This device, created by Matt Chmiel, Fernando Cervantes and me, is an actual physical boxing dummy wired with a piezo sensor, a microcontroller, an op amp and additional electronics that feed serially into a computer. This configuration allows the dummy to challenge users to a boxing game against a dynamic list of political and media figures. Users interact with a PC-based interface to choose a media figure who they find particularly frustrating, then they enter in their own (the user's) zip code, and their name, a pseudonym or email address. In addition to that information, they have the option of listing the reasons they are interested in boxing this politician or media figure. Then they put on the gloves and start boxing.

Each round begins with a carefully-selected, well-known sound clip of the chosen politician's voice (i.e. George Bush saying "weapons of mass destruction" or Trent Lott remarking positively about Strom Thurman's segregationist presidential platform). In the sound clip, users first hear the crowd hushed and then once the politician speaks, a bell rings and the user can punch away. The outcome of each game determines the output of the device. Winners will automatically transmit emails to the inbox of the opponent they chose, say President Bush, as well as anonymously publish a corresponding blog associated with this website. The data gathered will reveal which political figures inspire the most public attention, in addition to the zip codes churning out the most use. Losers of the game will receive a rematch email. If a desired opponent is not on the list provided on the PC-based screen interface, a nomination form will be offered to add that opponent to the list of nominees. If there is a quorum of nominations, sound clips will be made and fed to the device for future use. There is a web-only version of this project (no boxing dummy) that is currently in proof-of-concept phase online.

In this sample, the sequence of sounds is the crowd being hushed, Trent Lott speaking and the round begins. If you listen carefully, you'll hear the crowd react to particularly forceful punches and the Howard Dean scream to signify the end of that round. Our ideal scenario is to have several of these dummies networked together at major political conventions.

Below are some images taken during the creation of the device in the early winter of 2005. The first two images are of the CD player we initially hacked for this project. We ended up using a PC because we changed the design so that the dummy could use a network to send emails and store data. The next image is of Fernando working out the PIC Basic Pro code, the code we compiled for the microcontroller. The final image is of a version of the circuit. This version was before the op amp was added to boost the piezo sensor signal.