Once Upon a Time in a Box
This is an arduino project inspired by human relationships to art and stories. The state of our world constantly shifts and evolves thus shaping the way art and stories are perceived. Art has an undeniable impact on all of us, and in a way, we impact art. This project is meant to represent that.
Users touch a sensor and that triggers a reaction, bringing the art piece to life.
Project Details:
Duration: Winter 2019 (4 weeks)
Contributors: Fernanda Villalobos & Ashleigh Salazar
Tools: Arduino, Rhino, and Adobe Illustrator
My Role: Visual Design , Sound and Light Interaction Design
Process Summary:
Goal: To encourage curiosity and collaboration when interacting with an art by providing sensory feedback.
Pre-Production and Ideation:
Through sketches and brainstorming, we pinpointed 3 ways feedback could be provided: light, movement, and sound.
Light: sensors would trigger neopixels to conduct a twinkling light effect.
Sound: sensors would trigger a sound effect that would play through a mini speaker.
Movement: sensors would trigger a servo that would cycle through phases of the moon.
Production:
Electionics:
In order to inspire collaboration, all three interactions could be triggered simultaneously. This is inspired by the idea that our experiences with art are enriched when it is shared with others.
We used capacitive touch as this gave us more options for customization. This step was just a matter of testing, debugging, testing, and debugging to get to the best version of the project before our final demo.
Visuals:
We wanted the overall look and feel to feel whimsical and fairytale-esque. Visual inspiration came from shadow boxes and story book illustrations. Because capacitive touch is noticeable due to copper tape, we got creative with it to really make it feel like it was part of the piece.
Final Product:
Seeing people react and engage with our product was definitely the most rewarding part of this process. We noticed that at first people weren’t sure what to do, but placement of our sensors in front of the box, people started to get it. The curiosity we wanted to elicit from people was noticeable, and people wanted to know what each sensor would do.
There is definitely potential to create more complex interactions and play with scale.
To see the full process including full list of materials, code, demo videos, etc. then go here.
