PROJECT
The journey through the final project has been quite a hurdle. In the initial stages, I wanted to simulate music concerts that required a dark room and little to no noise which would have been an issue given my observations today. As I was experimenting with music visualizations, I developed the idea to build a music box with cool LEDs dancing and screen visualization. One issue that was pointed out in class was the isolation of the components. I needed to think of a way to make my project holistic. That’s when I started thinking of Bob the Bot, the humanoid bot with a box head, and hands, and a screen as a body. This also came with its challenges but led to my discovery of two ball-like foamy materials for the final project. After spending a lot of time switching ideas, building and disabling different circuits, and trying to create a story with bob the bot, I decided to think about ways of achieving the expectations of the final projects in the time constraints. I was ready to work with what I had and understood for class.
For the final project which was demonstrated at the showcase, I extended the grab the food game I built earlier in the semester. I incorporated the two ball-like materials found earlier as controllers for the game and a button for restart. The two balls had in the force sensors to detect the force to which a user is squeezing the ball to translate into movement on processing. My main goal was to ensure that the interaction was clear to the user so the ball located on the left-hand side was to control left movements, the right-hand ball was to control right-hand movements. I had some texts on the screen to signify users if they don’t have an idea of how to approach it. Even though the addition was small, it really improved the user experience, and almost all the users who tried the game enjoyed interacting with the softballs to control objects on the screen.
Below are some of the videos of users interacting with the project at the showcase.
The code can be found on https://github.com/eric-asare/IM-Final
REFLECTIONS
I really enjoyed my time in class and working on all the assignments and projects. I am grateful for the discussions, and lessons that deepened my understanding of interactivity. Have a great winter break.😊