This week, the "Human-Computer Interface" category for the HackaDay Prize popped wide open. 

I've followed this contest from the sidelines since the beginning, so I'm very excited to announce that I'll be participating this year............. by entering none-other than the SHE BON project as an open source offering! 

If you aren't familiar with the project scope, "SHE BON" is a wearable platform for sensing and indicating the user's level of arousal with mechatronic body augments.

How might we use our body data to communicate what would otherwise go unnoticed? Can the technology we create help us express ourselves in new ways, adding another layer of texture to our daily lives?

On the technical side...

• half of the project involves the platform which logs and displays the data received from the various sensors use by the "augments".
• half of the project involves the individual augments themselves; how they are equipped to sense biological data from the wearer, as well as the way in which they communicate what they are sensing.

Basically, think of SHE BON as an exo(tic)-skeleton that functions to track what your body is feeling, and indicate that information visually by means of electronic and mechanical devices! It's a suit of amour!

On the conceptual side...

My goal in working on this project publicly is two-fold...

• I hope that by publishing my development, this will help normalize discussion about sexuality and spark a general dialogue with others about our sexual nature. 
• I wish to encourage others to make more personalized technology for their  individual use... like creating another limb for the purpose of enhancing self expression.

The augments I am creating this summer are personalized for me. They are manifestations of my own flavor of self expression. I challenge you to create some of your own that communicate something about you.

I'll be working on the primary platform through Fall, and I hope to create something that will serve this cause, should anyone decide to embark on this adventure of self exploration and next-level communication along with me. 

Lets Trans-human together! ::channels inner Barbarella::