a sedentary lifestyle where people would sit for hours on their desks.

This dichotomy of objects becoming more portable yet people becoming more stationary is what I wanted to cut through with the “Walk,man!!” Hence, the envisioning of this fictional fitness companion of the late 80s.

Sensors and Technology Used:
Arduino Nano, Accelerometer, Relay Switch

Domain:
Speculative, Retro-Futuristic Design

The walk,man!! in use. The person just needs to press play, and start walking; when they walk, the music starts playing.

How Does it work?

Walkman’s DC Motor is interfaced with a relay switch that allows the current to flow to the motor when the accelerometer detects motion.

The accelerometer detects walking motion and then communicates to the relay switch and turns the walkman motor on / off.

Interface with DC Motor

The DC Motor is connected to the walkman circuitboard through two cables. This presents an easy intervention point where I could attach a microcontroller and have it function or not based on the input from different sensors.

For the Walk,Man!! I used the accelerometer to control the motor switch, when the accelerometer detects continuous motion (classifying it as walking); it turns the switch on.

Putting it back together

The challenge was to put everything back together inside the walkman. Given the walkman’s incredibly tight design, the makers left little to no room to make amendments and installations inside it.

So, I decided to take inspiration from the Vision Pro’s Battery pack and designed an external puck that would house the external circuitry.

I needed a way to connect the circuitry to the walkman. Drilling holes in the chassis was not an option so I decided to rip apart the 5V power supply and use the hole for that as an outlet for the cables to connect to the puck.

Power

For the power, I wanted to power all the external circuitry through the walkman’s existing battery input. So I routed the battery connections through an extra wire connecting to the input and feeding into a step up transformer.

It runs through the AA batteries faster, but avoids using an extra lithium ion battery for this purpose.

An ad from the 80s

For the final act i.e. the presentation of the walk,man!! I decided to shoot an ad for the device. But as an 80s style commercial, shot and presented on a VHS tape.