Pressure Project #2 – Keys

For my second pressure project, I utilized a makey makey, a kinect, and my computer’s webcam. In the first scene, the user was instructed to touch the keys that were attached to the makey makey while holding onto a bottle opener on a keyring that served as the earth. Each key triggered the playback of a different MIDI file. The idea was to get the user to touch the keys in a certain order, but the logic was not refined enough to require any specific order, but would instead either transition after so many key touches or display “Wrong Order!” and trigger an obnoxious MIDI file. The contrast of the MIDI files lead to laughter on at least one person’s part.
The second scene was set on a timer to transition back to the first scene. This scene featured a MIDI file that was constantly playing, and several that were triggered by depth sensor on the kinect, thus responding to not just one user, but everyone in the room. The webcam also added an alpha channel to shapes that were triggered when certain room triggers were initiated by the kinect. This scene didn’t have as strong as an effect as the first one, and I think part of that was due to instruction and Kinect setup. I programmed the areas that the kinect would use as triggers in the living room of my apartment, which has a lot of things that get in the way of the depth sensor, that were not present in the room this was performed. Another thing that would’ve benefited this scene would have been some instruction, as the first scene had fairly detailed instructions, and this one did not.

macdonald_pressure_project02_files