What can physical computing provide/add on to the p5 experience? At least, this is the question for me when trying to devise my final project. It’s true that physicality is supposed to be more engaging, more intuitive, etc. While it is also true that the rich visual response p5 allows can easily overshadow the physical portion of a project. That being said, my mission would now become how to assigned the roles of p5 and physical computing.
Some tug-of-war staged in my mind, and it eventually came to me to stick to p5 as the centerpiece while harnessing physical computing as a means to improve the interactive experience. In a simple word, I’m thinking of leveraging my midterm project with the aid of the physical input—constructing a physical environment, simulating a pilot pod, and transforming the PVE experience into PVP.
From a technical perspective, there may be two approaches to achieving the vision that differ from each other by the number of computers involved in the project. On the one hand, if one computer plus an external screen would be supported by p5, then the physical installation should become easier; while if p5 does not allow it, then two computers may need to be set, and the burden on the physical part to communicate info would drastically increase. At this particular moment I believe it’s time to experiment a bit more with p5 and Arduino at large to find out the right pathway.