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Happy Spotify Mirror

Yan Zhao

Happy Spotify Mirror is a smart mirror that can be triggered by smile to play spotify music and light up. The idea of this project is to break the traditional way of how to play online music and explore a different way of interaction between people and computer.

http://yanzpro.com/happyspotify

Description

Happy Spotify Mirror is an experiment of exploring new interaction methods between people and computer.It will be displayed as a one-way through mirror with a monitor hidden at the back. At the first glance, it looks the same as a normal mirror. The special about it is it is an interactive mirror with music, graphic effect and lighting. It can play spotify music but is differ from the traditional way of playing online music; instead of screen interface, spotify app, or physical button, there is only a mirror for interaction. The only way to trigger it is to stand inside of specific distance and then smile to the mirror and hold the smile for seconds, then the music will be triggered, at the same time on the mirror will appear interesting graphics synching with the music. Lighting effect synching with the music will also happen around the mirror. If you want to change the music, go back to straight face and then smile again, you will change it to play another music. . If you keep the same smile after the music is triggered, you will see different colorful graphic effects. If you have different levels of smile, different music played by different instruments will be triggered. For example, if you are little happy, it is piano, if you are happier, it is ukulele. If you are very happy, it will be violin. Also when you change the distance from the mirror, you will change the volume of the music. For example, if you move towards the mirror, the volume will be louder, vice versa. In conclusion, the Happy Spotify Mirror is experimenting on making the interaction between people and computer much more interesting, natural and minimizing the perceptible invasiveness of computer.

Classes

Introduction to Computational Media, Introduction to Physical Computing

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You've Got Rain

EunJee Kim

Lighting installation of a cloud that delivers promises on rainy or snowy days.

http://eunjee-kim.com/category/intro-to-physical-comp/

Description

Rain symbolizes a promise kept from the sky for the plants and farmers. With such idea of rain as representation of promises, I wanted to build an interactive cloud installation that allows people to connect back with those who they could not keep their promises with. A person can send a message with the cloud installation. Only, the message will not be delivered immediately, but be stored on the cloud until it rains or snows in the city where the receiver lives in.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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Attitude Chair

Phil Guo, Wipawe Sirikolkarn, Yuan Xue

So you think you can sit.

Description

Attitude chair is not a typical, passive chair but rather has a mind of its own. The chair deliberately turns away if it doesn’t want you to sit on. By doing this, we hope the users can engage and interact with such a passive, utilitarian object.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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Transform

Xinyao Wang

An interactive creature has 10 hands, which can stretch out and give you many high-fives.<br />

http://www.wangxinyao-design.com/?p=332

Description

It is alive. It can breath. It has 10 hands, which can stretch out and give you many high-fives. Before you touch it, it starts to deform and stretch out one of its’ hand. Then, you guys have a perfect high-five. However, if it stretch out to many hand at the same time, it will get tired and breath more rapidly. Kinect will sense the movement of the users’ hands, and send out data to PC. Then analyse the data and get rid of the noise with Processing. Arduino will receive the data of hand movement. Then control the linear actuators.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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Disembodied

Shangbo Chen, Yun Li

An interactive sound installation that people can undergo different environments based on their own choices and have otherworldly experiences.

http://kylinsays.com/pcomp/disembodied/

Description

Size: 2m x 2m ~ 2.4m x 2.4m

Environment: Dark and Quiet

Using: Kinect, Projections on ceiling

Our project is an installation that aims to provide otherworldly experiences for audiences using Kinect, projections and sound. Participant walks on an empty grid of projected tiles on the ground, each one contains different environment that shifts as participant goes. We let people in charge of where they want to go and make their own explorations created by our design and their very own imaginations.

We use Kinect, paired with Processing, to track people’s movement on a 5×5 tiles board. The board’s width and height are 2 to 2.4 meters long. Preferably, a dark environment make our projections more visible. Once Kinect located the participant, the program would play a soundtrack through headphones, composed of many environmental sounds that build up the virtual world around people. Lights would project the grid on the ground as well as flavor texts that contain an elusive and suggestive storyline which helps participants understand the world they are currently in.

We built this project to encourage people to go wild with their imaginations. At first glance, it is an empty grid of nothing. We hope that when people finished the walk and look back, they would see something out of this empty space: a vivid world created solely with their own curiosity, memories and emotions.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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Foggy Mountain

Yuli Cai

Immerse in the music of foggy nature

Description

Foggy Mountain is an installation that reflect the life of ancient Chinese literati. The life that immerse in the nature and play string instrument towards foggy mountain. It is an universal feeling to experience relaxed mood and unified soul while being surround by nature. Breath in, Breath out. We are actually interacting with nature every second. Guqin, is a special traditional string instrument in China, it has been endowed with our infinite emotional conversation with nature. Every time you play a string, it vibrate its sound out to nature. Foggy Mountain vivid these abstract feelings by visualising the sense of nature vibrating back.

By playing different strings, you will get rising fog from different areas according to the frequency of sound. The movement of pattern that being projected onto the fog is synced with the frequency of the string. The higher the frequency, the left the fog will show up, the faster the movement is.

Foggy Mountain use a guitar pickup as input, 50 fans to control the fog up and down and also a projector to project pattern.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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BoomChaCha!

Wangshu Sun, Yue Zhang, FY Zhu

BoomChaCha! is a physical musical role-playing game where three players will fight together against monsters.

http://bit.ly/BoomChaCha

Description

About BoomChaCha!

This is a physical musical role-playing game(RPG) where three players will fight together against monsters, with magical weapons in their hands.

Basically there is a warrior attacking the monster, a defender defending all of the three, and a mage healing all of the three. The three characters share the same life so they will get hurt or get healed for the same amount of health.

Unlike most of the RPG games, BoomChaCha! is musical. This means it is always better to follow the rhythm while playing. There's always a “Boom Cha Cha, boom cha cha” six-beat pattern repeating itself in the 6/8 background music, which creates a feeling of dancing party rather than a dangerous fight. During the first three “Boom Cha Cha”, you can do attacking, defending or healing by hitting the first “Boom” with the physical sword, shield or wand, and the effects will be executed in the next three “boom cha cha”. That is to say, if the warrior hits the first “Boom” beat, an attack will be executed in the next “boom cha cha”; if the defender/mage hits the first “Boom” beat, the next “boom” it will start defending/healing all the characters.

Since our aim is to invite people to play together, acting cooperatively should get better results than doing alone, so we designed an “assistance” logic with the “Cha Cha” beats. That is to day, if the warrior hits the “Boom” followed by the other two hitting the next two “Cha”, “Cha” beats, you will get a huge attack-power bonus and can kill the monster fast without getting too much damage. The same applies to the mage and the defender.The more assists, the better effects the players will get. Better results are also granted by the better timings of you three hitting the first three “Boom Cha Cha” in the six-beat patterns in the music.

At the beginning you will be in a practice mode to learn how to play. When you think your are ready, you can enter the fighting mode and the monster will start attacking you. Try to kill him fast and prepare a defend before his attack, and during the gap after you kill a monster, it’s a good time for you to get healed.

In all, if you want to survive and thrive, follow the beats and dancing together!

Classes

Introduction to Computational Media, Introduction to Physical Computing, Introduction to Physical Computing

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pineArt Box

Kevin G Stirnweis, Rebecca (Marks) Leopold

Create digital images using a mixture of natural elements and analog inputs.

Description

pineArt Box invites people to create a digital image using natural elements like pine needles and analog inputs to customize the color. As users interact with the system a live stream of their work is displayed in front of them. Once they are satisfied they can create a copy of their image with a push of the button that will display their creation next to the live stream. As people interact with the system they can enjoy natural sounds of the woods and the scent of the pine needles to create a meditative and creative experience. pineArt Box explores the interaction between the digital and natural worlds, as well as the interplay between art and process.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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Treegered

Fan-Hao Tseng

A small move can make big changes. Plant a seed and you'll get a forest!

Description

A platform(land) covered with soil and a pot in front of it will be placed in front of the crowd. People can place the seed into the pot, and dozens of trees will grow out from the soil platform in set sequence. After the previous participant leaves, the trees shriveled back to the underground, and wait for the next person to plant the seed.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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Snowcam

Melanie Hoff, Shir David

Physical snowglobe creates digital snow over a live webcam footage

http://www.shirdaviditp.com/physical-computing-week-7-midterm-project/

Description

This project consists of a screen displaying a live webcam of NYC. On a small platform in front of the screen will sit a snow globe with the same NYC scene shown in the webcam within it. When a user shakes the snow globe, it will appear to snow in the live webcam. The speed and direction of the snowfall onscreen will mimic that of the snowfall in the globe.

The snow is a p5 simulation that connects to an Arduino in the bottom of the snow globe via serial communication. The snow simulation code is controlled by reading and mapping values from an accelerometer. Currently, the NYC webcam footage is actually a recording but we plan on directly embedding the live NYC webcam footage for the winter show.

This project playfully leverages the prevailing belief that live webcams represent the truth.

Melanie Hoff and Shir David created this for Benedetta Piantella's PCOMP mid-term.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing