Cycle 2

Cycle 2

I achieved connecting Isadora and Arduino for Cycle 1 and made just a simple Arduino project like blinking LEDs.
So, I set up my goal for Cycle 2 to try to operate motor(s) by Isadora using a webcam as a motion sensor.

I firstly tried a servo motor. Fortunately, Arduino actor on Isadora already had a feature to control servos so I could easily connect them.
I made a webcam as a motion sensor like we had played in PP3 and made an instant “interactive servo robot” whose arm chases a viewer’s motion.

I also tried a stepper motor. I was a little bit tricky for me as Arduino actor on Isadora doesn’t have a stepper motor operating feature.
So, I re-checked a tutorial Arduino code to control a stepper motor and made the same work flow on Isadora (blinking Low/High to make a magnetic motor spin).
Its motion was not smooth, but it worked!

Probably I need to adjust an interval time between Low/High or some other things to operate a stepper motor smoothly, but anyway I decided to use servo motors for Cycle 3 as I should focus on building a final output now (and servos are easier to control for my project).
But operating a stepper motor by Isadora taught me many things like the idea of translating a written code into an Isadora chart.

My Cycle 3, the final output, would be a small interactive robot using webcam, Arduino, servos, and Isadora for sure.
Feedbacks from the class during Cycle 2 inspired me to make a small but very organistic interactive robot; as I usually make spatial or sculptural scale works, I considered my small Arduino test project (like a tiny servo) just as a small mock-up, but everyone’s reaction suggested me that a small scale thing could have its own communicativeness which a large sculpture doesn’t have. This would be my direction to achieve Cycle 3.

Cycle 1: Blinking Arrows

Going into Cycle 1, I knew that I wanted to make a game of some kind and I knew I wanted to use an alternative control scheme of some kind using the Makey Makey. I was also drawing inspiration from retro games, like Snake and Simon/Simon Says. Aside from this, I didn’t have any idea of what I wanted my final project to look like, so I decided to treat Cycle 1 as a pressure project, in that I would play around with Isadora and my ideas so far, and whatever came from it is what I’d demo for class.

My first step was just figuring out what exactly I wanted my project to look like at the end of Cycle 3, so I decided to just look at some retro games that I could potentially recreate in Isadora within the scope of the class. This research brought me to Dance Dance Revolution (not quite retro but close enough) and the idea of a rhythm game, the mechanics of which felt simple enough to produce before the end of the semester.

I started my patch with a rectangle in each corner of the stage, each labeled with a direction (up, down, left right). I would be using the Makey Makey as my controller (I will decide the actual controls in a later cycle), but these would correspond to the temporary keyboard input for each rectangles action. The rectangle UI didn’t feel very intuitive to me, and I didn’t like how it looked, so I scrapped those and changed them to arrows. At this point, I moved towards creating the game mechanics, starting with getting the arrows to blink based on the input of the user. Below is a picture of the patch for just one of the arrows to demonstrate how I got this to work.

During the in-class demo, I mentioned wanting to use a source of input that would be simple enough that a baby could use it, drawing inspiration from my baby nephew. Someone suggested I use a children’s xylophone as my controller and I really liked the idea, so I will be exploring children’s toys as input methods, most likely in Cycle 3. For Cycle 2, I will me continuing to work on the mechanics of my game.

Cycle 1: Getting Wires Crossed

For my cycle 1, I decided to tackle a basic interactive element I want my cycle 3 to have, a stove. I started my Isadora patch with a top-down view of an electric stove, where I would connect red shapes to slowly fade in and out based on user interaction. I initially tested with a keyboard watcher, but knew I would eventually attach a Makey-Makey to my makeshift stovetop. I used four user actors as the “burners” and used gates to prevent them from being continually turned on and off. Below is a screenshot of one of the burner’s patches.

I also knew going into this process that I want my cycle 3 to be a house-like experience with odd elements thrown in to encourage interaction. I’ve always been interested in the idea of a “normal house but move it slightly to the left.” I’m still deciding if I’m connecting some sort of story to it yet or not, but for the moment I knew something had to happen if the user interacted with the stove a certain way. I made it so a pit would “open up” on the stove top if the user turned all the burners on within 2 seconds. I used the simultaneity actor within Isadora to achieve this.

Here’s a few pictures I took when I first connected the Makey-Makey to the patch. The performance in class was a great experience and I deeply appreciated the feedback others provided. I took note especially that the framing of having physical stove dials helped make the experience more interactive and special, so I hope to include more physical interaction in my next two cycles.