2 days left...

Today we started the morning,talking through what will happen to day and what we have to buy.

We bought boards, potentiometer and we ordered a glass plate today.

We also did the first draft of the magazine article and wrote a short presentation to the exhibition about our project.

And we have discussed how to present our project on the exhibition so it will look najss and lovely and 70's.

/the group

Just my thoughts..

Yes! Now it's almost time for the exhibition and we have a lot left to do but no worries! It's been 2 weeks but it feels like 500 weeks!
Things are happening and working fine, we've made big progress with the arduino board and guess what, it works! yey! There has been cooperations with Karlskrona and the magazine brief task is done so now we need to write the article.
On monday we'll start to build the prototype and that means no rest till deadline and exhibition! But that's not a problem because it's the fun part!

This week has been chaotic, I've been working with the project but I've also helped with the wall-painting and planing the student-part to the Resumébar openingparty. We've had good communication in the group about what we are doing, working with and how everything goes. But I haven't been as active as I would have liked to be about the programming and the arduino board, mostly I've helped with the writing.

We talked about this on the follow-up process and we decided that since it is Ola who knows most about how all the programming works I'm going to help him on monday when we are building the prototype. I really want to understand how it works. Everyone in the group is helping each other to understand different parts. The feedback we got from each other was good because now we know what we need to work with to maximize our learning in this project.
We finally decided how the prototype will look like, and how we did that I don't know. We had the idea but different thoughts about the design and one day during a meeting one of us said something about a turntable and we all liked that so we started with some light brainstorming and that was all we needed.

Now we have three days to build a working prototype and write an article for the magazine, but as I said before, no one in the group is worried, because we all agree that if it takes time we'll stay at school working all night if needed.

Don't miss the exhibition!

/Madonna

Final deadline is coming closer

Todays schedule was follow-up process with the group at 1:30 p.m.
But before that we had a meeting and discussed what we must do to finish the prototype till next week to the exhibition on thursday. We finally decided how our prototype will look like and then we made a plan for the day and for next week.
Then it was time for the follow-up process which took about 1 hour and 30 minutes. We talked about how the project was going and if we've follow our plan and of course we gave each other feedback.

/The Group

Other things going on

Today it's the Resumébar opening party here at Hyper Island and we've been distracted because of that.
What we've done today is finish writing the magazine brief we started with yesterday and sent it to the group in Karlskrona who is going to write an article about our project.
We had a meeting just to check everything and planned what needs to be done.

To be contiuned..
//The group

Our project plan...

HYPER ISLAND
Stockholm


Project Plan
Digital Media Stockholm 07
Module: Experience Technology
Group 2: Sound and Light
Fannie Redman, Gustaf Eriksson, Ola Möller, Madonna Arsan, Martin Johansson



1. INTRODUCTION
We like to create an experience based on participation. The lead words for our project are Sound and Light, these are also the backbone of the project. The user of the prototype/product will be able to use a flashlight to “play” the instrument, which produces different sounds depending on which areas are lit on the prototype. This project is a part of the module Experience Technology at the school Hyper Island at the programme Digital Media in Stockholm, Sweden.

2. PROJECT SPECIFICATION
2.1 Assignment
2.1.1 Main task
The main task is a group activity in which each group has to create a solution that involves one or several components that they are assigned. A component can be a device, an electronic component or a piece of software. The solution should explore the components and challenge their use in creating a proof of concept for a product, service, game or interactive installation (all with an emphasis on exploration, innovation and fun).

2.1.2 Sub task - Sound and Light
Work with light sensors, sounds sensors, microphones and speakers to create an art piece or prototype of a product based on abstract light and audio input. Avoid using digital visual output like a monitor. Think about the sounds that exist around us and how we react to them. What happens when sound goes beyond frequencies that we can hear? What is the relation between sound and other types of feedback like vibrations? What happens if the input and feedback happens in different locations? How can something visual be reflected in sound?

2.2 Solution
2.2.1 Product/Function
We like to create a product that plays sounds. The sounds played are controlled by different light sensitive components. If the components are illuminated, the product will play a sound connected to that specific component. If not, the product will not play the sound of the component. The idea is that you with a flashlight can make the product do different sounds which varies depending on when and how long the light sensitive component are actived by the light source.

2.2.2 Technology
When we create the product, the plan is to use a pattern of light sensitive components (active when illuminated) connected to an arduino board connected to a computer which process the information given by the arduino board. The computer gives output to a speaker system.


2.3 Feature description
To work out a description of the features we worked according to the MoSCoW method. We chose what we must have, what we should have, could have and what we would like to have if time was given.

2.3.1 MUST HAVE
- React on light
We use photo resistors.
- Different light sensors are processed differently.
Photo resistors are connected to different part of the processing unit so it can distinguish the specific components.
- Process reaction on the light
A combination of the arduino board and the computer software working together with arduino.
- Send signals to the speakers
Output from the computer or the arduino board.
- Play a number of sounds (depending on which sensors are illuminated)
The photo resistors that are connected to different part of the processing unit are processed to play different sounds.
- Be a prototype that functions.

2.3.2 SHOULD HAVE
- Be an appealing prototype

2.3.3 COULD HAVE
- Be able to change type of sounds
- Show lights when sounds are played
- Record the experience
- Replay the recorded experience

2.3.4 WOULD LIKE TO HAVE (if time)
- Have very remarkable prototype that feels like a finished product.


3. ORGANISATION
3.1 Project group
The project group contains of five Hyper Island students at DM07STHLM.
Fannie Redman, Gustaf Eriksson, Ola Möller, Madonna Arsan and Martin Johansson.

3.2 Responsibility areas
We have divided our work into five responsibility areas. To maximize our learning we chose to rotate the areas between us, this way of working gives us bigger knowledge in all areas and not only one and it give all of us a chance to learn how things work that we didn’t knew before. These are the areas:
Technology; hardware
Technology; software
Research
Copy
Project planner

3.3 Time estimates / Deadlines.
September:
24-25th Brainstorm and come up with an idea for the project
26th Research: how the technique works
Research: what material we need to buy
27th Draft for project plan finished
28th Deadline: Project plan 12:00 p.m.
Deadline: Peer marking 6:00 p.m.

October:
1 st Purchase of material
Research: how to build the prototype
Start building the prototype
4th Magazine brief
Deadline: Magazine, brief 5:00 p.m.
Work with magazine
8th Work with magazine
Deadline: Magazine, first draft 5:00 p.m.
10th Deadline: Magazine, 5:00 p.m.
Deadline: Prototype, 5:00 p.m.
11th Exhibition

4. RESEARCH
4.1 The Unknown
To be able to complete the project we have to discover the world of technology, both in a hardware and software context. The things that we will learn more about are especially the Arduino system and how we can connect it to different components.

4.1.1 ELECTRONICS
Components – how do they work?
Making connections
Discover more about the Arduino board

4.1.2 SOFTWARE
Learn more about Arduino development environment (which is based on Processing)
Learn about Max/MSP which is a music program that can be connected to Arduino DE
Learn if we can connect the Arduino board to flash and process the information there.



Tha shit from tha group!

Max/MSP and other strange techie things

Test of input from light sensitive component.
We tested in a dark room to get the most out of it.

The work is progressing. Today we made a working prototype that plays different sounds which depend on if the light sensitive components are lit or not. We got some help from a friend of us that studies at the Interactive Sound Design BA programme in Kristianstad so now we understand the principles of making sound with input from the arduino board ALOT better. Thanks Nils!

One picture tells a story greater than 1000 words.

This is the first working prototype. 6 LDRs (light sensitive components), connected to an arduinoboard. The arduino board collects the analog input from the LDRs and send it to the computer. In the computer will Max/MSP which is a music program collect the information and us it as different variables to controll different commands in the program. Eg. volume, tone and so on.

We tell more about the ideas how to we want to built the final prototype and more about Max/MSP later on.

Cheers
/Le Group

A kick in the butt

Monday, slowest day of the week. Today we've had a lot of meetings about everything. On our schedule we had the first meeting which was our daily morning meeting. After planing what we would today we had a class info-meeting about everything. During the lunch Madonna was away buying stuff we needed and later Ola and Gustaf had another shoping tour. So with that done we decided to start testing and programming tomorrow and start to look at the magazine task, on thursday it's deadline for the magazine brief.

The last meeting was with an exhibition group, they discussed how the exhibition was going to be planned and how we are going to cooparate with Karlskrona about the magasine task.

As usual, more to come
/Group two