For my project I am working with Lindsey and Rebecca to build three interactive pieces: a box of pine needles with a webcam underneath that will stream and project the needles as users play, a box of sand that will play different notes, and a box of water that will alter the images from the pines and the sound from the sand. We will be working together to create an experience between multiple people playing with the separate boxes.
The box I will be responsible for is the one with water. I’m still not sure the best way to make it work, though. We could just have a camera underneath and layer it with the pine needle image, but that is not as interactive or interesting. There is a water flow sensor that I’m not sure would work in this small setting, and Shawn mentioned trying a capacitance sensor which I’m not sure I understand either. After talking with people they recommended looking at Michelle’s midterm project which uses copper wire on the side of a bowl and water as the material to close the circuit. This method may work well as we could program a number of different outcomes and changes in the screen. I am also interested in potentially using a motion sensor to track the users hands in the water and maybe altering the stream based on the position of the user’s hands, perhaps by painting or by distorting the image. I could alter my code from my photobooth to change the color values and mess with the pixels, or to draw designs on top of the image projected from the webcam. We are not quite sure what we want with the project, and this week we will need to sit together and play with a camera to get a better idea of how it will look and what alterations we would like.
Which brings me to the timeline:
Week 1: Make the basic interactions work: Hook up the webcam to view the pine needle paintings, make a prototype box with water and copper tape and see what variations we want to make to the webcam and tones, make a prototype for the box of sand. Decide on what sensors we want to use and order them.
Week 2: Solidify the interactions and ensure that they are working together with our sensors. Finish coding the webcam and tone variations.
Week 3: Take feedback from playtesting and make changes. Find time to playtest after the changes are made.
Week 4: Final tweaks and refinement
Bill of materials:
1 box
Sensor of some kind or copper tape
1 Arduino