Taking Flight

Defne Onen

Get lost in the sculptural light and reflections of Taking Flight!

https://defneonenitp.tumblr.com/post/181063091151/taking-flight-description-taking-flight-is-a

Description

Taking Flight is a semi-immersive light art sculpture. The participant plays with the handles that control the light fixture attached; to create sculptural light reflections that mimic bird silhouettes. The process is guided by interactive ambient sound that turns on when a participant is present and off when not, making the experience a meditative one. Taking Flight will draw you in with it’s beauty, calm your nerves by letting you focus on a simple task and empty your mind completely by the end of it. You’ll never want to stop playing!

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

LED Custom Controller

Karina Hyland Hernandez

Control any addressable LED fixture with this simple, intuitive, computer-less interface.

http://karinahy.com/index.php/en/itp-blog/physcomp

Description

Addressable LED's have become a very popular technology to use in a variety of platforms. Specially in entertainment environments such as theatre, music and dance performances. But the market today offers two main ways of controlling them. You either get a non-reliable and limited remote control, or you need to be programming expert and a computer to actually get exactly what you want. The ‘LED Custom Controller’ is right in the middle of these extremes. With a small and rather cheap interface anybody can design and control LED for a live performance, spaces or instances. This controller is also a simple and reachable way to teach how this specific technology works and get started with intelligent light.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

Focus Helper

Jaekook Han

Focus and listen.

https://expandingexperience.kr/ITP

Description

Focus Helper is an installation that helps people reduce the misunderstanding in conversation. Its design is based on people's behavior in conversation. People use their whole face to communicate such as eyes, mouth, ears and facial expressions. So I use a Fresnel lens to magnify their face and limit their visual from interruption of the environment. Also, people who want to understand the conversation, they write the note or recording, so I made an archiving website based on that behavior. The button on the handle activates the p5.speechRecognition. The whole part will make with wood and it has legs, and it also uses a mic, two headphones. The website will make on Github, so participants who come to Winter show can review their conversation after their experience of the Focus Helper.

Classes

Introduction to Computational Media, Introduction to Physical Computing

ChatBotany

Adrian Bautista

ChatBotany allows plants to interact with and express themselves to people through a chat interface.

https://www.chatbotany.xyz

Description

ChatBotany is the millennial gardening interface for today. The project connects a person to their plant through Facebook Messenger — allowing the plant to let their humans know when they're thirsty or lonely. The chat conversation also provides digital inputs that trigger physical events (such as watering the plant).

Plant personality traits based on the current state of the plant (e.g. “I'm thirsty!”) are represented through the images and the tone of messages sent by the plant to the human recipient. It explores our tendency to personify non-human entities and whether texting/chat interfaces are capable of communicating their personalities.

The project will be open-sourced, allowing anyone to build their own ChatBotany project at home.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

Music Between Us

Jiwon Shin, Rashida Kamal

Music Between Us (title tentative) is a set of wearable musical instruments in the form of embroidered jackets, meant to be worn by two (or potentially more) users, that invites users to explore and play with the boundaries of comfort, in touching and being touched.

https://js6450.github.io/PhysicalComputing/weekly/musicbetweenus.html

Description

Music Between Us (title tentative) is a set of wearable musical instruments, meant to be worn by two (or potentially more) users at a time. It takes the form of embroidered jackets that when touched, triggers a range of melodic and rhythmic elements that are added to an existing soundscape. The soundscape begins with a “heartbeat” percussive piece that continues for the duration of the soundscape. The variety of sounds builds as the users interact with each other by making contact with the embroidered elements on their jackets, occasionally including additional percussive elements as contact between the users intensifies.

The regions of embroidered elements on the jacket represent a topography of meanings — some locations on the jacket may suggest a more casual connection and others, more intimate. The piece invites users to explore and play with the boundaries of comfort, in touching and being touched. The piece is also a social experiment in the sense of prompting the users whether their default boundaries of comfort would be altered under the context of art and play.

The wireless wearable jacket is is constructed using a polyester base material and conductive thread for the embroidery and circuit connection. Areas of embroidery are used for input for the capacitive touch sensors (MPR121) and the users' touch data is communicated via Bluetooth over the Web Bluetooth API to trigger sounds over the web. Each of the sounds that can be triggered via capacitive touch sensors are initially composed as a soundscape designed in the way that regardless of how many sounds are triggered, the soundscape sounds natural and reflective of the level of touches between the participants.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

Phubbing Puppets

Rui Wang, Su He, Helen Tang

Give us your phone, pass down ur phubbing habit 😉

https://medium.com/@sh5304/icm-final-concept-9954883595e0

Description

Phubbing refers to as phone snubbing, where we slip back and fall into the habit of constantly checking our phones, retract from physical interaction and immerse in the virtual world. In collaboration with Rui Wang and Su He, we set out to explore how to demonstrate this phenomenon, while at the same time, actively seeking approaches to tackle this behavior if possible. Through three main stages of user testing and test play, our idea evolved over time and turned out more engaging.
Our final piece is an interactive installation that illustrates the phenomenon and provoke further thoughts within viewers.

Classes

Introduction to Computational Media, Introduction to Physical Computing

The Friendship Game

Chunhan Chen, Olivia Kung, Tianyi Xie

Test your friendship with your closest friend or the stranger closest to you by selecting shapes that represent how you feel about a given emotion.

http://tianyix.hosting.nyu.edu/blog/ipc/the-friendship-game-a-simple-two-players-interaction/

Description

We wanted to explore the complicated nature of friendship in a game-like way. Abstract shapes and vague questions represent the disconnect that two people may have while thinking about the same question. The friendship tests gamifies the difficulty that it can be to achieve common ground and eventually friendship between two people who have alternate perspectives.

This project requires two players, that may be strangers or the closest of friends, to put their new or old found friendship to the ultimate test. The players will be provided with five identical shape halves. Then they will be given a series of questions related to their feelings on select emotions. All it takes are three correct matches for the players to be rewarded in friendship and candy.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing, Introduction to Physical Computing

Breathenage

Wenjing Liu

A set of meditating tool that resonates with user's breath, help them breathe more consciously and calm them down

https://jingdezign.wordpress.com/2018/12/05/research-on-breathing-for-project3-breathing-cave/

Description

Breathing is an action that is vital to our lives yet often ignored by us. We get so used to it that we forget we are actually controlling it constantly, nevertheless to remember how important it is. Breathing is our life instinct. It is one of the signs that we are still present at this world. The way we breathe will also affect our internal state.

But today people, especially those in the cities, are live in such a hectic lifestyle that many of us are experiencing more and more anxiety, stress and even insomnia. We are so busy in interacting with different external things that we forget to interact with ourselves.

Hence I set out to design Breathenate to help people interact with themselves through breathing — to slow down, to be more self-aware, to focus on the present and let the tension flows. Functional wise, it is a set of tool that mirrors user’s breath pattern and guides them breathe deeper and slower. Eventually, it might help users (including me!) build up a good breathing habit.

The piece consists of 2 parts:
– A soft waistband that can detect user’s breath pattern using stretch sensor and will instruct them how to breathe through vibration motors
– A balloon that will inflate and deflate in responding to user’s breathing pattern

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

Escape the Cave

Topher Blair

A creature has been caught in a cave, and if you help him get out he'll give you a code to discover treasure!

https://www.topherblair.com/physcomp-blog-1/

Description

You find a poor creature trapped on a video screen. It has fallen down a cave and got stuck. To free it, you need to squeeze its feet in the correct order, at which point it jumps out of the video screen and onto the wall behind it (with the help of a projector). On the wall behind it are written 10 digits. The creature hops on three of the digits, highlighting them. Those digits help you to unlock a box filled with treasure.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing