One end of the spectrum: Inspired by Cololo

I am building the slider systems (v01 and v02) to do some experiments from which we hope to study how varying qualities of an interaction medium influences the experience.
A project that shows a minimalist version of mediated interaction and telepresence, is Cololo, from the Uchiyama lab in Tsukuba. (be sure to have a look at some of their other projects)

I have now gotten my slider system to mimic the Cololo behavior as follows: When one slider is moved, the other slider moves randomly for about 4 seconds. During that period, the system does not respond to input on either slider.

I set out to maintain the possibility to have feedback on slider A about the random movement of slider B in response to the initial moving of slider A. However this proved rather tricky in a closed loop feedback system. It did teach me a thing or two about how to implement such behavior. Moreover it proved once more on the one hand that my current platform has its limits for more complex behaviors, and on the other hand my own limitations when it comes to ‘control systems’ theory and implementation.

Luckily the Cololo system doesn’t have any direct feedback, so for now I don’t need it. In my current code I applied a bit of a blunt method to get the Cololo behavior. In future iterations I will definitely need the feedback, so I will have to come up with a more elegant solution. I am now looking into possible collaborations with experts in the field of mechanical engineering and control systems theory.
My current arduino code for the Cololo behavior can be downloaded here (as a zip archive).