3 Count

Philip Likens
ITGM 705
Professor David E. Meyers
Exercise 1

3 COUNT

Having trouble keeping count? Try 3Count!

3Count is a counting machine for children. The sole purpose of the machine is to count up to 3, but no more. The idea is that throughout the day a child may be asked to do a task three times - eat three servings of veggies, drink three cups of water, check on the dog three times. 3Count is designed to remember and display the number of times a task has been done.

3Count works simply, a child puts a metal marble into the top chute of the machine and the marble rolls down into place through a series of balances. As the marble comes to rest at a particular point it both provides both weight to change the balances inside the machine and conductive properties to complete an electrical connection. As the connection is complete, a series of one to three lights will be lit depending on the number of marbles that have been dropped. To reset the machine, you simply tip the machine allow all the marbles to roll to the bottom of the space. The electrical portion of the machine should be encapsulated with the ability to put a marble down the chute, and collect the marbles at the bottom, but no ability to touch the marbles or wiring in between.

There is no doubt in my mind that 3Count meets three of the characteristics of Janet H. Murray's essay Inventing the Medium, but certainly not four. Because it does not meet four, Murray might have a problem with my defining 3Count as a "digital" artifact. However, it really comes down to the definition of digital. If we were to use the dictionary.com definition of digital ("of, pertaining to, or using numerical calculations."), I could argue I have created both an interactive and digital artifact. If we are strictly using Murray's definitions, I have created an interactive artifact that meets three of her four digital characteristics.

3Count is participatory, procedural, and encyclopedic. The machine is participatory in that human interaction is necessary to make the machine work. The child must drop the marbles down the chute and tip the machine to reset the count. 3Count is also procedural in that once a marble is dropped, the machine reacts in a certain, varied, manor that changes over time as more input is applied. Finally, 3Count is also encyclopedic. The main point of the machine is to track the number of times a thing has happened. In other words, it's very nature is to collect a certain amount of information and display that information back to the user in a novel way.

3Count is missing the spatial component. As is described in Murray's essay, the specific spatial component of the digital medium does not have to do with the placement of objects in space, but the symbolic placement of objects in space. "...[W]e can place things within it (the computer) in assigned locations, both actual (as registers within the machine) and, more importantly, symbolic (as on a Web "site," or in a dungeon under a trap door within a fantasy environment)." Because the spatial component must be, in part, symbolic in nature, 3Count does not fully match the definition of the digital medium, as Murray would define it.

While 3Count does not fully meet Murray's criteria for a digital artifact, I believe it is both interactive and digital to some degree and certainly meets three of the characteristics. The machine also, in theory, solves the problem that many children and parents have which is: "how many times did I do that?"

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