Final Project Proposal 2.0: Ding

Final Project Proposal 2.0

EnSing

Project Intent:

Basically, the purpose of this project is to build a portable radio/music player box in the home environment which could be placed in the desk or be attached on the wall and could sense its surrounding environment and recommend specific songs to users. This idea originates from the opinion that sometimes environment could be a good context and could generate certain "mood" to transfer into music.

Reference Project:

Skube by Andrew Nip, Andrew Spitz, Ruben van der Vleuten, Martin Malthe Borch


Frijilets by Inbal Lieblich, Umesh Janardhanan and Andrew Stock

• Omnion by Ana Catharina Marques, Kostantinos Frantzis, Markus Schmeiduch, Momo Miyazaki

Jing.FM by Kaiwen Shi
Music could also has emotion. People find specific songs according to their description.

Sadly By Your Side

Brief description: 

This device consists of two parts: the body and a lot of different caps (gadgets). The body is the core to get sensor data, process information, transmit and receive music. The caps are sensitive to different type of context signal. Using different cap will capture corresponding environmental information. Basically, there are four types of caps.
(1) Control caps: get the signal from an accelerometer/tilt sensor to play the next song and volume.

(2) Context data caps: get some low level sensor data such as smell, color, temperature, speed and so on.

(3) Human activity caps: get people's facial expression when people come by or listen to people's humming for certain melody to get more similar songs.

(4) filter caps: this type of caps will bring some effects to the song, such as changing the pitch or timbre, or even some funny sound during the playing of a piece of song.

Moreover, this device has two modes: the search mode and generate mode. In the first mode, input data will be transformed into some specific tags according to its type and value; then these tags are used to described a series of songs to users. As to the second mode, people use several different caps to change the input data in order to create a piece of generative music. For example, with a light cap to sense its surrounding light and a video cap to record the emotions of people, the changes of input data will generate different non-repeated sound.

Sketch:

Diagram:

Hardware:

Plan I: Sensors + Arduino/Teensy + Rasbery Pi + Wifi adapter
Plan II: Sensors + Arduino/Teensy + xbee/wixel + sensors(transmitting circuit) + PC/mobile phone

Software (Under investigation):

Plan I: Python + Arduino IDE + MAX + JingFM/Last.fm API + Ecoprint API
Plan II: Processing + Arduino IDE + JingFM/Last.fm API + Ecoprint API

Technology keywords:

Laser cutter + tangible control + context sensing + modular player

Goal:

Finish the main body building, at least three caps (controller, environment, listening) under two different mode. Try to develop more scenarios and 

Whisker Prototype 3

 

For the third version of our whisker, we aim to refine the sensors ( pressure sensing and light sensing) and the mechanic chains. When pressure and light light situation are presented, the petal will close. Forcing an opposite reaction from what the audience might expect.

During the implementation process, we figured that since we want the object like a flower, we have already form some anticipated outcome in our mind. However, if we could inverse the result and output an unexpected result, it will be more funny. Therefore, we add one more force sensor below the "leaf". We assume that if the object is very huge so that it could be a shelter for people. Then when people approach it, they may expect to avoid the sunshine or raindrops; but when they stand under the leaf, the leaf will close so that the sunshine will raindrops will directly falls on people's body.

In our next iteration, we would like to add some more shape transforms so that the "leaf" could be more flexible and "natural".

LookingOut4: Ding

Project1: Skube - A Last.fm & Spotify Radio

By:  Andrew Nip, Andrew Spitz, Ruben van de Vleuten, Malthe Borch

Homepage: http://www.soundplusdesign.com/?p=5516

Keywords: tangible, portable music player, laser cutting, collaborative interaction, industrial design

Skube is a music player that allows people to discover and share music and facilitates the decision process of picking tracks when in a communal setting. It has two modes, Playlist and Discovery. Playlist plays the tracks on your Skube, while Discovery looks for tracks similar to the ones on your Skube so you can discover new music that still fits your taste. When Skubes are connected together, they act as one player that shuffles between all the playlists.



This working prototype is a combination of using Arduino, Max/MSP and an XBee wireless network. The Last.fm API is used to populate the Skube with tracks and scrobble, and using their algorithms to find similar music when in Discover mode. Then Spotify is used to play the music. Moreover, they use XBees for the wireless communication between the Skubes and to the computer using custom software that manages all this.



Project2: The Barcode Piano

By:  Marco Triverio, Hao-Ting Chang, Helle Rohde Andersen

Homepage: http://www.cs.uic.edu/~mtriveri/Marco_Triverio/Tangible_barcodes.html

Keywords: tangible music instrument, barcode, laser cutting



Barcode Piano is a music instrument and a toy for children to explore and understand the essential principles behind barcodes. By producing different sound, it helps people to understand the unique information of barcode and can be used to identify entities such as mail, products or patients by reading the unique information embedded in the barcode’s numbers and lines.

This project is not complicated, just as it indicates in the website that it was built in four days; but I like its mapping from barcode to music and help people have a better understanding about barcode. It's simple and easy but directly effective.

Whisker Evaluation: Ding, Yingri

Evaluation of Liang, Wanfang and Ayo's whisker:

The biggest advantage of this whisker is its potential for a system of whiskers. We imagine that each whisker has a very different potential that it can interact with each other in a very distinct way. In our opinions, they have a sound narrative and value about their whisker. At the same time, we also has a question that besides the "heart" lights up, what other interactions or output the whisker can display?

For future improvement, the whiskers can be grouped into different types that can have different abilities. Therefore, this can expand the possibility of provoking more interaction or value gain from the audience.

Also, are we targeting a specific audience or just the general public? What is the main goal or learning point for the users to take from using these "creatures"? Maybe they can serve as a deeper purpose beside locating each user.

We have some other questions about its value such as what is the general direction the makers want to take from this point onwards? What do the makers want to take from the making process by the end the semester?

Overall, this is a well executed whisker with possible expansion in the future.

Evaluation of our whisker:

In the last week’s whisker, we tried to make a mechanical edition of “hedgehog” (or porcupine) whisker, which will retract to make its whiskers outwards when people get too close to it. We want to make it kind of metal structure to simulate animals’ reactions. The first thing we want to achieve is to make it shrink when sensing people get too close, which is our main focus last week.

As our thought, we want to use a gear system to drive two edges of a flexible frame so that it will move toward to the opposite directions. The gear is driven by a servo fixed in the bottom and controlled by an Arduino board with an IR sensor detecting people’s distance.

We made several tries to make it work. At first there has no fixed device to fix the chain so that it easily deviated its desired route. Then we add a foundation bed with four screw caps fixed in the four corner with the distance between those two is exactly the size of diameter of a gear and width of two chains. In this way, the gear could be driven by the servo easily.

But there is another problem after that iteration. Since there is no enough weight on the top of the fixed device to make it still, it’s kind of easy to make the whole frame spin rather than shrink. Maybe next iteration we need to make a bracket to hold the fixing device. With paper model, it’s more light and flexible. When it comes to acrylic and metals, it become less flexible. A 3D print model to make it a whole connection may be a better choice to keep it balance and stable.

Whisker Second Prototype from Patti Guan on Vimeo.

LookingOut3: Ding

Project1: Paper Note ~ Tangible Paper Waveform

By:  Andrew Spitz, Andrew Nip

Homepage: http://www.soundplusdesign.com/?p=4946

Keywords: Laser cut, ADC, Processing

Paper note is a physical implementation of digital sound wave with laser cut. By record a piece of sound from microphone and visualize its loudness, it generates a series of circles to simulate its shape in reality.

This project is very easy to be implemented, but its idea to transfer digital data to physical objects is very interesting.

Project2: OKSU (2012)

By: Yanko Design

Homepage: http://www.yankodesign.com/2012/07/10/digital-data-printer/

Keywords: NFC, digital to physical

The OKSU is a printer to connect the virtual world and physical world. With a NFC tag and reader, people can print a website, movie, paragraph to share with others. This is a not difficult implementation to achieve the transfer from digital data to real world card.

Rather than a simple prototype, this is a product which could be used in our daily life now. I like its appearance design and simple idea to applied to life. Imagine that if every object in our daily life could receive data from another object and output corresponding applications such as display, data processing etc., it will be much more fun and convenient for our lives.

Project3: Only Kids Can See This Anti-Child Abuse Ad (2013)

This is an anti-child abuse ad and I like its idea. It's a good application of seeing different images from different angles.

LookingOut2: Ding

Project: The Haptic Tabletop Puck (2009)

By: Nicolai Marquardt, Miguel A. Nacenta, James E. Young, Sheelagh Carpendale, Saul Greenberg, Ehud Sharlin

Homepage: http://grouplab.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/Projects/ProjectHapticPuck

Keywords: haptic feedback, computer vision

  

The Haptic Tabletop Puck is an interactive device aiming to provide a haptic feedback for people. By embedding a rod, servo and a brake in a wooden box, combining with computer vision technology, people can feel a sense of friction, height, texture and malleability of digital objects.

I like this project for its simplicity to achieve well build tactile feedback. It extracts the feedback with the forms of friction, height and malleability. With a tangible object to move in a digital display, it will bring much interesting tactile feeling for people.

Project: Touch trace mirror 

By: Johanna Schmeer, Tom Baffi

PDF: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1935771

Keywords: remote communication, daily objects sensing

Touch trace mirror is a device for remote people (especially for lovers) to communicate with each other. By writing something in the mirror in a place, the other side of the mirror will appear a signal indicating this message. When the message is re-drawn by remote person, the pattern will flash.

Similar to The Haptic Tabletop Puck, this device is also not complicated to be implemented. I like its idea to make daily objects as a tool for people communication or just for fun.

LookingOut1: Ding

Project 1: Pinokio Lamp  (2012)

By: Adam Ben-Dror, Shanshan Zhou and Joss Dogget

URL: http://www.pinokio-lamp.com/index.php/home/

Keywords: computer vision, mechanical control, servo motors

Pinokio lamp is an interactive device based on traditional desk lamp. By inserting a camera and several servo motors and using computer vision and mechanical skills, it can detect peoples' behaviors and achieve an interesting interaction between human beings and home furniture.

I like this project very much not only for this practical implementation of the Pixel Lamp, but also for its idea to make our daily devices to be interactive. By modifying traditional furniture, this creative device infiltrates the interaction between people and objects into everyday behaviors. In this case, a desk lamp acts as not only a tool, but also a friend or a smart creature who can think and move. I love this idea of making computing invisible and applied computing into life, since we spend most of our time dealing with daily affairs and objects.

Project 2: Magic Finger (2012)

By: Autodesk Research

URL: http://autodeskresearch.com/publications/magicfinger

PDF: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2380137&bnc=1

Keywords: micro camera, optical mouse sensors, computer vision, magic finger tag

Magic Finger is an instrument worn on the fingertip as an always available input device. By inserting an optical mouse sensor and a micro RGB camera, Magic finger could sense the different surface of materials and the movement of hand; and thus provide a lot of interesting applications during our daily life.

Similar to the Pinokio Lamp, I love this project for its interactions with everyday things. Instead of rebuilding existing objects, a wearable device is attached for people to communicate with daily objects. With a good design, wearing this device may be just similar to putting on a normal ring or fingertip. Therefore, we can naturally turn these computing service into part of our daily life. Also, I appreciate this project’s application scenarios, not only designed for personal stuff convenience, but also as an efficient tool to provide services among multiple people.