So I saw this tempting little video and was wooed into buying a 6V battery ($5.49) @ radioshack. I was convinced that I would hit a gold mine of AA batteries, of which I desperately need for my Making Wireless Toys class (this video claims there 32AA batteries inside a 6V). Wa, wa, wa…..alas, here is what I found.
Now there’s some junky batteries in the DT Lab cause I’m too scared to attempt to use them……and even if I wasn’t couldn’t use them in my AA battery pack anyways. Poop.
so I’m messing with inflatable things. testing to see what will be easy to control via arduino. I think the answer is that nothing will be easy, but this might be more manageable, or at least more fun! :)
I’ve been testing with inflatables as a simple prototype. Not sure where this will lead me, but I really like the idea of making my own shapes and forms to fill with air.
I placed foot pumps on the floor tiles and imagined a floating floor that would fit over each pump so the user could manually pump air with each step. The inflatable on the wall would correspond to each tile on the floor. The more it gets walked on, the more it fills. But then there is a problem with DEFLATING. Hmmm.
Joana suggested that maybe the pillows fill with colored air and the as the pillow increases with use the color increases in saturation. This is similar to overlaying transparency to see patterns in deeper opacity.
Ayah Bdeir (one of my algo animation instructors) just gave me the greatest idea…..instead of working on building lots and lots of tile buttons, I should hack a keyboard instead! This is a great idea! Why recreate the wheel, eh? And the good news is there’s lots of documentation on the web about this kinda thing.
here’s some possible ideas for gathering input data and displaying output data for my thesis.
Basically, the participant changes the sculpture by walking on the tiled floor that responds as a button press and in turn adds height to the sculpture. The floor is translated to the wall as a 3D surface. I am thinking of using a natural material like wood.
Hallway with interactive floor tiles and moving wall.
