PRELIMINARY CONCEPT:
I wanted to do some brainstorming regarding the concept of my final project. I wanted to do something that wasn’t too ambitious (considering the myriad of deadlines as a result of finals week and the limited time constraints). I think because I couldn’t think of a theme, ideas were very vast which didn’t help. After some major considerations and scrapping of multiple ideas, I came to the conclusion that I would want to build off on my midterm project to create a physical radio that is controllable through i.e., buttons, potentiometer, power switch. Output would be digital and input would be both digital and physical.
FINALIZED CONCEPT:
I thought creating a purely physical radio with a digital output would not be enough interactivity or at least a meaningful interaction, hence I wanted to perpetuate intimacy. I love music and (to me) what is more intimate than sharing your favourite playlists/ artists with others? I decided to make my final project a 2-part: 1) determine corresponding mood/ personality through personalizing their own cassette tape, 2) according to results, a playlist of 4 songs would be curated – this way there is more intimate and meaningful back and forth. Essentially it would work like those buzzfeed quizzes except physical input via push buttons are possible.
Total physical components would include 3 push buttons and a potentiometer for volume control. My arduino program will read the potentiometer value and buttons’/switch’s state and send the information to p5.js via serial communication. When p5.js receives information about the button’s push state, it will call upon its corresponding function, i.e., pause/play, skip forward/ backward. I will use the mapping function to map the potentiometer value to the volume so that whenever the potentiometer is toggled, p5.js will continuously receive its p value and adjust the volume accordingly. With regards to my p5 program design, I intend to have a cassette displayed in the middle with “select” and arrows buttons. Since users will select designs for each of the 3 stages, the “select” button will store user choices in a separate variable so as to assign a “result1/2/3” playlist. Although undecided, I intend to have a separate display screen for when the recommended playlist sounds to indicate the change of focus from p5 to the actual physical components.