A Simple Tinder Hack!

Tinder is an online dating platform that connects smartphone users via their Facebook profiles. If one user swipes right on another user’s profile pic, it alerts the second user that the first user “likes” them. The second user may then choose to “like” them back, paving the way for a potential meet up. There is no limit to the amount of profiles a user may like.

My project, The Match-Miner, exploits this feature of the Tinder App. When placed near a phone, The Match-Miner swipes the screen continually, ”liking” more and more users every minute. When the user returns to their mobile device, they are then presented with a list of potential matches i.e. the users that liked them back. He has therefore saved himself the effort of sorting through innumerable profile pictures.

Beyond its practical use, The Match-Miner highlights the unreliability of human connections by way of technology. A user that has been liked by The Match-Miner, believes they’ve impressed an actual human being. In fact, they’ve been duped by a rubber finger.

The materials used are a sixteen-year-old birdhouse assembled by my sister; a dismembered rubber finger purchased at Halloween adventure; a conductive rubber tip removed from a stylus; an Arduino Uno; a smartphone; and a servo motor.