Generative Soundscape 0.2.1 – IR Comm & Circuit Prototyping

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This was an iterative attempt towards a generative soundscape installation. I created everything from UX Design, concepting, PCB design, hardware prototyping, hardware fabrication and ensemble, testing and validating

Deliverables: Hardware prototypes (PCB modules)

Tools: Arduino, Eagle CAD, Other Mill

Brief

After a failed attempt of creating modules that would communicate through sound, I started looking into Infrared Communication.

This is a project that looks to experiment with Infrared Communication between various Modules. All modules come from the same design made in Eagle CAD. It is a through-hole board routed with The Other Mill. The overall board involves an embedded Arduino (ATMega328), 2 IR-Rx, 3 IR-Tx, a LED and a Push-Button.

Modules can transfer the code from any IR Remote and transfer it among their closest peers. 

Next Steps

Evaluate power consumption to figure how can they be powered through batteries.

 

 

 

Previous
Generative Soundscape 0.1.2
Generative Soundscape 0.1.2
Generative Soundscape Concept
Generative Soundscape Concept
Generative Synthesizer Prototype
Generative Synthesizer Prototype
Generative Synthesizer Concept

Previous Iterations

M-Code Box

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Concept

How can a fabricated object have an interactive life? The M-Code Box is a manifestation of words translated into a tangible morse code percussion. You can find the code here and what's needed to create one M-Code Box is an Arduino UNO, a Solenoid Motor (external power source, simple circuit) and a laptop with Processing.

Next Steps

There are two paths to take this project further. One is to have an interpreter component, recording its sounds and re-encoding them into words, like conversation triggers. The second is to start thinking on musical compositions by multiplying and varying this box in materials and dimensions.

 

 

Previous Iterations

This project came upon assembling two previous projects, the Box Fab exploration of live hinges and the Morse Code Translator that translates typed text into physical pulses.

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Box Fab
Circuit Prototype
Morse Code Translator

Mind the Needle — Popping Balloons with Your Mind 0.2

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Concept

Time's running out! Will your Concentration drive the Needle fast enough? Through the EEG consumer electronic Mindwave, visualize how your concentration level drives the speed of the Needle's arm and pops the balloon, maybe!

Second UI Exploration

Second UI Exploration

Development & UI

I designed, coded and fabricated the entire experience as an excuse to explore how people approach interfaces for the first time and imagine how things could or should be used.

The current UI focuses on the experience's challenge: 5 seconds to pop the balloon. The previous UI focused more on visually communicating the concentration signal (from now on called ATTENTION SIGNAL)

This is why there's prominence on the timer's dimension, location and color. The timer is bigger than the Attention signal and The Needle's digital representation. In addition this is why the timer is positioned at the left so people will read it first. Even though Attention signal is visually represented the concurrent question that emerged in NYC Media Lab's "The Future of Interfaces" and ITP's "Winter Show" was: what should I think of? 

Showcase

Insights

What drives the needle is the intensity of the concentration or overall electrical brain activity, which can be achieved through different ways, such as solving basic math problems for example –a recurrent successful on-site exercise–. More importantly, this question might be pointing to an underlying lack of feedback from the physical devise itself, a more revealing question would be: How could feedback in  BCIs be better? Another reflection upon this interactive experience was, what would happen if this playful challenge was addressed differently by moving The Needle only when exceeding a certain Attention threshold?

Previous Iterations

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Mind the Needle Iteration 0.1
Mind the Needle Iteration 0.1
UI Draft #2 BCI & Processing
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Generative Soundscape 0.1.2

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Concept

This installation pursues playful collaboration. By placing the modules through arbitrary configurations the idea behind this collective experience is to create scenarios where people can collaboratively create infinite layouts that generate perceivable chain reactions. The way to trigger the installation is through a playful gesture similar to bocce where spheres can ignite the layout anywhere in the installation. 

 

Prototyping

After an apparent success –context-specific– and consequent failure –altered context– the project turned onto a functional alternative. The next process better illustrates it.

 

These images show the initial thought out circuit that included a working sound triggered by a –static– threshold. We also experimented with Adafruit's Trinket aiming towards circuit simplification, cost-effectiveness and miniaturization. This shrunk micro controller is composed by an ATTiny85 nicely breadboarded and boot-loaded. In the beginning we were able to upload digital output sequences to drive the speaker and LED included in the circuit design. However, the main blockage we manage to overcome in the end was reading the analog input signal used by the microphone. The last image illustrates the incorporation of a speaker amplifier to improve the speaker's output.

 

These two videos were an initial proof of concept of a module’s ability to detect sound and amplify it.

1. the functional prototype that includes a hearing spectrum –if the microphone senses a value greater than the set threshold, stop hearing for a determined time– 

2. the difference between a normal speaker output signal and an amplified speaker output signal. 

After the first full-on tryout, it was clear that a dynamic threshold –the value that sets the trigger adapts accordingly to its ambient–. The microphone however, broke one day before the deadline, so we never got to try this tentative solution –even though there's an initial code–.

 

Next Iteration –Prototyping Function & Form

Plan B, use the Call-To-InterAction event instead. In other words, use collision and the vibration it generates to trigger the modules through a piezo. Here's the code.

A couple videos that illustrate the colliding key moments that trigger the beginning of a thrilling pursue.

 
 

And because sometimes, plan-b also glitches... Special thanks to Catherine, Suprit and Rubin for play testing

 
 
 

Generative Soundscape Concept

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When studying Interactive Technologies at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, I was working towards an interactive installation that blended the bowling gesture to trigger scattered half-spheres to generate a musical experience. This is an evolved and collaborative idea, from the Generative Sculptural Synth. The ideal concept is an interactive synthesizer that's made up of replicated modules that generate sound. It is triggered by sphere that creates chain-reaction throughout the installation's configuration.

 

Methodology: Iterative Concept and Prototyping

Tools: Arduino and Little Bits

Deliverables: Prototype of a modules that communicate and trigger through motion and sound range

It started out as re-configurable soundscape and evolve into an interactive –bocce-like– generative instrument. Here's a inside scoop of the brainstorming session were we –with my teammate– sought common ground. (1. Roy's ideal pursuit 2.My ideal pursuit 3.Converged ideal)

Audio Input Instructable

It started out as re-configurable soundscape and evolve into an interactive –bocce-like– generative instrument. Here's a inside scoop of the brainstorming session were we –with my teammate– sought common ground. (1. Roy's ideal pursuit 2.My ideal pursuit 3.Converged ideal)

Littlebits –whatever works–

After the slum dunk failure of the DIY Audio Input, I realize the convenience –limited– of prototyping with Littlebits. This way, I could start concentrating in the trigger event, rather than getting stuck at circuit sketching. I was able to program a simple timer for module to "hear" –boolean triggered by the microphone– and a timer for the module to "speak" –boolean to generate a tone–. What I learnt about the limitations of the Littlebit sensor is a twofold. They have a Sound Trigger and a conventional Microphone. Both bits' circuits have the embedded circuit solved out which turned out to be useful but limiting. The Sound Trigger has an adjustable Gain, an embedded –uncontrollable– 2 second timer and a pseudo-boolean output signal. So even though you can adjust it's sensibility, you can't actually work around with its values in Arduino IDE. The Microphone bit had an offsetted (±515 serial value) but its gain was rather insensible.

This is why, when conveniently using the Sound Triggers, the pitch is proportional to the distance. In other words, the modules are triggered closer when lower pitches are sensed and vice versa. However, since these bits –Sound Trigger– are pseudo-boolean, there can't be a Frequency Analysis.

Generative Synthesizer Prototype

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This is a followup in the Generative Propagation concept. What I intended to answer with these exercises are two questions:

  1.  How can the trigger threshold be physically controlled? (How can the mic’s sensitivity be manipulated?)
  2. How can the tempo be established? (How often should each module emit a sound?)

The trigger threshold can be manipulated through manually controlling the microphone’s gain or amount voltage transferred to the amplifier –Potentiometer to IC–. 

By manipulating this potentiometer, the sensitivity of the microphone can be controlled.

The tempo can be established through timing the trigger’s availability. By setting a timer that allows the a variable to listen again, the speed/rate at which the entire installation reproduces sounds can be established.

Generative Synthesizer Concept

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Can unpredictable melodies be created out of Constellaction’s concept?

Composition

Modules will bridge through consecutive emissions and receptions of sound. In the end, the purpose is to create a a cyclic chain that sets the stage for a greater pursue: creating a generative audio experience –like a tangible tone matrix–. In this exercise I will explore simple initial attributes such as trigger-thresholdand tempo.

Concept

How can sound-modules resemble basslines through replication? For the first phase of this project, I will explore ways of creating a module that, triggered by a sound, generate auditive-chain reactions.

Tone Matrix

Tone Matrix

Context

The general idea is to create different behaviors with these modules to the extent that they become generative. In this particular exercise –Mid-Term–, the idea is to create looped compositions that resemble bassline. By scaling these modules, emergent and unpredictable scenarios can appear.

 
 

BOM (Bill Of Materials)

  • Sound receiver (9 Microphone)
  • Sound emitter (9 Piezo–Buzzer)
  • Arduino
  • ATTiny
  • Battery (Coin Cell)
  • Controller (Potentiometer/Switch?)
  • 3 Trigger threshold
  • 3 Tempo
  • 3 PCB

Rippled Installation Concept Development

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Installation–Piece that has 2 behaviours

    Step and Modular ripple effect

1. Autonomous

2. Interactive

—Map physical phenomena in space that draws the work (installation/piece) out of its equilibrium

—Visibilize an invisible disturbance

 

Form – Codex Seraphinianus: modular

Mechanisms

Oval Regulated System

Oval Regulated System

Hexagonal Wave by Bees & Bombs (Tumblr)

Hexagonal Wave by Bees & Bombs (Tumblr)

Idea 

Ripple hexagonal module that reacts to an invisible phenomena

Paper Prototype

 

Peru's Pavilion in FILBO 2014

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For Bogota's International Book-fair (FILBO) Perú was the honored invitee. Panoramika was commissioned by the Peruvian Cultural Office to create various interactive installations, projection mappings and light designs. I was appointed the creation of one of the three installations crafted by Panoramika. Four screens that would reveal passersby random excerpts from the "Captain Pantoja and the Special Service", nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa's comedic novel.

For the implementation of this installation, I developed patches that visually changed text compositions in Quartz Composer, whenever the threshold of an Infrared sensor was triggered by people. The sensor was implemented in Arduino and interfaced to QC.

Interactive Dream Box

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For children's month, we created a giant box to make a stronger bond between children and their parents. I was the Interactive Lead for this project making sure the hardware and software would run swiftly for a month and a half.

Methodology: Iterative Development

Tools: Arduino, OpenFrameworks

Deliverables: Interactive Experience triggered by levers and buttons that took children and parents through a journey

Concept

With a collaborative experience, people embarked in a journey in the world of dreams and imagination. To communicate children's boundless imagination and appropriation of everyday objects, we constructed a giant carton box as the ship, with two control panels were knobs and buttons are made out of plastic bottles and other every day objects. 

Technologies

Along with two Interaction Designers, we coded the project's software in OpenFrameworks and the hardware in Arduino. To ensure collaboration in the box's experience, both panels were made wide enough so they could only be triggered by at least two people. There are two starting knobs and two launching/landing levers. The other panel is as wide as the first one, and it has four buttons that light-up to a sequence. Lit buttons have to be pressed at the same time to defeat the violent thread in the journey.

VICE Colombia Launch

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VICE Colombia started their headquarters in the beginning of 2014. For their launch party they invited Panoramika to create an interactive installation and multiple projection mappings. We created an array of projected eyes mapped onto extruded circles on the wall, that followed viewers. We used Kinect, OpenFrameworks, Quartz Composer and Madmapper.