Cycle 2 – I Like My Girls Just Like I Like My Honey
Posted: December 18, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »For Cycle 2, I was more interested in going after my draft score I initially prepared for Cycle 3 rather than Cycle 2, so I followed my instinct and did not go through with my Cycle 2 draft score.
Below was my draft score for Cycle 3, which ended up being Cycle 2:
This was going to be the first time I would independently use OSC so I needed practice and experimentation.
We connected an OSC listener to the patch and this way the swirl had the ability to speak to a phone with OSC and respond to it in real time. I put the phone in my pocket and let the movement of my body affect the phone’s orientation, affecting OSC, affecting the projected live video.
After being introduced to this tool, the external tools I needed to acquire to manifest my ideas into action were completed. My Cycle 1 carried heavy emotions within its world-making. I wanted my Cycle 2 to have a more positive tone. I flipped through the pages of my Color Me Queer coloring book to find something I could respond to. I saw a text in the book that said “Dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians.” With my newfound liberation and desire to be experimental, I decided to make that prompt happen. I connected one end of a MakeyMakey cable to the conductive drawing on my coloring book in the page with this prompt. I connected the other end of a MakeyMakey cable to a paper I attached to the top of a honey bottle cap. This way it became possible for the honey bottle to open and the button on the coloring book to be pressed at the same time, triggering a video in Isadora. I found a video of honey dripping and layered it on top of the live video with the Swirl effect. I also included a part of the song Honey by Kehlani to the soundscape, which said “I like my girls just like I like my honey, sweet.” After those lyrics, I walked near the honey, grabbed it and tried to pour it in my mouth from the bottle. Because there wasn’t much honey left, it took a long time for it to reach my mouth. After I finally had honey in my mouth, I began moving in the space with my phone controlling the OSC in my pocket. It appeared like I was swirling through honey. I also recorded and used my own voice, making sound effects that went with the swirling actions, while also saying “Where are you?” Finally, I dropped my body on the floor, being thrown to the lesbians as a video of 7 women saying “I am a lesbian” one by one.
Due to the sound design and how I framed the experience, I got feedback that some of the elements I aimed for didn’t land fully. When I explained my intention, there were a-ha moments and great suggestions for Cycle 3. Even though I left Cyle 2 with room for improvement, I became ecstatic about having learned how to use OSC. Following this excitement, I decided to use the concepts I included in my Cycle 1 and Cycle 2 in a new-renewed-combined version in my 2nd year MFA showing before my Cycle 3.
Cycle 1 – Queer Relational Circuits
Posted: December 18, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »For my cycles, I wanted to engage in play/exploration within my larger research interests in my MFA in Dance. My research includes a queer lens to creative expressions, and I find it very exciting to reach creative expressions through media systems and intermedia in addition to movement.
This was my draft score for Cycle 1:
A few days before this cycle, I had just recently bought a new coloring book without plannig of using it for any of my assignments.
The book includes blank drawings for coloring, questions, phrases, journal prompts, and some information on queer history. While flipping through its pages, I remembered that I could use the conductive pencil of MakeyMakey to attach the cable to the paper and make it trigger something in Isadora. So I programmed a simple patch with videos that would get triggered in response to me touching the page in the area where I drew a shape with the conductive pencil and or any other conductive material.
The sections of the book that I wanted to use were: “What is your favorite coming out story?” and Where is your rage? Act up!” I re-found videos on the internet that I had previous knowledge about, which corresponded to the questions I chose. I remembered being younger and watching a very emotional coming out video of one of the Youtubers who I frequently watched at the time. I remember it affecting me emotionally. I wanted to include her video. As a response for “Where is your rage? Act up!’ I remembered found a video of police being violent toward the public at a pride event in Turkey, where I’m from. As a queer-identifying person who was born and raised in Turkey, I was exposed to the inhumane behavior of the police toward people at Pride events, trying to stop Pride marches. This is one instance I feel rage so I included a video of an instance that happened some years ago.
In my possession, I also had a notebook entitled The Gay Agenda, which I had never used before. I thought this cycle was a good excuse to use it so I wrote curated diary pages for this cycle. I also drew on it with my conductive pencil so I could turn the page into a keyboard and activate a video by touching it.
These photos show my setup while presenting:
I used an NDI camera to capture my live hand movements, tapping on the pages, and triggering the videos to appear on the projection. The live video was connected to the TV and the pre-recorded videos were connected to the main screen. I also used a pair of scissors as a conductive material and as symbolism. I received emotional and empathetic responses as feedback, as what I shared ended up journeying me and the audience through a wave of emotions and thoughts. I also received feedback about how my hand movements made the experience very embodied, in response to my question of “I am in the Dance Department, if I use this in my research, how will I make it embodied?” Receiving encouragement and emotional resonance about where I was headed with my cycle allowed me to make liberated and honest choices. Spoiler alert: When starting Cycle 1, I did not know that I was also beginning to plant the seeds to use this idea in my MFA research showing.
Cycle 2: Space Shooter Expanded
Posted: December 18, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »I originally planned to implement phone OSC controls into my Cycle 1 Unity game for this cycle. I would then use the final cycle to refine the gameplay and expand the physical aspects of the controls. Holding a phone is pretty boring, but imagine holding a cardboard shield with a phone attached to it!
However, I realized after some testing that I would need to do some slight gameplay reworks first. This was because after I saw the projection capabilities of the motion lab, I learned that the amount of area that can be covered is severely limited. This is especially true in the vertical direction. After seeing this, I decided to change the way enemies are spawned in. Instead of appearing in a circle around the player, they would appear at the horizontal edges of the screen. Given the size of the projection, I think this will be easier on the player. It still felt limiting in a way though, so I decided to allow the player to move vertically up and down as well.
These were significant changes, so I needed to redesign the game first before adding the phone OSC elements. While going through this process, I added a few new things as well. The overview of changes is as follows:
1. Enemy Spawner
The Enemy Spawner was changed to spawn enemies at the horizontal edges of the screen. This is actually much simpler than the circle spawning it was doing before
2. Player
The Player was given the ability to move up and down on the screen. This means the player class now has to look for more inputs the user can give. There is another consideration though, and that is that the player cannot be allowed to move off screen. To stop this, a check is done on what the player’s next position is calculated to be. If this position is outside the allowed range, the position is not actually updated.
3. Enemies
After implementing player movement, I discovered a major issue. The player can just move away from enemies to avoid them! This trivializes the game in many aspects, so a solution was needed. I decided to have enemies constantly look towards the player’s position. This worked exactly as expected. I decided to make enemy projectiles not track the player however, as this created additional complexity the people playing the game would have to account for.
4. New Enemy: Asteroid
Sense all enemies track the player now, I thought a good new enemy type would be one that didn’t. This new enemy type is brown instead of red and cannot be destroyed by player bullets. The only way to avoid it is to move the ship out of the way. To facilitate this gameplay, when an Asteroid enemy is spawned, it heads towards where the player is in that moment. This also ensures the player cannot be completely still the entire game.
5. Shoot Speed Powerup
After the recommendations I received from the Cycle 1 presentation, I decided to add a powerup to the game. This object acts similar to the projectile objects, in that it just travels forward for a set time. Except when it collides with the player ship, it lowers the cooldown between shots. This allows the player to shoot faster. This powerup only travels horizontally, again to add more variety to object movement.
The final result for this cycle can be seen below.
After finishing the game, I got a great idea. I remembered back to people attempting to play the game for cycle 1, and many of them found it overwhelming to control the ship direction and shield direction. But this new version of the game added an entirely new movement direction! That’s when I decided to turn my project from a single player experience to a multiplayer experience. I would have one person control the vertical movement of the ship on the keyboard, one person hold the left side of the controller to use the left joystick, and one person hold the right side of the controller to use the right joystick and trigger. This way, each person only really has one task and thus it should be a lot easier to keep track of.
However, once I tested this I ran into a major issue. The keyboard and controller could not move the ship simultaneously. It seemed like control was being passed between either keyboard and controller, and so they couldn’t happen at the same time as was needed to control the ship. After much testing, I found that if I had two input listeners, one for each type of user input, simultaneous control could be achieved!
I was running out of time for this cycle, and given the major reworks I made to the game, I decided to push phone OSC controls to the next cycle.
After presenting the game and having the class play it, I received very positive feedback! Most people liked how much easier it was to play when the tasks were divided up. The team effort also allowed them to achieve much higher scores than they were able to get for cycle 1. Two people holding one controller was a little awkward though, and the phone OSC would help with that. Ideally, it should feel like they are all part of a team that is controlling a single spaceship.
PP3 – You are now this door’s emergency contact.
Posted: December 18, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Our Pressure Project 3 came with a pleasant surprise.
PP3: A Secret is Revealed. Your task is to create a experiental system that has a secret that a user(s) can reveal. Perhaps something delightful or something shocking.
Required resources:
Isadora, A MakeyMakey
Excluded resources: Keyboard & Mouse.
You may use up to 8 hours.
I lit up with joy to read that our Pressure Project included a MakeyMakey. Since being introduced to it by our course instructor Alex, MakeyMakey became a tool that I started excitedly explaining to anybody who listened. With this delight, I wanted to create something that would reflect my sense of humor within this experiential media system.
I created a system where one person would be interacting with it at a time. To complete the circuit that would make the MakeyMakey work as a keyboard, I needed the user to hold one of the cables throughout the experience. But I was also designing this experience with a handwriting component. To facilitate ease and flow of the experience, I needed the user’s dominant hand to be available to write.
The other end of the cable needed to be connected to something that would complete MakeyMakey’s circuit. I was interested in creating the experience as a ‘journey’, ‘a travel’, ‘a passage’, so I decided to work with images three different doors that would lead the user to three different outcomes without them knowing what comes next. With this door concept, I thought, what better way to complete the circuit with a key that they would need to touch to interact with the doors, so I connected one of the cables of the MakeyMakey to a key. I programmed an Isadora patch where scenes would be triggered with a Keyboard Watcher. Because my computer thought that I would be pressing a button on my keyboard when the MakeyMakey was connected to it, my key became my KEYboard.
In devising this experience, I also wanted an analog part that would make the experience feel more realistic. I prepared and placed 3 papers on top of each other in front of the user. The first one was an image of a fingerprint, which the user would be prompted by the door on the screen to touch. There was no automated connection between the paper and the screen but the user did not know that.
When the user touched the key to confirm, Isadora went to the next scene in my patch.
My system did not actually record the user’s or anybody else’s fingerprint to its database. But with the confusion and hesitation of a user’s thought process in encountering this “Wait I really did press my thumb there. What is happening?” mixes with the silliness of the “Very Important Finger” text.
Once their fingerprint has been successfully confirmed, another door (another scene in my Isadora patch) appears. The second page mentioned in this scene is the form below:
Once the user fills out the form manually and presses “Submit Form” which doesn’t trigger anything on my patch but affects the user’s experience, the user touches the key that triggers the next scene on my patch.
Secrets kept getting revealed as the user kept interacting with the system with their personal information that leads to unexpected outcomes – which I found delightful.
After filling out the Emergency Contact Form, my patch leads the user to an Emergency Exit which merges meanings between the previous and the current action but not in a congruent manner.
Since this experience was experienced at an academic setting, I assumed this scene would be relatable to any user in the space, keeping the personal information gathering (nothing is being gathered but the user does not know that), but now at a psychological level.
The third physical paper in front of the user is the image below:
Once the user presses the icon and taps on the key to confirm, next scene appears in my patch:
The last scene in my patch is a video of someone setting a computer on fire, which is my suggested method of cleaning the user’s inbox in this experience.
Designing and devising this experience was a delight for me but the most delightful part was watching the user interact with my system. I couldn’t help but giggle as the scenes unfolded and the user cooperated with each prompt.
While presenting this project, we also had visitors in our classroom who did not know the scope of the DEMS class. They also did not know MakeyMakey or Isadora. They observed as my classmate who knew the scope interacted with the system. Their questions were meaningful and unbiased, trying to understand what the connection was and how it worked. On our feedback time I also received a comment about my giggles and excited/happy bodily expressions affecting what the experience was for the other people in the room, which felt like a natural extension of how joyfully the experience of devising this experience began for me. Doing the programming part gives me tools to work with but what I also find very generative and useful for my creative work as an artist is devising the experience “around” the technology, creating other elements of the experience that complement/support/add to what the technology does.
PP2 – A WALL WITH AN AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT STYLE
Posted: December 18, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »For our Pressure Project 2, our task was to go to place where people are interacting with an automated computer system of some sort, spend time observing how people interact with the system and how the system makes people feel. After documenting the system with diagrams and pictures, we were asked to put on your director’s hat and re-design/iterate the system so that it is “better” or “more nefarious”. The day this pressure project was assigned, I knew that I wanted to re-design a system to be more nefarious before choosing what system I would interact with because as an artist I felt more interested in the playful creativity aspect rather than the functionality aspect.
To begin my quest, I went to Otherworld, the immersive art installation in Columbus, by myself. There were many different and interesting rooms and stations with many automated computer systems. In choosing which one I would use for my project, I had two criteria in mind. It needed to spark my interest and it would need to be an area where I could stay for a long period of time to observe. While wandering around enjoying the installations, I found myself lingering in a room, instinctively beginning to observe how people interact with it. It didn’t have a title but I named it Coloring the Painting on the Wall System.
I did a quick (and obviously very aesthetically pleasing) drawing of the system and the surrounding setting.
I’m sharing some of my notes and observations about how people interacted with it.
After documenting my observations in my notebook, I continued my stroll around the installations, interacting with various systems in the space. Because I already spent time observing how people interact with one system, I found that I became more attuned to how people interacted with the other systems in the space as well. As a dancer, I often find myself more kinesthetically engaged with automated computer systems. In this space, I also had the opportunity to observe people engaging through other modes.
After my field trip, I moved on to the next exciting part of the assignment. How could I make this more nefarious?
This question came with an additional question of what nefarious meant for me and how I would define and express it experientially. Around the time of this Pressure Project 2, I was going through a particular experience in my personal life, not understanding why someone was behaving the way they were. Their actions felt nefarious in response to how I was trying to interact with their nervous “system”. So I decided to translate my frustration with their nervous system into an automated computer system.
Inspired by a conflict, creating “A Wall With an Avoidant Attachment Style” made me transform resentment into humor, and realize even more that even small changes in timing and responsiveness of automated computer systems hold the capacity to change the experience of the user drastically. While I hope no one would need to interact with “A Wall With an Avoidant Attachment Style”, I do think that in re-designing the qualities of the system, I got a better understanding of how automation and emotion intersect. This is an aspect I can meaningfully use in other designs now, whether nefariously or not.
Cycle 1: Space Shooter
Posted: December 17, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »I knew that the interactive system I wanted to make for the cycle project was some kind of video game using Unity. I also knew that I wanted it to be a simple 2D shooter game where the player controls a ship of some kind and fires bullets at enemies. However, because this class is about interesting ways you can interact with systems, I thought using a controller would be boring! My initial plan was to use the top-down camera in the motion lab to track the player’s movement. This would turn the player’s body into the controller. Then, instead of a standard screen being used, the gameplay would be projected onto the floor. That way it was almost like the player was in the game, without having to use any VR! The game would have looked something like the classic game Space Invaders, shown below.
My plan was to have the person controlling the ship have a light on their head and another light they can activate. The camera would use the light on their head to track their movement and the activated light to fire a bullet. I realized there was likely a major flaw with this design though, and that was that the camera in the motion lab does not have a big enough view to accommodate the space I wanted. I also hadn’t considered the role that perspective would play on the camera. This made me move away from Space Invaders and more to a game like Asteroids, shown below.
The idea is to lock the player in the center of the screen so that the person controlling the ship can stand directly under the camera. This makes the camera angle less of an issue while still allowing the person to control the direction the ship is facing with their body. An additional interesting result of this is that the person in control cannot see behind themself like you could watching a screen of the entire game, which adds an additional interesting layer to the gameplay. Because the ship loses the horizontal movement seen in Space Invaders, I decided to add a shield mechanic to the game as well. The idea is that some enemies would shoot projectiles at you that you cannot destroy with bullets and must block with a shield. The person controlling the ship would use one arm to shoot bullets and one arms to block projectiles.
With that in mind, my goal for this cycle was to create the game working on a controller. The two joysticks would control the ship and shield direction and the right trigger would fire bullets. There would be two enemy types: One that is small and fast, and one that is bigger, slower, and can fire projectiles.
The main Unity scripts made were:
1. Player
2. Player Projectile
3. Shield
4. Enemy
5. Enemy Projectile
6. Enemy Spawner
7. Game Manager
I don’t want this post to just turn into a code review, but I’ll still briefly cover the decisions I made with these scripts.
1. Player
The Player checks for user input and then does the following actions when detected:
– set ship direction
– set shield direction
– spawn Player Projectile (the Player also plays the projectile fired audio clip at the same time)
2. Player Projectile
The Player Projectile moves forward until it either collides with an enemy or a timer runs out. The timer is important as otherwise the projectile could stay loaded forever and take up resources (memory leak). If the projectile collides with an enemy, it destroys both the enemy and the projectile.
3. Shield
The Shield is given its angle by the Player. It does not check for collision itself, the Enemy Projectile does that.
4. Enemy
The Enemy is actually very similar to the Player Projectile, it moves forward until it either collides with the player or a timer runs out. If the enemy collides with the player, it destroys the player which ends the game. There is also a variant of the Enemy that spawns Enemy Projectiles at set intervals.
5. Enemy Projectile
Similar to the Player Projectile, the Enemy Projectile moves forward until it either collides with the player or a timer runs out. If the projectile collides with the player, it destroys the player which ends the game. If the projectile collides with the shield, it destroys itself and the game continues (nothing happens to shield).
6. Enemy Spawner
The Enemy Spawn is what spawns enemies. Because enemies just move forward, this script calculates the angle between a random spawn point and the player and then spawns an enemy with that angle. The spawn points is a circle around the player. Every time an enemy is spawns, the time between enemy spawns is decreased (i.e. enemies will spawn faster and faster as the game progresses).
7. Game Manager
The Game Manager displays the current score (number of enemies defeated) as well as plays the destroy sound effect. When an enemy is destroyed, the interaction calls to the Game Manager to track the score and play the noise. When the player is destroyed, the interaction calls to the Game Manager to play the noise and display that the game is over.
The final game result for this cycle can be seen below.
Some additional notes:
The music is another element in the scene but all it does is play music so it’s pretty simple.
The ship is actually a diamond taken from a free asset pack on the Unity Asset Store. Link
The sound effects and background music were also found free on the Unity Asset Store. Because of the simplicity of the game, retro sounds made the most sense. Sound Link Music Link
Just after the entire game was done, I closed and reopened Unity and all collision detection was broken! I ended up spending hours trying to figure out why before creating an entirely new project and copying all the files over. So annoying!
After presenting to the class, I was initially surprised at how much some people struggled with the game. I knew it was difficult to keep track of both the ship and the shield using the two joysticks, but I didn’t consider how nearly impossible this was for people who had never used a controller. Otherwise, the reaction was fairly positive. One note that makes sense was to possibly try to differentiate between the two enemies clearer as they are the same exact color and that can be confusing. There were also some cool suggestions such as adding powerups to the game. It was also suggested that maybe instead of trying camera tracking, I could use phone OSC to have the players control the ship instead. This seemed like a much better idea and so I decided to investigate that for the next cycles.
Cycle 3
Posted: December 15, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »I somehow managed to get through cycles 1-2 without actually doing anything with Isadora or other technology. Although I learned a lot, I needed to include the “MES” in DEMS. And what a mes I made!
Perhaps the mist valuable topic explored in my Cycle 2 was the part about proximity. What is the distance between a users actions and the result of that action? Is it immediate like a typewriter, or further away like a garage door opener? Cycle 2 focused on proximity from the point of view of the user, but what about from the perspective of the tech itself? What is the user is unaware that they are interacting with technology at all? This is what Cycle 3 explored. How does a machine detect its own proximity to a user.
For this project I chose three technologies to explore, as shown above. First (left) is an ultrasonic sensor. It broadcasts an ultrasonic sound and listens for the returning echo. It is capable of detecting something within range as well as the distance the object is form the sensor. Second (center) is Infrared optical sensing. These are commonplace pieces of tech used to detect the presence of objects. A transmitter (clear LED) emits an IR beam of light. The receiver (black LED) detects the IR beam. If the path between the transmitter and detector is broken, the presence of an interfering object is detected. This is what usually prevents home garage doors form closing if something is in the way. Third (right) is a capacitive sensor. It detects the presence of an object by detecting a change in the state of charge across an electric circuit. See my PP3 for more information about how this works. For my tests I used a piece of copper mesh roughly 11×17 soldered to a length of wire (below). My cats were extremely interested in the mesh and kept triggering the sensor!
Cycle 3 includes two main parts. One, the electronics portion that explores the three sensor types mentioned above. The second piece is exploring how these inputs can be utilized by Isadora.
The photo above (my desk puts the MES in DEMS) shows the results of my efforts. On the left is an Arduino Mega controling the detection circuits and reporting to the PC and the user its status. The white piece in the middle is an electronics breadboard which contains the electrical components for the sensors. On the right is a smaller Arduino UNO loaded with the Firmata program that communicates with Isadora.
The system works by the Arduino Mega and the breadboard detecting the presence of a user then passing that information to the UNO, which then tells Isadora to do something. The Firmata User Actor, and its associated Arduino Firmware is an incredibly powerful and easy to use system that makes the task of getting GPIO in and out of Isadora. However, it does not provide easy means of expanding upon its functionality without essentially rewriting the Firmata software. This is why there is a second arduino, the mega, to handle the custom software needed to drive the detection circuits.
In an Arduino program, called a sketch, the first code that runs in part of a “setup” function. This is what tells the arduino what its ins and outs are as well as running any code that needs to happen before the main program takes over. Above is the code for my project. Lines 47-52 are the main interest here. The sensors require calibration before they can be used. The sensors need to know what the environment is like without the presence of a user so that it can compare that to when a user is nearby. Thus the first major step is to initialize each sensor type. Each sensor takes 10 readings, averages the results, and declares that is the default value. While this is happening an orange LED is illuminated on the breadboard to tell the operator that the system is in this process.
Once this step is completed, the system constantly takes readings from the sensors and compares the values to the calibration data, if the difference exceeds a threshold value a detection is registered. For convince the system also illuminates a red led to let the user know that a detection has occurred, there is a separate LED for each sensor. Here the user is the programmer, not the audience who is being detected. In addition to illuminating an LED to indicate that a sensor has detected something, a message is sent to the Isadora Arduino to let it know that there has been an event.
The Isadora scene is a straightforward affair. The Firmata actor is constantly monitoring the state of the Arduino Uno configured with the Firmata sketch via the Serial Bus. When pin2 goes high, a video is played. When pin3 goes high, an audio clip is played. Pin3 stops the audio. Pin4 resets a latch that keeps the video playing.
When the sensor electronics detects an acoustic trigger, it plays the video. When the optical sensor detects a change it plays the video, a second event stops the audio.
Expanding the Firmata Actor
Above is a user actor that utilizes some additional logical processing to increase the number of inputs to Isadora. The Firmata Actor simply observes the digital pins of the connected Arduino to see if their input is either high or low. This is enough capability to implement binary decoding to allow the limited inputs to be expanded. As seen above, the user actor has 8 outputs, but the connected Arduino is only utilizing three of its physical inputs.
Looking inside the User Actor we can see the Firmata Actor with 4 digital inputs. We are ignoring the analog inputs for this exercise. Although there are four inputs shown, I am only using three of them to achieve 8 binary inputs. Utilizing all 4 physical inputs would allow for 16 binary inputs, but was not implemented here. The technical trick is occurring in the 3:8 Decoder user actor.
Inside the 3:8 Decoder actor we see that the four inputs are connected to 8 modules. These modules are the heart of the system.
Using the Logical Calculator actor is is possible to implement Complementary Digital Logic. If you are interested please look into OSU ECE 2060 and ECE 5020.
One final user actor was needed first, a digital inverter. This takes an input, either a 0 or 1, and outputs the opposite value. All that is needed is a Logical Calculator actor in XOR mode.
To implement Complementary Digital Logic, it is necessary to have the complement of a logical bit. In this case the opposite value of an input. For example, if Arduino input-1 is HIGH, we also need input-1! (input-1 Bar, or input-1 NOT). This tells the system that an input is NOT currently active. By combining the logical states of the three utilized physical inputs, with AND logical actors it becomes possible to encode additional states, to the value 2^(#inputs).
Currently the Arduino Mega processing the sensor input only has three sensors, but by encoding the status of the sensors it is possible to feed more sensor inputs into Isadora than would normally be possible using the Firmata actor. There are methods for passing serial data into Isadora to achieve even greater input count, but my method is technically simple to implement and is very robust and avoids complications that arise with serial communication protocols.
Putting all of this together for my home DEMS
A key part of my home DEMS is the creation of several secret doors. These are implemented by having sections of a wall sliding away to reveal the passageway. Just like an elevator, it is vital that the doors do not close on anyone (See my PP1, no chomping here). The IR optical sensor will work well for this use case. It is simple and works in a vary direct line of sigh manner. If anything breaks the beam it means that there is an obstruction in the doorway. By monitoring this sensor the door control can know not to close on anyone, or the cats.
What sort of mysterious home would I have without a giant, vaguely threatening, carnivorous plant! Certainly not one worth visiting. It is a goal to have such a character at home. Some type of large carniverous plant, think Audrey but cuter. I want the plant to follow people as they walk past, and if they get close enough I want it to take a chomp at them. This is the perfect place to utilize the ultrasonic sensor. By placing several such sensors around the plant it will be possible to detect the presence of a person as well as knowing how far away they are. With this data the plant can track them and eventually try and take a bite!
The optical and ultrasonic sensors are discrete and the light and sound they produce is undetectable by humans, but they require line of sight to work. Neither can work if they are completely enclosed or obscured. The IR detector is tiny, but does require a hole of some kind for the light to pass through (or an IR transparent window). The capacitive sensor is different, it can be completely hidden. The metal mesh that acts as the sensor can be hidden under carpet, behind a painting, under a tablecloth, even in the fabric of a pillow or cushion. I envision using it to detect when someone enters a room or if they are reaching to grab an object. For example, imagine a crystal ball sitting in the center of a table. By hiding the sensor under a small tablecloth it is possible to detect when someone reaches out to the ball, without actually touching anything. This could trigger some other effect such as the ball glowing or a sound playing.
If nothing else, the sensor made a good cat toy. Biscuit approves (below)! I had to cover it with an empty cereal box to keep them form clawing at it, but then they became very curious about the box! There was no winning.
Cycle 0.5
Posted: December 11, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Setting the stage.
Going into the Cycle projects I found myself in an unusual situation. I was already working on a large project that would be a perfect fit for the DEMS class, but a project of a very unusual nature. I am a non-traditional student who returned to college much later in life than normal, providing me with more resources than the typical college student. In particular, a house. My wife and I both have theater backgrounds and strongly believe that it would be awesome to live in a “scooby-doo house”, filled with secret passages, mysterious artifacts, and perhaps a few skeletons in the closet. (For the record, there are indeed skeletons in the closet. That’s to good a joke to pass up.) We also want to share the fun with others and came up with the idea of hosting themed parties where guests would play the roll of adventurers who have gathered to solve a mystery. Thus, a DEMS has emerged.
We have gotten off to a good start on the decoration of the home and have progressed to the point where it is necessary to start devising the technology that would support the experience. My natural inclination is to focus on the inventing and construction of technology, not so much on the user experience. Building a secret door is a fun project, but how is it opened? What will clue guests into finding the hidden lever to reveal the secret? This is what my Cycle projects will focus on. To help sell the idea to the professor the following presentation was assembled.
The key sources of inspiration are shown above. The goal is not to make a “haunted house”, but to live in a house that may or may not be haunted. Disney’s Haunted Mansion provides an excellent guidepost, spooky without being gory. The Explorers Club provides examples of daring exploration and scientific endeavors. Take a look at the interior of their headquarters via an image search, that is a significant source of inspiration. Hogwarts provides many great ideas. Who doesn’t want to receive an awesome letter in the mail telling them they have been selected to join a secret club!? Finlay, the British Museum. Again, take a look at some images of this place. Do we want a giant whale skeleton hanging form the ceiling? Yes. Yes we most certainly do.
We also found inspiration for the narrative part of the experience in a variety of places, shown above. For many years the Disney parks have been incorporating elements of a “secret” society known as SEA, the Society of Explorers and Adventurers. The members of this society, and their activities, are woven into the narrative that connects many of the theme park rides. In particular Tokyo DisneaSEA, the crown jewel of the Disney parks, goes all in on their story. SEA is a rabbit hole I invite you to go down.
Prior to its retirement we spent many, many hours at COSI exploring there exhibit “Adventure into the Valley of the Unknown.” There guests took on the role of adventurers exploring the ruins of a lost civilization. By solving puzzles guests would interact with the exhibit, ultimately revealing the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of the lost culture. It was truly a one of a kind experience and I invite you to take a internet peak into its past glory. (Shame on you COSI for removing it!) We are trying to make our home the spiritual successor of “Adventure.”
Finally there is NADIA Secret of Blue Water, a 90s Japanese Anime set in a alternate earth heavily inspired by the writings of Jules Vern. It has all the Victorian inspired fantastic technology one could ask for. Flying machines, incredible submarines, and a classic good vs. evil story. It is not a show for children as the plot takes many dark turns. I provides an excellent example of how to combine whimsy with serious themes and content.
Our home is a 60/70s split level. Why they felt it was a good idea to require navigating several steps to get anywhere is still beyond us. The upstairs has the bedrooms that are out of bounds, and the basement is split in half, part for laundry and utilities, the other is a bar (yes there are themed cocktails). The bulk of the home is on one level with the foyer and library several steps lower in elevation.
The crown jewel of the home is the library. Containing thousands of books it is our pride and joy. It also the room where we host D&D tabletop RPG games. To aid in creating an awesome environment for such games the room has been given several unusual abilities. First, the ceiling is a star chart covered with wispy nebula’s and constellations. By manipulating a control panel the lightning in the room can be adjusted to highlight the table, the ceiling, or a variety of lighting effects. There is an aurora projector to illuminate the ceiling with moving waves of light, there is a shooting star that randomly dashes across the ceiling, and there are flame effect lights that can make the room appear as if lit by firelight.
The living room is another work in progress. It has two modes, living and party. When its time to be fancy the regular table lamps are turned off and the DMX lighting system is turned on. The room is lit from recessed RGB LED hidden behind a map suspended form the ceiling. The room is surrounded with stained glass lanterns that light up. The room can be many colors, but I tend to like the blue look, it helps the lanterns pop. A shelf surrounds the room just below the ceiling that holds many :objects of interest”, perhaps a few hold secrets to discover?
The stand out feature of the living room is the map on the ceiling. It conceals the LED lighting for the room and also has some hidden features. Embedded into the rear of the map are tiny fiber-optic filaments that poke through the map, they are invisible until turned on. When activated the fibers, through a variety of colors, highlight various natural and man-made areas of interest on the map. A more complex interface for these fibers is planed, allowing guests to manipulate the map and its secrets. A fun party trick is the counterweight system that allows the map to lower from the ceiling, allowing for access to the tech on the backside.
With all of this laid out it was time to turn it all into Cycle projects. I am writing this after posting Cycles 1-2, and can say in hindsight that much of this planing was tossed aside. However, putting together this document was instrumental in guiding what would become my cycle projects. Please look for my other posts to see how all of this evolved through the semester of ACCAD 5301.
Cycle 2
Posted: December 9, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Exploring the “D” in DEMS.
For Cycle 2 I wanted to take some of the lessons learned from Cycle 1 and further develop them. (My Cycle 1 is the “Order of the Veiled Compass” project) My tendency is to focus on the building and engineering of projects and less so on the “devising”, this was an opportunity to take a deeper dive in to the part of DEMS I typically spend the least time on. My presentation was a simple PowerPoint slide show that explored how people interact with technology, not exactly riveting website material, so this post will present the information is , hopefully, a more interesting manner. The original presentation can be found here https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qVqp1khbiujVJ4hC5ohTrTZNLGGDL-AK/edit?usp=drive_link&ouid=106949091808183906482&rtpof=true&sd=true
How do people interact with technology in both everyday life and in regards to an Experiential Media System? I identified what I believe are three key factors to our interactions, Cultural Conventions, Proximity, and the Physical Experience.
Since this post is on a website I can make several inferences about you (the reader). First, you have access to electricity and an internet connection. You can be anywhere on the earth, assuming you are indoors and there is a light switch, that switch is located within a foot or so of the doorway. If you have been a passenger in some sort of vehicle, that machine had a break peddle on the left and an accelerator on the right, with some type of switch within easy reach of the steering mechanism to activate turn signals. Cars, busses, trucks, etc… all share a similar technical language. An argument can certainly be made that many of these conventions are the result of Edison Electric, Westinghouse, and similar companies developing these technologies and distributing them, but the road to the present day is not as straight forward as it seams.
For example, I am 99.9999% confident that you can not drive a Model-T Ford. Looking at the above photo there are many familiar controls (assuming you can drive a stick). With the exception of the steering wheel and the gear shift lever, almost none of the familiar looking controls do what you think they do. It took awhile, but eventually the automakers of the world settled on a control layout that allows anyone who knows how to drive a car drive almost all other cars.
The key take away form all of this is that we are all conditioned to expect certain technologies to work is specific ways. Lights are turned on by a stitch by the door or a switch on the light itself. All cars have an accelerator and a break. None of us need a manual to use a faucet or garden hose, regardless of where on earth we find one. Any sink with a garbage disposal will have a control switch within a few feet of it.
We interact with technology is variety of ways, for this project I focused mainly on touch. Advances in machine vision and hearing have made it possible to interact with devices via gesture and our voice, but that is a conversation for a different day.
I wanted to take a closer look into what makes a physical interaction with technology a good one. This is personal preference of course, but I am confident that there are certain aspects we can all agree upon. One is that quality matters. Imagine you press a button on a vending machine or arcade game and its a plastic piece of junk that rattles, if it lights up it probably flickers, and it makes you press it several times to be sure it did something; that’s not the best interaction with technology. Compare that to a nice solid metal toggle switch, even better if that switch has some type of safety cover on it! I don’t want to go through the steps of launching a missile to make a pot of coffee, but I do appreciate solid feeling controls on the coffee maker.
Feedback is a critical component to the physical experience. A doorbell is an excellent example of a system with ambiguous feedback. You press the doorbell. Did it work and nobody is home? Did the doorbell not ring? Unless you are inside to hear it there is no indication that it worked or not, which is frustrating. It can be very frustrating when technology doesn’t let the user know that it is working. Imagine an elevator that didn’t indicate which floor it was going to, or a telephone that was perfectly silent until answered, those would be horrible user experiences!
Of particular interest to me and my home DEMS project, is the idea of proximity. When a user interacts with a piece of technology, how far away is the response? Is it at the users fingertips like with a typewriter, or is the action completely obscured form the user such as a furnace controlled by a remote thermostat? Perhaps is a middle ground, remote but visible, like a garage door opener.
Building upon the idea of cultural expectations for technology, the concept of proximity helps us further describe our interactions with tech. Light switches are usually found near doorways. We enter a room, find the switch, and the light turns on. This is an example of close proximity, it is immediately obvious that the action of the user caused the technology to respond. Many of us have experienced the frustration that arises when the proximity has been increased. I know in my house there are several light switches whose function remains a mystery. My action of flipping the switch is not rewarded with a response that is immediately visible.
Lights are an example of a common piece of tech that we are accustomed to having close proximity to. The same is true with doors, television remotes, hand tools, etc… HVAC technology is usually hidden out of sight. When we adjust the thermostat the machines come to life but they are often out of sight and provide no indication that they are functioning.
All of this and DEMS.
The goal of all this is to help Devise an experiential media system. By having an understanding of the rules we all play by when it comes to technology, we can begin to play with the rules. For example, what if a light switch played a honking sound when flipped instead of turning on a light? Or what would someone do if they turned a doorknob and a door several feet away opened instead? By taking the ideas of cultural expectations, the physical experience, and proximity and playing with expectations, many new possibilities emerge.
I can think of no greater example of this that the creation of Disneyland in 1955. The gates opened on July 17 and the world of immersive entertainment changed forever. (The opening day was an absolute disaster and I encourage you to read about it!) Guests were presented with technology and experiences that didn’t exist before, the rules had rewritten.
The above set of books served as a fascinating guide to the design and implementation of many attractions of the Disney parks and the 1964 Worlds Fair in New York. The goal was to sell tickets of course, but the means was by creating unique experiences that the world had never seen before. This required the invention of new technologies and concepts. One of the key problems to solve was how to get as many people as possible through the attractions as quickly as possible while also ensuring they had a good time.
Above is “It’s a Small World” from the 1964 Worlds Fair. The ride was designed and built for the Pepsi pavilion and featured small boats for guests to ride. This allowed for a large number of people to be cycled through the attraction at a steady pace.
A better example of how technology and proximity come together is in the Jungle Cruise ride. Above is a piece of concept art for the ride by Mark Davis. The Disney team had to figure out how to tell a narrative as quickly as possible without letting the guests actually interact with anything. Guests must “keep their hands and arms inside the ride at all times” to protect them, and the attractions, from harm. By necessity the tactile experience is removed and the proximity is fixed at a middle distance. Guests also only have a few moments to observe the various scenes before they move past them. By limiting the “scenes” to simple motions and exaggerated behaviors it was possible for riders to “get” the visual gag being shown to them.
In theme parks, shrinking the proximity of the attraction to the guests can have an extreme impact. Above is the Yeti from the Expedition Everest ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando. It is one of the largest animations ever made, over 25′ tall, and goes from remote proximity to uncomfortably close very quickly. Anamatronics were commonplace by the time this ride came to be, they were often of the mostly static variety as seen on the Jungle Cruise or the Haunted Mansion. Here designers used proximity to terrify people. As the riders raced past the yeti on a roller coaster the enormous machine would lunge and swipe at the riders, just barley missing them (from the riders perspective). This never before seen behavior terrified people and was a huge success! Unfortunately the technology at the time was not up to the task and the animatronic has been mostly static for years due to maintenance issues.
Historic DEMS
Another source of inspiration for Cycle 2 was the work, “Stained Glass” by Sonia Hilliday and Laure Lushington. They explore the history and styles of stained glass through the ages focusing mainly on Christian cathedrals. Disney may have invented theme park, but perhaps it was the church that created DEMS? (What counts as the first DEMS is certainly up for debate, but here I will cherry pick the cathedrals as a prime example of a DEMS.)
Above is Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, built 1241-1248. This is an outstanding example of a DEMS that takes into consideration proximity, the tactile experience, and cultural expectations. But first a little stage setting. Imagine you are visiting Paris in the 13th century, you have no idea what electricity is, or anything about technology more complex than a shovel, and you walk into that cathedral. It is the technological equivalent to a modern US Navy super-carrier. Every detail has been thought about and addressed. The smell of incense lingers in the air, a choir sings from an alcove, and everywhere is brilliant light. I imagine the experience would be like being hit with a metaphorical sledge hammer.
The physical experience is top notch in every respect. There are no cheap materials in this place, everything is solid wood, iron, and stone. The cultural part of the interaction is immense but I will not dive into that here. But what about proximity? Perhaps we are well to do and can get seats close to the altar for mass, the less well off sit further away. The monks and sisters are cloistered behind screens, preventing us from getting too close. What are we trying to gain proximity to in the first place? Proximity to the divine is the goal here. By utilizing the senses and cultural expectations the cathedral brings us closer to heaven. Proximity is not limited to physical distance in a DEMS.
Lets take a U-turn from the DEMS of the cathedral and visit medieval Kyoto, Japan. Above is Saihoji Temple, also known as the moss temple. Sophie Walker writes about such places in her excellent work, “The Japanese Garden.” If you ever want to write a book about Japanese gardens there is a rule you need to follow. For every one page about plants and the act of gardening, you must first write 40 pages about the human condition and its history.
What looks like a natural arrangement of plants and rocks, is actually a meticulously crafted DEMS. Every aspect of a Japanese garden has been done with great care and thought. Every rock, every plant, or absence of plants, has been painstakingly planed out and executed with the upmost care. Like the cathedral the physical experience is top notch, all natural in this case, but we can expect stone and untreated wood in addition to the plants. The technology in the garden is hidden and deceptive. Below is a prime example of this. We see a simple path. Like the lights switch we all know how to step from stone to stone, but take a closer look. The stones are of uneven size and shape and do not lie in a straight line. To keep from tripping guests must walk slowly with care, paying careful attention to their footing. However, in the intersection there is a much larger flat stone. The designer of this path deliberately placed every stone knowing that when the guest got to the flat spot they would stop and take a better look at their surroundings. If there is a “best place” to view this area of the garden, it is form that stone. Using proximity and the careful control of what a guest can see and what is obscured is the technology at play here.
Another important concept from the Japanese garden is the simple technology of a gate. A gate is a physical barrier that dictates our access to something. Below we can see a garden path with a gate preventing access to what I presume is a tea house. Lets abstract the idea of a gate to a more metaphorical idea, lets think of gates as thresholds or transitions. In the garden, gates, either real or implied, are opportunities to transition our thoughts and emotions. The cultural purpose of these gates is to reduce our proximity to zero, we are invited to engage in self reflection. In the image below the idea is that to pass the threshold, here represented by a physical gate, the guest must leave something behind. It could be some worry, worldly desire, etc… The technology is extremely subtle, but equal in power to the cathedral.
It’s time to bring all of this together into a ACCAD5301 DEMS project.
A brief recap of Cycle 1 is in order here. My project is built around inviting guests into my home to enjoy a party. Please see my Cycle 1 project for the details. Guests arrive at the party with a clue in hand and an expectation that the event is going to be a little unusual. The intention is that each guest, or pair of guests, arrives at a specific time in order to get the full experience as intended. They ring the door bell and are welcomed into the house, which is where the fun begins.
Right away I am taking the rules about how we expect technology to work and are bending them. The guests enter a room that has only one door, the entrance they came in through. A house is a technology, one that usually has more than a foyer, but that cultural norm has been broken here. Right away the guests are confronted with the reality that this place is unusual.
I do not like the idea of having hidden cameras in my home, so I will not have any. However it is still necessary to observe how the guests are managing the challenge of leaving the room. On one of the walls there is a painting of someone that has several secrets. First, the wall it is on is also a hidden door, but one that the guests are unable to open form where they are. Second, on the other side of the wall a small flap can be opened allowing someone to look through the eyes of the person in the painting. Again, this is giving a technology (the painting) properties that it shouldn’t have.
Above is a ChatGPT attempt at the room I am talking about. There are no obvious doors to leave through. However, there are several wall sconces! By solving the puzzle contained in the invitation the guests should be able to figure out that by manipulating one of the sconces the large painting (and the wall it’s on) moves asides providing access to the rest of the home.
Proximity is very important here. Guests need to learn that in this environment there are hidden mechanisms, and that objects may be capable of doing unusual things. When they perform an action the corresponding effect must be obvious. Here the act of manipulating a secret lever opens a door a few feet away, the connection is obvious. The guests should now be suspicious of every piece or art in the home!
The images above are a few examples of what the rest of the home currently looks like. I am the king of unfinished projects, and there is still much work to be done. Taking inspiration from the Japanese garden designers, the act of placing a door (threshold) separating the entrance to the home and the rest of the place, creates an opportunity to dramatically effect the guest experience. This is an opportunity for a WOW moment. The first room they encounter is lit by indirect lightning on the ceiling, I am partial to the blue look but it is capable of being other colors. The walls are lined with dozens of stained glass lanterns all glowing. There is a map of the world on the ceiling with various locations highlighted via hidden fiber-optic lights. Again, this is not normal for a home, which is exactly the point. This place doesn’t follow the normal culturally agreed upon rules.
The guests meet the host of the evening, the mysterious Curator. She welcomes the guests and gives them a brief tour. She also hands them a small envelop with another puzzle to solve inside. What the guests are not aware of yet is that the home has a basement which they are unable to access, there is another secret passage. They have been handed a clue that will lead them to the means to access the basement.
The exact puzzle is still being debated, but the first step is that the guest needs to find a key hidden in a secret compartment being a small piece of wall art. Again, this is not something that wall decor doesn’t normally do. The key itself is important. Anyone who finds a secret key to open a secret passage doesn’t want to have some ordinary house key! Oh no, that simply will not do here. The plan is to reward the guest by presenting them with something home made that is large, heavy, and ornate. The physical experience is a critical piece of this part of the DEMS.
This is where the difficulty ramps up a little. The key will have built into its design the clue as to where the lock is concealed. The example image above shows a skull key, perhaps the lock is hidden in the eye of a skull somewhere. Eventually the guest should be able to locate the hidden lock and manipulate it with the key. It is now time to increase the proximity of the action to the result. When the lock is turned, another painting slides away to reveal the access to the basement. (Yes, its the same trick as the first door, but the sliding panel takes up the least amount of space.) I want the result to be unsees from the guest. There needs to be some type of feedback to alert the guest that the lock worked, perhaps the skull could light up, or there is some type of sound that plays. There should be a little confusion though, the guest should want to look around to see what happened. When they look around they will eventually return to the library where there is now a new path to explore!
As the party progresses there will be more puzzles to solve. It will be necessary for the guests to work together to solve the mysteries, break the curses, etc… An exciting possibility arises when there are more people involved, the proximity of action to technological response can be increased. With more eyes on the look out for changes in the environment it becomes easier to bend even further the rules normally associated with technology.
I am particularly interested in puzzles that require pieces to be brought together to accomplish something. For example, suppose we have a locked treasure chest that has resisted all attempts to open. The chest arrived at the society with a letter mentioning a curse that must be broken before the treasure can be shared. Perhaps one of the guests has on them a ruby ring (they were supplied with this as part of their character) that has been in the family for generations and is said to have belonged to a famous pirate captain. Well what a coincidence, there just so happens to be a pirate skeleton in the library! (This is true, her name is Margret, and she has a fancy pirate hat.) Perhaps returning the ring to the hand of its rightful owner will break the curse?
The goal is to provide high quality props that have been given properties and abilities they shouldn’t have. By bringing these object closer together, or further apart, aka changing the proximity, something magical can happen. By intentional building in gates/thresholds, both of physical space and knowledge, it is possible to guide and manipulate guests in subtle ways that hopefully will lead to an enjoyable experience. It is a party after all.
Everyone should have a good time. The point is not to punish people for not solving the puzzles, so hints should be given as needed. Similarly, broken props/tech should be removed. This is a quality DEMS! One that shouldn’t take itself too seriously, there is plenty of room for whimsy. There defiantly needs to be a giant carnivorous plant that chomps at people when they get too close!
Cycle 1
Posted: December 9, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »
Your adventure begins at the mailbox. You go to check your mail and find a large packing envelope inside addressed to you from an unfamiliar sender. Unlike the normal unexpected junk mail, this particular piece has been prepared with great care. The writing on the outside is in an elegant script and bears the mysterious symbol (above image). You take the envelope inside to open it.
There are three smaller envelopes inside, the most striking is made of dark blue paper with gold trim bearing a wax seal. A plane manila envelope has “Open Second” on the outside and is also wax sealed. Lastly is a ordinary white envelop with “Open Third” written on the front. You open the blue envelope first. After breaking the seal a letter is revealed inside.
Someone named The Curator is inviting you to attend a gathering of fellow explorers and adventurers known as the Order of the Veiled Compass. There is no return address, only a set of geographic coordinates, a time, and a date. (There was a mistake made in the coordinates, they take you to a random field in Springfield, Ohio. Ooops.)
The second envelope contains a letter and a slip of paper covered in numbers. Someone calling themselves Mungas, the keeper of keys, provides a little more information about the society and that there are apparently some sort of tests involved.
Feeling a little confused you take another look at the first letter and notice small writing along the rear edge of the letter.
The second letter has a corresponding set of numbers. When placed next to each other the letters and markings line up to create a cypher.
By combining the two letters and the slip of paper covered in letters, a message emerges.
With the puzzle solved you shift your attention to the third envelope. Inside is a printed message from the hosts of a party you are invited to. The letter explains that a themed party is being held and that you are instructed to create a character to play. The mysterious Curator has noticed the scientific, artistic, or adventurist activities of your character and has deemed them acceptable to join the Order of the Veiled Compass. A society dedicated to the discovery and preservation of the worlds arts, cultures, sciences, etc… The setting is an alternative Victorian history where the adventurous spirit of the age is highlighted while suppressing the ills of conquest and colonialism. The letter describes that is appropriate to explore and celebrate different cultures, but it is not acceptable to promote stereotypes or be disrespectful. Also, unlike the real Victorian settings, here there is room for magic, the occult, and other fantastic ideas. You are also given the address of where to go.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The experience described above tells the tale of what happened in the motion lab for my presentation of Cycle 1. The documents shown are prototypes for an immersive my wife and I have been creating in out home. Basically the two of us asked ourselves, “wouldn’t it be really neat to live in a scooby-doo house? Filled with secret passages, hidden treasures, and mysterious artifacts?” We have spent the past few years turning the interior of the house into a combination that is 20% Disney’s Haunted Mansion (the ride), 20% the Explorers Club, 20% Hogwarts, and 40% the British Museum London. It’s still very much a work in progress, but we have made significant progress. Below are a few photos of the place.
Not shown, but started, are the tracks and mechanisms that will support hidden doors that guests must figure out how to open. Guests must solve puzzles to gain access to various parts of the home. This was simulated in the motion lab by having the participants play a Dungeons & Dragons style RPG where they each moved their character around the house to solve several puzzles.
The presentation was both fun and insightful. Watching the “players” complete the puzzles and interact with the imaginary version of the house provided valuable insight into how the experience can be tuned to make the overall experience better. In particular the decoding puzzle in the letters needs work. The idea is sound, but the hidden message needs to be rethought to something more meaningful. The goal was that the secret message would tell the guests how to open the first secret door in the house. Much was lost in the translation from idea to the tabletop rpg, but it was clear that the future door opening mechanism and the message describing it need more thought.
Everyone had a good time and enjoyed the experience. It was a lot of fun to create the paper props that will act as the first experience guests have with the overall event.