Meditation Room Cycle 1
Posted: November 10, 2020 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »The goal for my final project is to create an interactive meditation room that responds to the users choices about what they need and allows them to feel grounded in the present moment. The first cycle was just to map out the room and the different activities that happen at different points in the space. There were two ways that the user can interact with the system: their location in space and relationship of their hands to various points.
There were three locations in the room that triggered a response. The first was just upon entering, the system would play a short clip of birdsong to welcome the user into the room. From there the user has two choices. I am not sure as of right now if I should dictate which experience comes first or if that should be left for the user to decide. I think that I can make the program work either way. One option they could choose was to sit on the couch which would start an 8 minute guided meditation and focuses on the breath, heartbeat, and stillness. The other option is to move to the center of the room which is more of a movement experience where the user is invited to move as they like (with a projection across them and responding to their movement to come in later cycles). As they enter this location there is a 4 minute track of ambient sound that creates the atmosphere of reflection and might inspire soft movement. This location is primarily where the body tracking triggers are used.
Two of the body tracking triggers are used throughout the room, they trigger a heartbeat and a sound of calm breathing when the user’s arms are near the center of their body. This isn’t always reliable and seemed like too much sometimes with all of the other sounds layered on top so I am thinking of shifting to just work upon entry and maybe just the heartbeat in the center using gates the same way that I did with the triggers used in the center of the room. The other two body tracking triggers use props in the room that the user can touch. There is a rock hanging from the ceiling that will trigger the sounds of water when touched and there is a flower attached to the wall that will trigger the sound of wind when touched. These both will only have an on-gate when the user is in the correct space at the center of the room.
Overall I feel good about this cycle. I was able to overcome some of the technical challenges of body tracking and depth tracking as well as timing on all of the sound files. I was able to prove the concept of triggering events based on the user’s interaction with the space which was my initial goal.
The next steps from here are to incorporate the projections and possibly a biofeedback system for the heartbeat. I also need to think about how I am going to guide the experience. I think I will have some instructions on the door that help users understand what the space is for and how to engage with it and what choices they may make throughout. I also am not really sure how to end it. Technically I have the timers set up so that if someone finished the guided meditation, got up and played with the center space, and the wanted to do the guided meditation again, they totally could. So maybe that is up to the user as well?
Here is a link to me interacting with the space so you can see each of the locations and the possible events that happen as well as some of my thoughts and descriptions throughout the room (the sound is also a lot easier to hear): https://osu.box.com/s/iq2idk432jfn2yzbzre91i2gp3y4bu9d