Pressure Project 2 – The Flipper
Posted: March 3, 2026 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Description
The Flipper is a TouchDesigner patch that uses an audio input to create video, and uses a video input to create audio. When used in a network this “cell-block” acts independently by creating entirely new audio and video, instead of just modifying the audio and video it receives. Its modularity lies in its ability to provide other users in the cell-block network with new sources of audio and video, that are themselves generated from other audio and video over the network.
Collective Documentation
Pending
Individual Documentation
Overview of my cell-block’s network. This is connected to three inputs and outputs on the outside of the container, which connect to other cell-blocks on the network. While there’s a lot on screen, it breaks down into a few simple sections.
This portion of the network takes in audio from over the patch through the in_audio CHOP. The envelope, math, and audioparaeq objects slow the stream of data and boost high frequencies, respectively. This then is turned into a spectrogram and is sent directly to a chopto TOP.
This portion processes that audio spectrum into a new visual. Starting in the bottom left, I use a series of TOPs to create a flow-like visual, which is then composited with the spectrum. This new visual is colored using a series of ramps and a look up TOP. The ramps are cycled through using either an LFO or an input from in_osc over the network. An example of the visuals this produces is below.
Lastly, this portion of the patch processes video received over the network from the in_video TOP (or in this case, a camera input) into audio. While I didn’t get quite as interesting an audio output as I wanted, I still think I was effective in transforming video to audio. The video that is received gets sent directly to a topto CHOP, which reads RGB values over the X and Y planes of the video. the following objects then reduce the amount of data, and turns those waves into a stereo audio signal by the merge CHOP. This wave is given an envelope by the math objects (I attempted to control this with another osc input but failed to make it work) and is sent out over the network. An example of audio is included below.
Reflection
Since I knew I wanted to flip the audio and video signals inside my patch, the independence of the cell-block was semi-inherent the entire time I was working on it. In order to ensure it was connectable with others, however, I needed to ensure that whatever the patch did was interesting enough, while still clearly using audio and video to influence the opposite output, so that it didn’t just seem like I was generating something entirely new.
I made choices about what to include and exclude primarily by trying to figure out what I could accomplish that was reasonably within my ability, but still interesting. For example, I’ve worked with spectrogram imagery in the past, so I knew I would be able to incorporate that the easiest. On the opposite end of that, I attempted to integrate FM synthesis into the audio part of my patch to get some more interesting sounds. However, with my inexperience in TouchDesigner, I found it really difficult to make FM work, so I chose to exclude it.
One thing that surprised me was how even if cell-blocks didn’t work “perfectly” together, they still were able to have some sort of interaction, even having unexplainable interactions. I was also a bit surprised how underutilized the OSC data we were sending was. I know I was personally having difficulty in doing something interesting with the OSC signals, but it was interesting that it was a widespread problem. I think this might come from the fact that the other signals we were working with were both very tangible. Since the OSC input was just a number, I think we were a bit less motivated to find an interesting way to use it, as opposed to the audio and video, which we could immediately do interesting things with.
I think we didn’t have quite enough time to experiment with combining our cell blocks in different ways for a lot of emergent behavior to emerge. But one that I enjoyed seeing was how the visuals would layer together through 2, 3 or 4 cell-blocks. I thought that all of the cell blocks were interesting on their own, but the most interesting visuals were created through the combination of several together. This relates to Halprin’s cell-block framework through the idea that we can each create our own module that does its own thing, but the most exciting behaviors only emerge once we begin to combine the different cell-blocks, and experiment with how they feed into each other.
Download Patch
Pressure Project #2 – Transcendence through Snares
Posted: March 3, 2026 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »- Description of my cell-block:
- Independently, my cell-block uses the snare of the audio provided to cycle through a set of mouth shapes to simulate lip syncing (albeit not realistic lip syncing). It also takes the video input and through Ramp and Displace, warps the image based on the “mid” registered from the audio as well. Without outside input the audio used is “Position Famous” by Frost Children, and the video is a looping timelapse POV of a subway traveling underground. This was to create a sense of motion and exhilaration (the movement of the subway and displacement), and playfulness (the lip syncing).
- Collective documentation:
- Video/photos of the assembled system: Admittedly, I forgot to take footage of the showcase. I was a bit more nervous about this project, worried about everything working properly with the other cell-blocks. Once it was my turn, I only focused on presenting my work. I plan to reach out to classmates to see if they recorded footage.
- Process reflection:
- The cell-block was self-contained but, on the exterior, was connected to incoming TOP and CHOP inputs as well as feeding those inputs out. So, on its own, the block would play as planned, but once outside audio and video were fed in, they would then take the effects of the previous media. There were some issues with feedback loops when testing this out, but mostly, it worked. The lips were a last-minute add and therefore independent…so no matter what, the lips stayed on screen; how it reacted depended on the audio input.
- I made the choice to control the level of flashiness and movement with my visuals. It’s easy to fall into producing loud and flashy imagery with programs like TouchDesigner or even After Effects, however, I try to use media responsibly, and I also didn’t want to give myself a headache. I’ve made materials that are hard for photosensitive people to take in, and while some others loved the chaotic visuals, I wasn’t satisfied knowing a group of people wouldn’t be able to watch it (and enjoy it).
- I was surprised a lot of people didn’t use audio that contained a lot of snares (or used much audio at all)… I was also surprised that everything worked together for the most part (if you can’t tell, I was nervous).
- Everyone’s work offered me something new when combined. I would combine with Luke’s when I wanted the most cohesive combination, I would combine with Zarmeen’s when I wanted to destroy everything (or use her audio), I combined with Chad’s because I wanted to appear on his channels more, and I combined with Curtus when I wanted to see a dragon.
- This project was a new way to envision Halprin’s cell-block method, but in a strictly digital realm. The goal was to have every block exist on its own and influence others (multiply the possibilities of the content produced). I think we mostly did that, although networking still feels stressful to me; I at least know how it works (sort of).
- Individual documentation:
Pressure Project 1: The Musical Spiral
Posted: February 13, 2026 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Description
The musical spiral is a self-generating patch that randomly generates shapes at different sizes and positions, and spins them in a random direction for a random-length cycle. When these shapes cross a line, they (are supposed) to trigger a random musical note.
Documentation
Before starting to code my patch, I did a quick sketch for my idea of what I generally wanted the patch to do to help me save time later. While I had to change and add a bit outside of this, this essentially became the outline of what my code would look like.
The overview of my patch, upon entering the scene, the random numbers for duration of the cycle and the direction of the spin are generated, since they’ll be applied to all of the shapes. When the cycle ends, the spinning shape user actor sends a trigger to the Jump++ actor, going to a duplicate scene, which jumps back to the first scene.
Inside my “spinning shape” actor, the final result of my original user actor sketch. The bottom 2/3rds of the screen contains the actors randomizing the attributes of the shapes actor. The top 3rd deals with spinning the shape clockwise or counter-clockwise (decided by the “flip coin router” user actor) for a cycle of random length with a random delay from shape-to-shape.
Inside my “hitbox trigger” user actor. This actor takes each shape (which has been sent to its own virtual stage) and looks for when it makes contact with a small white rectangle I sent to every virtual stage in the “hitboxes” user actor. When it makes contact, it was supposed to trigger a random sound in the “sound player” actor.
Random selection of 18 short samples of single notes. Chromatic from C3-F4.
How I checked if one of the spinning shapes was inside the same area as the hitbox, sending a trigger when they “made contact.”
Sound playback user actor.
A sample of how the final version of the patch behaved. The white line (actually smaller than the hitbox) was left on screen to provide a reference for when the sound was supposed to trigger (despite it not working that way due to the high load of the patch).
Reflection
One of the best ways I managed the 5-hour time constraint was to make the sketch of my idea as seen earlier in this post. By working backwards from my initial idea to solve the problem the best I could on paper, I gave myself a framework to easily build off of later when problems or changing ideas arose. It also meant that I had a general idea of all the different parts of the patch I would need to build before I actually started working on it. This also guided what I would include/exclude in the patch.
While my patch didn’t end up working the way I wanted it to (sounds were supposed to trigger immediately when the shapes crossed the line, unlike what is seen in the above video) I was very surprised how this didn’t “ruin” the experience, and how it even created a more interesting one. With the collision of the shapes and the white line being decorrelated from the sounds, the class became seemingly became more curious about what was actually going on, especially when the sounds would appear to trigger with the collision after all. I was also interested to see the ways people “bootstrapped” meaning on to this patch. For example, Chad had noticed that in one of the scenes, the shapes were arranged in a question mark sort of shape, leading him to ask about the “meaning” of the arrangement and properties of the shapes, despite them being entirely random.
During the performance of the patch, I unlocked the three achievements concerning holding the class’s attention for 30 seconds. I did not make someone laugh, or make a noise of some sort, as I think the more “abstract” nature of my patch seemed to focus the room once it started.
Pressure Project#1: Pitch, Please.
Posted: February 10, 2026 Filed under: Pressure Project I | Tags: Interactive Media, Isadora, Pressure Project, Pressure Project One Leave a comment »Description: Pitch, Please is a voice-activated, self-generating patch where your voice runs the entire experience. The patch unfolds across three interactive sequences, each translating the frequency from audio input into something you can see and play with. No keyboard, no mouse, just whatever sounds you’re willing to make in public.
Reflection
I did not exactly know what I wanted for this project, but I knew I wanted something light, colorful, interactive, and fun. While I believe I got what I intended out of this project, I also did get some nice surprises!
The patch starts super simple. The first sequence is a screen that says SING! That’s it. And the moment someone makes a sound, the system responds. Font size grows and shrinks, and background colors shift depending on frequency. It worked as both onboarding and instruction, and made everyone realize their voice was doing something.
The second sequence is a Flappy Bird-esque game where a ball has to dodge hurdles. The environment was pretty simple and bare-bones, with moving hurdles and a color-changing background. You just have to sing a note, and make the ball jump. This is where things got fun. Everyone had gotten comfortable at this point. There was a lot more experimentation, and a lot more freedom.
The final sequence is a soothing black screen, with a trail of rings moving across the screen like those old screensavers. Again, audio input controls the ring size and color. Honestly, this one was just made as an afterthought because three sequences sounded about right in my head. So, I was pretty surprised when majority of the class enjoyed this one the best. It’s just something about old-school screensaver aesthetic. Hard to beat.
What surprised me most was how social it became. I was alone at home when I made this and I didn’t have anyone test it so, it wasn’t really made with collaboration in mind, but it happened anyway. I thought people would interact one at a time. Instead, it turned into a group activity. There was whistling, clapping and even opera singing. (Michael sang an Aria!) At one point people were even teaming up, and giving instructions to each other on what to do.
When I started this project, I had a very different idea in my mind. I couldn’t figure it out though, and just wasted a couple hours. I then moved on to this idea of a voice controlled flappy-duck game, and started thinking about the execution it in the most minimal way possible (because again, time). This one took me a while, but I reused the code for the other two sequences and managed to get decent results within the timeframe. There’s something about knowing there is a time limit. It just awakens a primal instinct in me that kind of died after the era of formal timed exams in my life ended. In short, I pretty much went into hyperdrive and delivered. I’m sure I would’ve wasted a lot more time on the same project if there was no time limit. I’m glad there was.
That said, could it be more polished? Yes. Was this the best I could do in this timeframe? I don’t know, but it is what it is. If I HAD to work on it further, I’d add a buffer at the start so the stage doesn’t just start playing all of a sudden. I would also smooth out the hypersensitivity of the first sequence which makes it look very glitchy and headache-inducing. But honestly, with the resources that I had, Pitch, Please turned out decent. I mean, I got people to play, loudly, badly, collaboratively, and with zero shame, using nothing but their voice. Which was kind of the whole point.
Pressure Project #1 – A Walk In Nature
Posted: February 9, 2026 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Description: “A Walk In Nature” is a self-generating experience that documents two individuals’ time together deep in the woods.
The Meat and Bones (view captions for descriptions):
Photos I took before production (I had no real clue what I was going to do)
The Reactions:
I am very thankful for Zarmeen’s presence, as I don’t know if I would’ve achieved all the bonus points without her. While I received relatively affirming verbal feedback at the end, without her talent of reacting physically, I would have felt way more awkward showing this messed-up video.
Reflections:
I was actually extremely relieved to have a time limit on the project, as I am very limited on time as a grad student with a GTA and part-time job (it’s rough out here). I loved the idea of throwing something at the wall and seeing what sticks. I chose to do the majority of the work in one setting, figuratively locking oneself in a room for five hours and leaving with a thing felt correct. I did note ideas that popped up throughout the week, but I didn’t end up doing any of them anyway.
I was far too hung up on the idea of making sure people pay attention; original ideas had the machine barking orders at the viewers to “not look away”, but that felt mean. So I went with the idea of making everyone so uncomfortable that they forget to look away, like how I feel watching Fantastic Planet. Towards the last hour, I realized that aside from robots talking, I needed user interaction to make this feel whole. However, the cartwheel and petting action didn’t work out as pictured above. So what if the audience could be the deer?
The last hour was me messing with an app to use my camera as the webcam (Eduroam ruined my dreams there). So I grabbed a webcam from the computer lab the day of. (sorry Michael) I knew I was going to choose one lucky viewer to hold the camera, and choosing Alex was improvised I just thought he would be most excited to hold it. I was pleasantly surprised that there were expressions of joy while watching, as when I showed my partner, she was scared and mad at me. I am glad my stupid sense of humor worked out. 🙂
AI EXPERT AUDIT – DANDADAN
Posted: February 5, 2026 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »I chose the anime DanDaDan as my topic. I believe I am an expert in a lot of anime/manga related topics because I have been reading manga and watching anime for more than a decade now. I love DanDaDan especially because it’s one of the few series lately that’s a little different in a world of overly saturated genres like the leveling-up games. DanDaDan is a breath of fresh air and super weird and fun filled with all sorts of absurdity. So, in order to train notebook LM about this topic, I used some YouTube videos. The videos focused on the storyline, major arcs, characters, and why is it such a hit.
1. Accuracy Check
I wasn’t so surprised that it got the gist of the story correct. I did give it sources where the youtubers summarized the whole storyline and talked about its characters, arcs and resolutions. So, it wasn’t a bad generic overview, I would even say it was good for a summary. It’s only when you’ve been thoroughly into a certain subject area that you start understanding the nuances and tiny details of it. I think it didn’t say something outright absurd if we were to talk about what it got wrong. It’s just that it sometimes mispronounced some names. With the names being Japanese, I am not surprised that they might be mispronounced, but the AI used a range of mis-pronunciations for the same name.
One of the voices in the podcast was too hung up on making the story what it is not. I mean sure it was justified at some points but it insisted that the real ideas behind this absurd adventure-comedy are deeper themes like teenage loneliness, and that it’s actually a romance story while it’s not. (It’s a blend of scifiXhorror) Sure there are sub-themes like in all anime, but it’s not the main theme. The other voice sometimes did agree with this idea. The podcast was not focused enough on just keeping it fun and light- which is what DanDaDan really is.
2. Usefulness for Learning
If I was listening to this topic for the first time, I feel like this podcast wouldn’t be a bad starter. Like I mentioned earlier, it gave a pretty decent summary of the whole plot. I think it definitely gets you started if you need a quick explanation of a subject area. I found the mindmap to be pretty decent too. It was a decent overview of the characters and the arcs. The infographic on the other hand… so bad. The design is super cringe and again, a lot of emphasis is on the romance and how it drives the action. Which I disagree with.
3. The Aesthetic of AI
Overall, the conversation was SO very cringe, and it was very difficult to get used to it in the beginning. I used the debate mode and they were talking so intensely about a topic that’s just nowhere as serious as the AI made it out to be. I had to just stop and remind myself it’s just a weird, fun anime they’re talking about. AI has this tendency to make everything sound intense, I guess.
4. Trust & Limitations
I would recommend AI to someone who wants a quick summary or overview of a topic. It’s what the AI is good at. What I wouldn’t recommend is to dwell on the details that the AI talks about. If anyone wants details or wants to form an opinion about a topic, they should look into it themselves.
Link to the podcast:
AI-Generated Visuals:
Sources:
https://youtu.be/8XdTF5tnMVU?list=TLGG7J2IoA7cY1QwNTAyMjAyNg
AI Expert Audit – The Elder Scrolls
Posted: February 5, 2026 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Source Material
Since for my topic, I chose to pick a game which already has a wealth of in-universe literature written, my primary source was a pdf of every book that exists in the series, found at LibraryofCodexes.com. I also chose to upload a small document I found giving a general timeline of the series and its history, as well as a short video covering the history of the world.
I chose this topic as over the course of the last 10 years, I’ve likely played up to (or over) 1000 hours of these games over 3 different games. Even more so, I’ve listened to countless hours of videos doing deep-dives on the world’s lore as background videos while working or driving. I think the reason I find myself so drawn to it is the relationship between world-building and experience in RPGs. As I learn more about the world, the characters I play can have more thought out backgrounds and motivations, improving my experience, which makes me want to learn more about the universe. I was also interested to see how the AI would handle sources not about the game itself, but rather about a range of topics that exist *inside* the game.
The AI-Generated Materials
Podcast
Prompt: Cover a broad history, honing focus on the conflict between men and elves
Infographic
Prompt: Make an infographic about the Oblivion Crisis and how the High Elves capitalized on it.
Mind Map
Audit
1. Accuracy Check
Overall, the AI got a lot right about the historical origins and monumental events in the world of the game. There are some topics that are somewhat confusing that I was surprised it got mostly right. It didn’t get much wrong, but it did make a few strange or even incorrect over-generalizations. For example, in the podcast it said that the difference between the two types of “gods” in this world is “the core takeaway for how magic works”, which it is not. Even weirder, it got the actual origin of magic in the games correct later on.
2. Usefulness for Learning
I do think that these sources would be incredibly useful for someone with no prior knowledge of this series to easily learn about the world they exist in. The podcast does a good job at simplifying the most important events for understanding what’s happening and the motivations of different factions. However there are a lot of nuanced ideas that it completely misses, which could be due to the length being set to normal. The mind map does a really good job at connecting important ideas of the universe together. However, it also places too much importance on certain topics, such as a handful of weapons, only one of which has any real importance to the larger plot. Lastly I thought that the infographic did a nice job at laying out the events that I prompted it to, but there were a few spelling errors.
3. Aesthetics of AI
One of the strangest things I encountered doing this was the ways that the AI would try to make itself sound more human during the podcast. For instance, it would stutter, become exasperated at certain abstract topics, and even make references to memes not found in the sources. The AI definitely has a certain voice to it. I don’t know how to exactly describe it, but in the podcast it seems to talk like everything it mentions is the most important thing ever, and the other AI “voice” always seems to be surprised at what the other one is saying. I actually thought that the AI did a pretty good job at emphasizing the same things a human expert would. However it somewhat glosses over the actions of the player characters during the games, which I think a person would focus a bit more on.
4. Trust and Limitations
From this, I would probably warn a person against trusting the importance the AI might place on certain topics as well as the connections it makes between topics in generated educational materials. It also seems to avoid any sort of speculative ideas whatsoever, which I found odd since there were books in the sources which do theorize on certain unknown events or topics. I’d say the AI seems the most reliable in taking the information you give it and organizing it into easily consumable chunks. However, this only seems to be at a surface level, and when it tries to draw conclusions about topics, it tends to fall flat or make incorrect assumptions. I think in this case, you’d be better off just watching a video someone has already made on the games.
AI Expert Audit: I made Notebook LM theorize about Five Nights of Freddy’s
Posted: February 4, 2026 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »The Source Material (I kind of went too far here):
we solved fnaf and we’re Not Kidding
https://www.reddit.com/r/GAMETHEORY/
How Scott Cawthon Ruind the FNAF Lore
https://freddy-fazbears-pizza.fandom.com/wiki/Five_Nights_at_Freddy%27s_Wiki
https://www.reddit.com/r/fivenightsatfreddys/
GT Live react to we solved fnaf and we’re Not Kidding
My Source Material, Why Did I Choose This?:
I actually chose materials that weren’t important to me, but they were when I was younger. I love listening to video essays and theories on various media. Whenever I was animating or doing a mundane art task in my undergrad, I would have that genre of video in the background to take a break from listening to the news (real important shit). It’s super silly stuff, but when I was a teenager, Game Theory first started getting BIG; seeing a huge channel discussing my favorite IPs, subverting and contextualizing their narratives felt very important. It really validated my feelings that video games were art.
However I am now grown, and I care far less about Five Nights of Freddy’s, now it feels like fun junk food for my brain. (Although teens and kiddos still care about the spooky animatronics, so it’s been a clutch move when bonding with the youths when I was a nanny.) I also hate AI, I hate it. I don’t hate automation; it makes life way better when done currently. I don’t think “AI” is done correctly; it’s mostly bullshit even down to the name. It’s a marketing strategy giving excuses to companies to fire workers and build giant databases that poison the land. I did not want to give Notebook LM anything “meaningful”. I didn’t want to let it in on the worlds I care about on my own volition. So, I gave it the silly spooky bear game that I know way too much about.
The AI Generated Materials
“Create an info graph of the official Five Night of Freddy’s Timeline with the information presented. Creating branches of diverging thought alongside widely agreed upon information.”
“Form a debate on what Timeline is the canon for FNAF.
Each host has to make their own original timeline.
Both hosts should sound like charismatic youtubers with dedicated channels to the video game and it’s lore.
Both Youtubers should use the words often associated with the Fandom and culture of FNAF.
Both hosts you have distinct personalities and opinions from one another.
Both hosts will have different opinions on whether the books should be used in lore making.”
1. Accuracy Check
What did the AI get right?
The basics. It was able to categorize the general hot topics (e.g., MCI or the Missing Child Incident, The Bite of 83’ and 87’, The Aftons…). It sometimes would match what theory goes with what Youtuber. It’s pretty efficient in barfing out information in bullet point fashion.
What did it get wrong, oversimplify, or miss entirely?
The transcripts from the videos aren’t great; they don’t separate who is saying what, so when trying to describe the multiple popular theories out there and how they conflict, it struggles. When I had it made an audio debate where two personalities choose a stance to argue about from the materials I provided. It was pretty much mincemeat. Yes, both were referencing actual game elements but in ways to make no sense to the actual theories provided, the “hosts” argued about points no real person would argue about. In the prompt, I instructed one personality to use the books as reference while the other did not, and it took that and made 70% of the podcast arguing about the books. The mind map struggles to clarify what theory is and what is a canon fact. The info graph was illegible.
Were there any subtle distortions or misrepresentations that a non-expert might not catch?
Going back to the mind map, and in other words it doesn’t cite its sources well. It does provide the transcript it referred to, but the transcripts aren’t very useful as described above. It flips flopped between stated what as a theory and what was canon to the game (confirmed by the creators). If someone were to read it without much knowledge, they would be bombarded with information that conflicts, isn’t organized narratively, and stated in context of its origin.
2. Usefulness for Learning
If you were encountering this material for the first time, would these AI-generated resources help you understand it?
Semi-informative but not at all engaging.
What do the podcast, mind map, and infographic each do well (or poorly) as learning tools?
Both podcast and mind map were at least comprehensible; the info graph was not.
Which format was most/least effective? Why?
The podcast is the most effective; there was some generated personality to distinguish the motivation behind certain theories, not great distinctions but more than nothing.
3. The Aesthetic of AI
It’s safe to say Youtubers and podcasters are still safe job wise. Hearing theories about haunted animatronics in the format and aesthetics of an NPR podcast was deeply embarrassing. Hearing a generated voice call me a “Fazz-head” was demoralizing to say the least.
They made pretty bad debaters too. The one who was presumably assigned the role of “I will only use the games as references” at one point waved away their opponent’s claim with the response, “yeah but that’s if you seriously take a mini game from 10 years ago”.
It took out all of the fun; there were no longer cheeky remarks of self-depreciating jokes about the silliness of the topic and efforts. Often theorists will acknowledge Scott Cawthon did not think these implications fully out, that this effort may be rooted in retcons and wishful thinking, but it’s still fun. The hosts and mind map acted like they were categorizing religious text, and it was remarkably unenjoyable to sit through.
4. Trust & Limitations
AI is good at taking (proven) information and organizing it in a way that is nice to look at. It’s great for schedules or breakdowns. It sucks at just about everything else. I only really have benefitted from AI when it comes to programming; it’s really nice to have an answer to what is wrong with your code (even if it’s not always right; it usually leads you past the point of being stumped).
When it comes to art, interpretation, and comprehension, I wouldn’t recommend AI to anyone. If you are making a quiz, make it yourself. The act of making a quiz based off study topics will increase your comprehension far more than memorizing questions barfed out to you. If you don’t have the time to produce something, then produce something you can with the time you have or collaborate with someone who can produce with you. Use AI to fix your grammar (language or code), use AI to make a schedule if you suffer from task paralysis, but aside from accommodations and quick questions, leave it alone.
Pressure Project 3: Expanded Television
Posted: December 18, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »I had a lot of ideas for this pressure project but ended up going with an expanded version of my first pressure project. I thought it would be really fun to use a Makey Makey to an actual TV remote into something that can control my Isadora TV. If I used sticky notes and conductive pencil drawings, I could fake pressable buttons to change the channel and turn it on and off.
To me, the hardest part of using a Makey Makey is always finding a way to ground it all. But I had the perfect idea of how to do this on the remote: because people usually have to hold a remote in their hand when they use it, I can try to hide the ground connection on the back! See below.
This worked somewhat well but because not everyone holds a TV remote with their hand flat against the back, it may not work for all people. You could use more paper and pencil to get more possible contact points, but this got the job done.
For the front buttons, I originally also wanted the alligator clips to be on the back on the remote, but I was struggling to get a consistent connection when I tried it. I think the creases at the paper bends around to the back of the remote cause issues. I’m pretty happy with the end result, however. See below.
For Isadora, I created a new scene that was the TV turning on so that people could have the experience of both turning on and off the TV using the remote. The channel buttons also work as you would expect. The one odd behavior is that turning on the TV always starts at the same channel, unlike a real TV which remembers the last channel that it was on.
I also added several new channels, including better static, a trans pride channel 🏳️⚧️, and a channel with a secret, a warning channel, and a weird filter glitchy channel. Unfortunately, I cannot get Isadora to open on my laptop anymore! I had to downgrade my drivers to get it to work and at some point the drivers updated again. I cannot find the old drivers I used anymore! It’s a shame cause I liked the new channels I added… 🙁
The static channel just moves between 4 or so images to achieve a much better static effect than before and the trans pride channel just replaces the colors of the color bar channel with the colors of the trans flag.
The main “secret revealed” I had was a channel that started as regular static but actually had a webcam on and showed the viewers back on the TV! The picture very slowly faded in and it was almost missed, which is exactly what I wanted! I even covered the light on my laptop so that nobody would have any warning that the webcam was on.
There was also a weird glitchy filter channel that I added. This was inconsistently displayed and was very flashy sometimes but other times it looked really cool. Because of this, I added a warning channel before this channel so that anyone that can’t look at intense things could look away. When I did the presentation, it was not very glitch at all and gave a very cool effect that even used the webcam a little bit (even though the webcam wasn’t used anywhere in that scene…)
The class loved the progression of the TV for this project. One person immediate became excited when they saw the TV was back. They also like the secret being revealed as a webcam and appreciated the extra effort I put in to covering the webcam light as well. In the end, I was very satisfied with how this project turned out, I just wish I could show it…
Cycle 3: Failure and Fun!
Posted: December 18, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »My plan for this cycle was simple: add phone OSC controls to the game I made in previous cycles. But this was anything but simple. The first guide I used ended up being a complete dead end! First, I used Isadora to ensure that my laptop could receive signals at all. After verifying this, I tried sending signals to Unity and nothing! I tried sending signals from Unity to Isadora and that worked(!) but wasn’t very useful… It’s possible that the guide I was following was designed for a very specific type of input which the phones from the motion lab were not giving, but I was unable to figure out a reason why. I even used Isadora to see what it was seeing as inputs and manually set the names in Unity to these signals.
After this, I took a break and worked on my capstone project class. I clearly should have been more worried about my initial struggles. I tried to get it working again at the last minute and found another guide specifically for getting phone OSC to work in Unity. I couldn’t get this to work either and I suspect this was because it was for touch OSC which I wasn’t using (and also didn’t need the type of functionality). I thought I could get it to work but I was getting tired and decided to sleep and figure it out in the morning. I set my alarm for 7 am knowing the presentation was at 2 pm (I got senioritis really bad give me a break!). So imagine my shock when I wake up, feeling rather too rested I should say, and see that it’s nearly noon! I had set my alarms for 7 pm not am…..
This was a major blow to what little motivation I had left. I knew there was no chance I could get OCS working in that time and especially no way I would get to make the physical cardboard props I was excited to create. I wanted to at least show my ideas to the class so I eventually collected myself and then quickly made a presentation to show at presentation time.
The presentation showed off the expanded control that I wanted to add had I been smarter in handling the end of the semester. The slides of the presentation can be seen below.
I then had an idea to at least have some fun with the presentation. Although I couldn’t implement true OSC controls, I could maybe try to fake some kind of physically controlled game by having people mime out actions and then use the controller and keyboard to make the actions happen in the game!
To my surprise, this actually worked really well! I had two people control the direction of the ship and shield by pointing with their arms, and one person in the middle control the vertical position of the ship with their body. I actually originally was going to have the person controlling the vertical position just point forward and backwards like the other two people, but Alex thought it would be more fun to physically run forwards and backwards. I’m glad he suggested this as it worked great! I used the controller which had the ship and shield direction, and someone else was on the laptop controlling the vertical position. The two of us would watch the people trying to control the ship with their bodies and tried to mimic them in game as accurately as we could. A view of the game as it was being played can be seen below.
I think everyone had fun participating to a degree although there was one major flaw. I originally had someone yell “shoot!” or “pew!” whenever they wanted a bullet to fire, but this ended up turning into one person just saying the command constantly and it didn’t add much of anything to the experience. I did originally have plans that would have helped in this aspect. For example, I was going to make it so there could only be 2 or 3 bullets on screen at once to make spamming them less effective, or maybe have a longer cooldown on missed shots.
In the end, I had a very good time making this game and I learned a lot in the process. Some of which was design wise but a lot was also planning and time estimating as well!