Living in shared living situations and in close proximity to others, traditional windchimes can intrude into others' silent space. We wanted to create a set of chimes that would be silent for our neighbors, but would be audible within private spaces.

Background
This project began as our final for Sociable Objects, and we are continuing with it. We did a lot of research about ways to generate tones from analog values, but in the end decided that the best thing for us was to record genuine windchimes to maintain authenticity.

Audience
Everyone - especially those who live in apartments.

User Scenario
We intend to create a mockup of a windowed apartment environment - the user walks up to it and can interact with the two sets of chimes by blowing on them or touching them to create sounds.

Implementation
We have two sets of chimes: one to hang outside (from a fire escape, etc), and one to sit on the windowsill. The hanging set uses photo interrupters to trigger the chime sounds, and the second uses an accelerometer that is allowed to blow around freely to trigger the sounds. Both sets of chimes run through Processing where the sounds a produced and mixed together.