Pressure Project 2
Posted: October 1, 2020 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »I learned from the last project and started with a written brainstorm of ideas before doing any actual work on this. Then I narrowed it down to what I actually wanted and drew a design, specified my goals, and the basic logic of the program. I decided to create a Spontaneous Dance Party Machine for my staircase. The goal was to randomly surprise someone coming down the stairs with an experience that would inspire them to dance and be in the moment. So while they might have been on their way to get food before trudging back up the stairs for more hours of Zoom, this gives them a chance to let loose for a minute of their day.
The resources I used for this were the Makey-Makey attached to aluminum for the trigger. I designed the aluminum on the staircase to be triggered by the normal way that someone might put their hand on the railing when descending.
Then the Makey-Makey plugged into my computer which ran the Isadora program.
Then I had to get the stage from Isadora into my projector. I did not have the right kind of cable to plug the projector directly into my computer but it would plug into my phone. So I used an app called ApowerMirror which was installed on both my phone and computer in order to mirror my computer screen onto my phone. This allowed me to transfer what was on my full screen stage on my computer into the projector that would serenade the person who triggered the stairs.
I used two scenes to manage this experience. The first one counted the triggers as well as determining how many times someone had to trigger the stairs before the projection and music would start. It randomly generated a new number from 5-10 for each round.
It would then activate the next scene which contained a colorful projection and started a random fun song to dance to. After one minute the scene would be slowly deactivated.
Overall I was really satisfied with this project. It took me a lot less time than the previous one I think because I took the time to plan at the beginning. It was also super fun to leave up in my house and spontaneously be able to jam out to a good song!
A few things to note for the future would be 1) I couldn’t projection map because I was just mirroring my computer screen; 2) my phone battery was used up very quickly my mirroring and projecting. So I would want to look for an app that could act as a second monitor or even better, get an HDMI to USB-A cord that would connect my projector directly to my computer.