Presentation + Documentary

Our presentation definitely did not go as well as we hoped it would. The calibration done on the lights over the weekend had to be re-calibrated as the air conditioner in the room turned on, changing the electrostatic field. However, if we had more time, we would use motion sensors and lower decibel servo motors for this installation. 

We finished our documentation and video on time, however, we had technical difficulties with the video. We had all the footage and finished editing, but somehow when we rendered the video, the quality was not great. We had to re-do all the editing all over again, but after a sleepless night for Jonathan, we were able to pull it off. 

Final Preesntation

Over the past few days, we have been in the Green Screen Room as much as we can. We have been setting up, and all the lights have been hung up. However, during calibration, we realized that our sensors could not touch anything that was conductive, or had electricity running through it. We had to re-wire everything in order to have proper calibration. Even though we straightened everything out, we realized the electrostatic field in the Green Screen room fluxuates a lot. Any change in the environment would require us to re-calibrate the lights.

In order to see the shimmering effect on the floor, we had to purchase a white cloth to put on the floor. However, we could not find a big enough one, so we tiled 2 cloths.

If we had more time, we would switch to motion tracking sensors and lower decibel servo motors.

Further Improvements

Today, we decided to spray paint our lights. We purchased matte white spray paint, and painted all the lights. The effect was what we wanted. We wanted to have lights that were more concentrated without letting out too much light.

The servo motors are all placed into a self-made foam box, and ready to be hung up.

Final Project Update - Green Screen Room

Today, we finally had access to the Green Screen Room. We tested out our lights, but there are lots more to be done. We were able to silence our servo motor, but we have encountered more problems. The AC in the Green Screen Room is not clean. As a result, we have had dirty feedback, not allowing our lights to sense the way we want them to. We will have to further test our lights and calibrate them.

We were able to bring in four 2' x 4' plywood into the Green Screen Room and we hung them up on the ceiling, which were supported by the bars. The plywood is used for support for our Shimmering Lights. We did a trial run and it looks good, however, we still need to calibrate our sensors.

Shimmering Light Update

We began to test our prototype in the Green Screen Room. We tested out the lighting in the room and figured out how high we would want to hang our lights and how far apart.

We came up with a method to try to silence our servo motor. We surrounded the servo motor with foam and put it in a box.

We also began to test our pressure sensor mat. We are thinking of using two pieces of cardboard with foam inside, to make the pressure sensor.

Final Project - update

Because we started our Final Project during sketch 2, this will just be a quick update. We have some schematics here to better understand how our Shimmering Lights will work.

We talked with Jinsil and Greg about how our setup will be. We booked the Green Screen Space for next week for a quick demonstration, as well as the week after for our final presentation. We discussed how we can solve our servo motor noise problem, and we will further work things out. After the lab today, we went to the Green Screen room and did some quick testing. We tested out how high above ground we would want to hang the lights, as well as how far apart we want to put them. We will start on making the pressure sensor soon.

Shimmering Light - Sketch 2 Presentation

From the last update, we started making the prototypes of Shimmering Lights. We gathered all the materials, starting one thing at a time. For this week, we decided to make 4 of the 8 Shimmering Lights for the final installation. We chose to use acrylic tubing, and laser cut the caps.

Inside each Shimmering Light contains 3 LEDs which are soldered onto resistors. 

After all the physical aspects were accomplished, we went on with the technical part. We connected 2 Arduino boards with 4 touch senors controlling 4 servo motors. 

It took us a long time to do coding as it is not our forte. However, with modified code and GSR sensor, we created a Shimmering Light prototype that gets the message across for now.

As users walk through the installation, the Shimmering Lights will evolve around the users. The closer the user gets to the lights, the brighter the lights will get. We also incorporated a mood changing effect on the Shimmering Lights, changing colors depending on users mood. 

We ran into a couple of technical difficulties. After everything worked, we uploaded our code onto an Arduino board. However, we were getting random results and were not as accurate as before. It took us a very long time to isolate the problem by removing and changing out parts one at a time. In the end, we found out that we had purchased a faulty Arduino board. With the time we spent figuring out the problem, we would have built a frame where the lights would hang from, to show the Shimmering Light effect as well as how it would look from above. However, this was not completed due to time constraints. We also realize that our servo motor is really loud, and we will be addressing our issues to make the final project perfect.

Shimmering Light Research and Prototype

Research:

Speed of Light

Speed of Light is a series of installations that invoke in the viewer a sense of the astonishment involved in fibre optic communication. A series of light work flows through the labyrinthine of the four-storey industrial space. The installations emphasized the experience of using fibre-optic communication, re-imagining it as an immersive environment.

http://design-london.blogspot.com/2010/03/virgin-media-speed-of-light.html

Nemore

Nemore is a garden consists of 36 bendable graphite poles. Each pole has a behavior and reacts to its neighbouring poles and to the visitor who is seen as the "alien neighbour". The sound from each pole builds up a chord, fluctuating in resonance with the movement of the poles. The project questions how the visitors and observers would perceive the state of being of these artificial objects based on their behaviors.

http://www.creativeapplications.net/vvvv/nemore-vvvv/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+creativeapplicationsnet+(CreativeApplications.Net)

Prototype
Over the weekend, we made a prototype of our Shimmering Light. Through rapid prototyping, we tried using different materials. From thin plastic, to thick plastic, plastic bottles, and containers, we found that acrylic had the best shimmering results we were looking for.

We would expect this in our installation. We want to use proximity sensors to detect how close people are to each of the shimmering lights. If users are within range of a shimmering light, the light will vibrate to create a shimmering effect. We are still finding out ways on how to incorporate the vibrator to have the effect we want. We also made a rapid prototype of a mood changing light, which we may incorporate. The light will change colors depending on the user.

Shimmering Light

After lecture on Friday, we decided that we wanted to make a 'Shimmering Light' installation. We are inspired on how the natural sunlight shines through the refraction lines of the ocean water, and onto the seabed.

Research shows that by seeing and hearing the ocean waves, it can calm people down, as well as lower their blood pressure.

Thumb War

We played around with the temperature sensor and realized it was too hard to work with. It needs constant temperatures in order to show values. We decided to scratch that idea. We decided to work with gloves, and incorporate fun with it. We are now doing Thumb Wars, the childhood game. Everybody knows how to play Thumb Wars. With ours, we want to have an LED light up when the winner holds the opponents thumb down. Each glove will have it's separate color LED, allowing both users to see the winner. Also, when users are starting the game, there will be a ready light.

Soft Circuits

In the previous lab, we learned about soft circuits. We need to create a wearable product for next week. We are thinking of making a gas mask and using temperature sensors. As users breathe through the gas mask, the hot air they breathe out will trigger the temperature sensor to light up the LED. We will be applying what we learned in lab to the next assignment.

Project Demonstration

Since my last update, we have made many improvements. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6xSX_dw5tc&feature=player_embedded

The link above is an example of how users will interact with our project. We did many user testings and found that when the germs attach onto people, their first reaction is to try to brush it off as they get an uneasy feeling. The more they get used to it, users will start to play with it. Our main target audience would most likely for kids and educational purposes to raise awareness that even though you cannot see germs with the naked eye, they still exist. 

With Nuisance, we had to go through the labs taught in class, as well as Cycling 74 websites for Max Msp help. We played around with blob tracking using centroids and collision detection. We were thinking of incorporating color change and maybe sound, but with the given time we had, we were not capable of doing so.

We had several research precedents, one of which was the insect project shown in class:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHoV7tr0ZVE&feature=player_embedded

We looked at the inter-subjectivity between the objects and how users understand and interpret their relationship, as well as what aspects engages the two.

We also looked at the FIAT Interactive Installation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyZSpKfIEh8&feature=player_embedded

With this project, we looked into how people communicate with objects on the screen, the gestures they use, and how they would react with it. 

Nuisance Presentation
Nuisance Max Patch

Germs

So we finally confirmed our topic. Instead of post-it notes, we will be using germs. We want to do something more educational and raise awareness. As flu season is coming, we want to let people know that germs are everywhere. It cannot be seen with the naked eye, but it is so powerful that it can spread across the country and harm our bodies. Because we cannot see it with our naked eye, users will be able to see surrounding 'germs' on the screen, and realize how many and how it can be harmful to them.

Postits

We scratched our previous idea. Again. However, we have a new and innovative idea we hope that would much better. Our base concept is to have the user move across the screen, with post-it's attaching to the user. The post-it's represent everyday life. As our society has become so fast paced, people have more and more tasks to complete everyday. Post-its are mainly used to take down notes and tasks of what people have to do. With this idea, we want to use it as a metaphor and how we are embodied by many daily tasks.

Flow

Upon further research, we realized our 'Inner Beauty' idea was not working as well as we thought it would. It was a bit too difficult for what we know for Max, so we decided to change our topic. We will now have users to interact with the screen by waving their hands to the music notes. Certain areas of the screen will have different music notes, allow users to recreate music. In our meeting, we talked about having a famous Mozart piece. Using that piece, we will use the music notes that make up that piece and spread it all over the screen. If users play around with it long enough, they may recognize the familiarity of that song, and may want to recreate other songs.

Brainstorming Session

Idea 1 - Virtual Boxing 
People need to relieve stress. We want to find an interactive way for people to relieve stress. A virtual setting that allows people to use their body language to communicate with their inner feelings, would be an ideal responsive environment. At least two people would be participating, and color tags or something distinct would be used to for collision detection. Participants would 'fight' one another, and the more injured a participant is, the more they will be lagging; a way of showing their inner feelings.

Idea 2 - Inner Beauty

Celebrities in magazines is what the society looks up in for fashion, popular items, and even plastic surgery inspirations. Such influence in the real world have made the real meaning of beauty unclear. We want to bring out the inner beauty of people. Participants would pose in front of webcams, and the output would come out, changing the participants facial image, bringing out their inner beauty.

Idea 3 - Human Obstacles
We want to have an interactive collaboration that allows participants to use their bodies as obstacles. Something would be trying to get from one side to the other on screen, but participants will have to work together to deny that from happening. This also allows participants to play 'God', allowing them to have control of what is happening.