Final Concept
My final concept for my IM final will be an interactive map representing the diversity and culture of NYU students and our families through dance and music. I will have a framed, 2D paper map with buttons marked on different location around the world. When the user presses the button a song corresponding to that specific location will play. I plan to compile 10 songs with their selection being based on interviews from people I know at school. When a song is played, I’d also like to have a video of people dancing to the song as well. My hope is that the music and dance video will prompt users to partake in dancing to the music themselves as a type of cultural exchange but if I am being realistic, I’m not too sure that will happen. However, I will try to tweak the presentation of the dance video as much as possible so users feel invited to move their bodies in some way.
Concerns
I don’t think my ideas will be too difficult to implement, so in keeping it simple I hope to truly perfect each aspect of it. However, I do still have some concerns going into it. I have yet to make any final decisions on what the software side will look like, I want it to be simple yet playful but am not exactly sure how I’d like to implement that aesthetic yet. Additionally, I originally designed a frame that stands up for users to press the buttons but after further consideration I realized they might not be able to properly push the buttons in because there is no support behind the map. My possible solutions for this are either using light sensors instead of buttons so they basically just have to hover their finger over the location, or making a 2D frame of sorts that just lays flat along the table. I think the map laying flat will be easier to implement and design so I will probably go with that as a solution but am still hesitant because I think it sacrifices a bit of the aesthetic of the overall design.
On the left is the standing up version and what the support would look like and on the right is the ‘tabletop’ design.
As I move further into the implementation stage I also want to consider the possibility of users being able to add their own songs but don’t want to get too far ahead of myself before the foundation is established.
Arduino Component
For the most part the main thing the Arduino will be dealing with is receiving the information of what location the user selects. If time permits, I’d love to create some kind of LED visual to go along with the music but that is not my priority for now. Although I was originally leaning towards using the light sensors to detect the location a user selects, I am afraid of inconsistency in the data being read because their will be so much going on at the showcase so I think the buttons will be more reliable. With that being said, the Arduino program will signal P5 when a city is chosen and then P5 will handle the rest in terms of playing the song and whatnot. A small feature I am interested in implementing as well is using the LED board display that simply writes “Welcome to [country of song’s origin” to another component.
I did not include the LCD display in this schematic because I’m not sure how I’d balance those pins with what I need for the switches so I am temporarily pausing that idea. I will see if I can split half of the switched on analog and the other half on digital since LCD needs to be on digital pins.P5 Component
On the P5 side, I would really like to have an animation aspect of sorts that zooms in from a full map view to the specific city in order to play a song. I don’t think this will be too difficult to implement because I can just play a video, but I’m not exactly sure how I’d do it because I would need to create a different animation for each of the 10 cities which is a bit tedious. Here is a rough idea of what I mean by animation: 
Once the animation plays a little information card about the song, it’s origins and the person who submitted it will play. Then, the user will be prompted to start the song/video via an on screen button and then can repeat and explore the map from there. I do not plan on playing the entire song for each video, I am thinking 20-30 seconds of the main chorus of the person who submitted it’s favorite part of the song.
P5 will be receiving the information about what button was selected from Arduino and will send a ‘current state’ flag to Arduino to prevent users from trying to select another location while a current one’s video is playing.