Max Motor Dreams

It is common knowledge that babies and small children fall asleep in the car quite easily. This could be a few things, the muffled engine noise, the slight vibration of the car, a regulated temperature. Furthermore it could be a conditioned response: when kids are put in a seat and strapped in, they can’t really move around much and are kind of forced to relax. They have probably slept in the car before so are conditioned to do it again.

Using this knowledge, Ford is promoting it’s new vehicle range with “Max Motor Dreams”, a baby crib that reproduces the sounds, movement and light of a parent’s car. Parents are even able to use an app to collect data from routes and replay it in the crib at home.

It seems super novel, and for a minute I thought it was an April Fools’ prank, but on second thought it is not such a crazy idea. We know that this combination of sound, light and movement works to put kids to sleep. So why not take it out of it’s original context and try to recreate it. It is an interesting experiment. What other environments could we recreate in another context to evoke a certain physiological response?

Sonic Movement

As cars become more and more silent, the question “what should cars sound like?” becomes more and more relevant. Already back in 2009 this was a question with the then evident success of the hybrid car, see this post.

We’ve also seen the project Play the Road recently - which is focused more on making music than making the city a nicer place.

Sonic Movement however, is a collaboration between Semcon, who have been developing automotive solutions for quite a while, creative director Fernando Ocana and hybrid designer James Brooks, and music/art duo Holly Herndon and Mathew Dryhurst. The project aims to make the car sound in harmony with the rest of the city, which is a great aim, if you ask me. Like they state in the video:

“While our cities are in continuous visual and tactile evolution, our sonic landscape is primitive and disordered. With the dawn of silent electric vehicles comes a need for pedestrian warning sounds. This represents an opportunity to reflect upon the noise of our streets today and fantasize on what the future of our cities could sound like.”

I’m particularly amazed by the way they were able to tackle safety, took the surroundings into consideration, and made it musical. Would love to hear this in action, and to know more about the underlying technicalities!