Transparent GUIs for Bookworms

On Nov. 6, I attended IxDA & AIGA's joint day of Make-a-thon 2010 -- Touch and Beyond: New Forms of Interaction.  My favorite session was "Gestural ideation" led by Prarthana Pancal, Microsoft and Joyce Chou, T-Mobile Creation Center.  They introduced to us their Sensory Deprivation kit:

  

How would you design a mobile device if you couldn't see, if you didn't have an arm, if you couldn't hear, if you had a hook?

The cards we used in each process of the brainstorm gave us little snacks to keep the brainstorming going:

My table had so much fun; we bonded a ton; went to places we wouldn't have gone if we didn't sensory deprived ourselves.  I highly recommended using this technique for future brainstorming sessions.
Our end product was a fully decked out mobile karoake system.  Phones would be used as microphones, play the background music, used as glow lights, percussion instruments to beat the rhythm when shaking, show the lyrics...  We could soften the mics of the loud singers, auto-tune the musically talentless.  Someone ought to make this! :)

My second session was "Really Agile Design" by Brian Monzingo, Adam Kumpf, and Matt Wolfe from Teague design.  My favorite part of this session was that they had a list of words in 3 categories and randomized these words to force each table to brainstorm designs on that phrase.  A funny word that came up in the mix was designing xxx for Monkeys.

Our table's phrase was "Transparent GUIs for Bookworms."
Tables were asked to brainstorm via each person on the table having a specific function -- one had all the magazines, newspaper,..., another had the scissors, another had the glue stick and tape.  I believe the intention was to get individuals in the table to collaborate and build their ideas out from each other.  Our table didn't quite follow these rules and exchanged the tools among each other but imho were already a team from the get-go and exchanged, metamorphs-ed a lot of ideas to great concepts.

In our exaggerated personifcation of a bookworm, he was one who always had his nose stuck in the book when doing anything and everything.  So Obviously, we made the book translucent whenever desired, so a bookworm could better function in all scenarios while still being able to enjoy his favorite book.

Our bookworm could get ready in the morning and still read his book...

He could chat, lament, frustrate with other co-bookworms while reading the same book/chapter:

Bookworms could speed date with other bookworms with dating events where singles had to find other singles with the missing page/chapter of the book:

Our bookworm and his now bookworm wifey can also continue reading books even while cooking in the kitchen.  The cookbook indicates how to boil asparagus and how green it should be.  A portion of the book becomes transparent so the bookworm couple can ensure their asparagus is cooked the desired green prescribed by the cookbook:

Our concept won first prize in our session ;) woo hoo!