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Group name

Members

Project

Phidget 1127

Project name

Professor

Subject

Master

Institution

Date

SwidSchuMart

Sofia Swidarovicz (Technician)Eva Schulenberg (Producer)Emiliano Martínez (Designer)

Phidget artifact

Precision light sensor

Wake-up call

Emiliano Labrador Ruiz de la Hermosa

Design, Art and Creativity

2010-2011 Multimedia Creation, Design and Engineering

BES La SalleUniversitat Ramon Llull

December 9th 2010

Index

Introduction 3

Generating a concept 3

Final concept descr. 5

Contruction 6

Design 8

Implementation 10

Prduction/Scrum 11

Conclusion 12

3

Introduction

For this artifact project we used the 1127 precision light sensor Phidget. This sensor is able to measure light intensity in the range from 1 lux (Moonlight) to 1000 lux (TV stu-dio lightning).

In this paper you will fi nd fi rstly an explanation of our process of gen-erating a concept idea in which we could use the sensor. Following you will see a description of the de-

sign of the proj-ect. This means what exactly we going to use to realize our idea. Also is specifi ed how we put ev-erything togeth-er and do the implementation on the street. In the last chapter is written down how we planed and used our time for this project.

1127 Precision light sensor

Phidget

Generating a Concept

The process for fi nding our idea was not easy. We thought for a week about different ideas and did a lot of meetings without a clear concept to develop.

Cheap RedemtionOne of our ideas was to create a kind of artistic critique to catholi-sism and the church usisng a Je-sus fi gure and adding some mes-sages like aggresive advertising like “Free Salvation Now” or “Kill

this guy and get your redemption!” but we felt it was a bit too hard on a certain bealives.

Interactive SoundsWe thought we could use the sen-sor’s output connected to sounds. If we had different shadows we would listen to different sounds, but it seamed too simple so we thought about a new idea based on the concept that the world is not longer just black and white.

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Clothes light reflexionWe wanted to bring the refl ection of clothes of the people in connection to our sensor. The artifact would be in front of a wall but with enough space that people could walk be-tween our construction and the wall. The construction would make a sound all the time. Depending on the light refl ection of the clothes the sound would change. For ex-ample if the person was wearing dark clothes, there would be little refl ection so he/her would listen to a smooth sound from a piano. In the case of a person wearing lighter clothes the refl exion would be higher so he/she would hear a different sound like, for example, a fl ute. In this time of the process we were thinking to ad also another Phidget sensor with wich people could infl uence the music output, for example a circular or a linear touch. But still we were not totally happy with this idea, we had an-other brainstorm meeting. On this meeting we came to three general ideas:

1. The same idea but changing the connected music: light clothes bring angelic music out and dark clothes, heavy metal music with several variation in between. So we want use the sensor like a sound mirror.

2. Based on the idea from rockola.fm, bring the outputs on a screen in different colors. The intensity and the size of the output would

change in combination of touching the additional touch-sensor.

3. People could play with a fl ash-light. Depending on the intensity of the light, images would change.

With these ideas we had a good base to go ahead in the process of fi nding an idea. But we were still not really happy about them. So on the next day we meet for another brainstorming meeting and were thinking about what exactly we want show with our construction. So we put down four sentences:

1. How does the light sound?2. Nothing is like it seems3. Everything can make a sound, even light4. Welcome to the world!

“How does the light sound?” we thought in using music in different levels connecting to the light lev-el. A sound “beep” goes upper or lower, depends of the light refl ec-tion. Something is in front of the light and if it’s moving, the sound would change. For “Welcome to the world!” we want to put the sen-sor in a box together with a screen. If someone open the box on the screen will shown a sentence which bring the people to look around and notice their environment. Af-ter another brainstorm meeting, on which we were focused on the forth sentence, we got fi nally the follow-ing general idea:

How does light sound?

Nothing is like it seems.

Everything can make a sound, even light.

Welcome to the world!

5

Final ConceptDescription

Wake-up CallWelcome to the World!

We have a box which makes al-ways a sound so that people look at the box. Maybe just a noise or something as “open me”. If some-one opens the box, the sound would change to “Welcome to the world!”. On a screen different sen-tences would be shown. The sen-tences would change in connec-tion to the different light values. To make clear what we want transmit with this box, inside people could fi nd a graphic and a fl yer to take which explains our thought: People walking around looking down not interested in the rest of the world around them or in other people. If they hear the sound they would probably feel curious and they would feel that they need to open the box... at the end they are back in the world.

Part of the communication was to send messages to people interact-ing with different sentences shown at the screen:

- Enjoy the path- Now you’re definitely enjoying - You’re opened to the world because you’re curious- Destiny is the path- You look around, you’re interested in the world- You’re not alone- Don’t be afraid to share life

A part we couldn’t implement was the idea of including a live image of the person interacting using a web-cam but because of some problem connecting to the code, we decide to use just the simple idea.

Brainstorming meeting on the

27.11.2010

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With our proj-ect we wanted to make people look around and see not only their own path but also the path from oth-er people. We wanted to get them curious. For this reason we could have the possibility to use something

really outstanding which would get the attention from the people re-ally easily. But we thought it would be better to use something normal and when the people come closer they would recognize that this is not something normal, that there

is more to it, something behind it. This is the base of our idea, the people should look behind normal things.

So we choose a normal cardboard box which we found on the street. We decided that the box should keep its normal looking aspect, that the people will think this is just a normal box.

We change just the high of the box, so that people can open it easily. To make the people interested in the box, we recorded a voice say-ing “open me”. This sound is play-ing all the time when the box is closed. We put also a sign on top of the box with “open me” frase to make it more clear for people that they should really open the box.

Original card-board box found on the street

Construction

Desired look and feel effect

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Inside the box we have a laptop, the base of the phidgets and the sensor itself. All this things are standing on another cardboard like a table inside the box to make it stable and bring the screen near the person.

The Sensor is connected with a base and this to the laptop via usb connection. To protect the laptop and surprise with a different clean look we used two smoked acrylic pieces. One over the screen and the other over the keyboard. At fi rst we wanter to hide the sensor un-der the acrylic board but it didn’t

work right because there were not enogh light pass-ing by so we had to sit it on top. We used the lap-top not only to program the phidgets, what we did with java, but also to play the sounds and show the sentences.

To make the sentences much clos-er to our project aesthetics we putt-ed the sentences over a scanned cardboard image.

The box as

it looked like finally

assembled

A couple of ex-amples of the sentences with the project aesthetics

8

The aesthetics of the project were very im-portant since the message was not 100% clear. We generated some graphic elements that

would transmit the message and the general idea. We decided to use the carboard look of the box as the base for the elements.

ElementsAll elements where kept simple in line art for a fast reading and in black with a percentage of white to bring up the logo and the surpriced person.

The logoIt resembles a ringing alarm clock with the sphere being the world to wich i’m being welcomed. Integrat-ed with the name of the project in a round shape.

PersonsWalking people showing diferent additudes, one that walks looking down minding his own, one who’s attention is being drawned to a dox and the third one that’s surpriced and happy.

The Boxa simplifi ed symbol of the artifact

The arrowsHelp putting movement to the peo-

ple and bringing the alarm clock out of it.

SloganThe sentece “Welcome to the World!” in a big Helvetica Black Ex-tended rounds the fi nal message.

CompositionThe whole effect of the elements transmits the message because it has a story to tell. We kept the col-ors simple for the interacting real people to bring their own.

PiecesWith this composition in mind we designed a fl yer, a poster with in-formation on the place and date of the event, several screens with sentences and a special piece to put behind the acrylic by the screen of the laptop.

The rest inside the box, which the people can see, we colored in black that the people keep focused

on the screen and the graphic. Togeth-er with the graph-ic and the screen we record also a sound “welcome to the world” which is playing all the time when the box is open. With this three things (sentence on the screen, graphic and sound) we want to give our idea to

Flyer design with all the general graph-ic elements

9

Design

the people that after they open the box they changed a bit because they are interested in things stand-ing around and looking with a different point of view. After looking in the box they can go their path with the head up and enjoying life. Our project can be used from every person in every age but to understand the complete messages be-hind you have to reach an age where you can combine a bit more the things and you already know some-thing about live. So for chil-dren is this box maybe interest-ing because of the sounds and sentences changing but not because of the message behind.

Poster design

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We wanted to use our artifact on a public place were there where coming a lot people but not too many. So we decided to use it in front of Palau Robert at the Passeig de Gràcia 107 on Saturday the 4th of December at 4 pm.

We choose this day and time because we were thinking that a lot of people are walking on this street to make their Christ-mas shopping tour.

First we had to calibrate the sensor with the code, because the day before we were in a room to choose the different values when exactly an image should change. But the light on the day time and on the street is different so we had to fi gure out the new values. After that, we put the box next to the wall of the building and just step back to see if the people are in-terested in the box. Actually the people were more interested in the box when we were calibrat-ing the values. But a few peo-ple were looking, stopping and some of them open the box.

Sometimes we were going to the people and ask them if they understood the whole idea and more or less they did. So we could catch some people with our idea. And we hope they now enjoying their path.

Implementation

Users interacting

11

ProductionScrum

First of all we had to fi nd out what we want to do and which phidgets we want to use. So the fi rst week was a bit diffi cult to meet in real be-cause Sofi a was sick. So we decide to do the meetings via Skype. The fi rst meeting was on the 19.11.2010 with 30 minutes and we just decide to use the light sensor and the pro-fi les. So Sofi a is the technician, Emiliano the designer and Eva the Scrum Master.

We had two more dailymeetings on the 21st and 22nd via Skype were we talked about how far everyone came with fi nding ideas. But we had problems to fi nd something so we decided that Emiliano and Eva

Job Job subdivision Hours Doing by Status Done until1. Programming the phidgets 16 Sofia 03/12/20101.1 Find out if we can use webcam for the additional idea 2 Sofia doing 30/11/20101.2 Connect the light sensor with the sound 5 Sofia doing 03/11/20101.3 Connect the light sensor with the images 9 Sofia doing 30/11/2010

2. Construct the box 6 Emiliano 03/12/20102.1 How does the box look outside and inside 5 Emiliano doing 03/12/20102.2 Which sentence we want to use/ How many we want to use 1 Emiliano doing 03/12/2010

3. Put the box and the phidgets together 5 all doing 03/12/2010

4. Use the box on the street 1 all to do 04/12/2010

5. Poster 5 Eva to do 06/12/20105.1 Name of the group and project 1 all done 27.11.2010 27/11/20105.2 Logo 2 Eva to do 06/12/20105.3 Place and time for using the box 0.5 Eva to do 03/12/2010

6. Video 16 Eva 08/12/20106.1 Storyboard 1 Eva doing 30/11/20106.2 Text of explination the project 1 Eva to do 03/12/20106.3 Recording 2 Eva to do 04/12/20106.4 Editing 10 Eva to do 06/12/20106.5 Reediting 2 Eva to do 08/12/2010

7. Memory 6 Eva to do 08/12/2010

8. Presentation 6 all 08/12/20108.1 Design 4 Emiliano todo 08/12/20108.2 Content 2 all to do 08/12/2010

meet on the 24th in the dome and Sofi a should connect with us via Skype for a brainstorming. But this wasn’t completly succesfull again so we talk on Thursday the 25th with the product owner/client and with his help we found fi nally the general idea.

On Saturday the 27th Sofi a was able to come back at the dome, so we had another brainstorm meet-ing to get our idea developed. Until this day we couldn’t use really the idea of scrum with the backlog and sprint plans. But from this point we were using it. So we defi ned the dif-ferent things to do and wrote down how we where to work:

Product Backlog 27.11 - 04.12

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Job Job subdivision Hours Doing by Status Done until1. Programming the phidgets 16 Sofia done 30.12.2010 03/12/20101.1 Find out if we can use webcam for the additional idea 2 Sofia done 30.11.2010 30/11/20101.2 Connect the light sensor with the sound 5 Sofia done 03.12.2010 03/12/20101.3 Connect the light sensor with the images 9 Sofia done 03.12.2010 03/12/2010

2. Construct the box 6 Emiliano done 03.12.2010 03/12/20102.1 How does the box look outside and inside 5 Emiliano done 03.12.2010 03/12/20102.2 Which sentence we want to use/ How many we want to use 1 Emiliano done 03.12.2010 03/12/2010

3. Put the box and the phidgets together 5 all done 03.12.2010 03/12/2010

4. Use the box on the street 1 all done 04.12.2010 04/12/2010

5. Poster 5 Emiliano done 03.12.2010 06/12/20105.1 Name of the group and project 1 all done 27.11.2010 27/11/20105.2 Logo 2 Emiliano done 03.12.2010 06/12/20105.3 Place and time for using the box 0.5 all done 04.12.2010 03/12/2010

6. Video 16 Eva done 08.12.2010 08/12/20106.1 Storyboard 1 Eva done 03.12.2010 30/11/20106.2 Text of explination the project 1 Emiliano done 03.12.2010 03/12/20106.3 Recording 2 Eva done 04.12.2010 04/12/20106.4 Editing 10 Eva done 07.12.2010 06/12/20106.5 Reediting 2 Eva done 08.12.2010 08/12/2010

7. Memory 6 Eva/Emiliano done 08.12.2010 08/12/2010

8. Presentation 6 all 08/12/20108.1 Design 4 Emiliano done 08.12.2010 08/12/20108.2 Content 2 all done 08.12.2010 08/12/2010

On the base of this backlog we could start with the work. And we could hold nearly every deadline.

Only the responsible person of some jobs is changed. But this you can see on the different backlogs. Also we tried to have every day the

daily meeting to see early enough if there some problems appear. Fi-nally we can say, to use SCRUM in our project is good to see what all we have to do and how much time we have left for it. Also to see how the different jobs are separated be-tween three of us.

For summary it can be said that the project in general was a good experi-ence. We got fi nally the idea, which we all liked. And it was successful. Not all people were interested in our idea, but those who opened the box where really interested and could understand our idea.

Conclusion

Product Backlog 04.12 - 09.12(changes in red)