Vote for our interactive Christmas tree at Liseberg!

Foto: Karl-Petter Åkesson

SICS, Chalmers and the University of Gothenburg have together built one of the contributions to the annual Christmas tree competition, Gran Prix, of the amusement park Liseberg in Gothenburg.

The contribution called UseGranN is a result of collaboration between interaction designers from the three organisations. By allowing spectators to interact with UseGranN it attracts more people, and the larger the crowd gets and the more activities the tree can detect around it, the more lamps are lit up in the tree and the more beautiful it gets. Gothenburg and specifically Liseberg is well known for its common use of puns. The name UseGranN is therefore a pun and based on GranN for beautiful, Gran for pinetree and Use pronounced in the same way as light in Swedish.

The interactive Christmas tree is a simple way of showing the endless possibilities that come with embedding computing power in everyday objects. Objects can become active and connected and we can design how they interact with our lives. This is sometimes called Ubiquitous Computing or the Internet of Things.

This embedded intelligence can also be used for saving energy. UseGranN, for instance, is not lit up when there is no people around it, which saves energy. Another example of energy saving intelligence in objects have been designed in the projects ERG. Controlling lights are also used in the artwork Lyra that visualize activity in a building. The IPerG project use embedding computing power in everyday objects to create city-wide games.

Read more about all Christmas tree contributions at the Gran Prix website and vote for your favourite tree here!