Week 17: Applications and Implications

This week's learning outcomes are to:

Define the scope of a project
Develop a project plan

In order to do so, we have to consider the following:

What are we doing?
What materials will we need to use?
What is the cost?
Have you succeeded or failed? How will we measure that?
How am I going to integrate everything learned in the fablab?

1. Applications

1.1. What will it do?

My final project is an interactive art installation. I am making a screen that reacts to the audiences touch. This screen is a big capacitance sensor with seven sensor points. An animation is projected on it and it varies depending on where on the screen the audiences touch.

1.2. Who has done what beforehand?

Metamorphy 2
Touch Screen by Samantha Fickel

1.3. What materials and components will be required?

As I've mentioned before, my final project ended up dividing into two. My goal is to produce high-quality iterations of these two installations so that they can be exhibited in formal art gallery settings.

For my LED installation I will need:

2 meters of 60 LEDs Neopixel strip.
5 meters of 4-pin jumper cable.
Heat-shrinking tubes.
Black and white paint.
Brushes.
Light diffusing materials.

1.4. Where will they come from?

The materials will come from the internet from Adafruit.com and Amazon.es, from the material store Servei Estació and the electronics store Onda Radio and hardware stores all in Barcelona.

1.5. How much will they cost?

2 meters of 60 LEDs Neopixel strip: 50 euros.
5 meters of 4-pin jumper cable: 7 euros.
Heat-shrinking tubes: 13 euros.
Black and white paint: 20 euros.
Brushes: 10 euros.
Light diffusing materials: 10 euros.

2. Bill of Materials

2.1. What parts and systems will be made?

Smoke Membrane is made up of seven systems:

1. Vertical support structure.
2. Base & Electronics container.
3. Screen Design & Production.
4. Electronics & Cable Management.
5. Input Programming.
6. Output Programming.
7. Processing Animation Design.

For a break down of each of these steps please visit my Final Project page.

2.2. What processes will be used?

Laser-Cuting
Vinyl-Cutting
Electronics with custom made PCB and with Arduino UNO
Cable management
Programming: Arduino C++ (Neopixels, Capacitance Sensor, Serial Communication libraries) and Processing.
Sanding and finishing (wood priming and painting)

2.3. What tasks need to be completed?

Please refer to trello board below:

Fab Academy Final Project Progress

2.4. What questions need to be answered?

How many power sources will I need to power all the neopixels?
What materials are best to diffuse the light of the neopixels?
What RGB patterns and sequences are the most appropriate to represent the dynamism and color palette of fire?
What kind of sound component does this installation need?
How do I make it interactive?

2.5. What is the schedule?

Please see the trello board above. I would however like to have both installations done in its scaled up version by the end of summer 2019.

2.6. How will it be evaluated?

It will be evaluated in the following ways:
Does the sensor activate when people touch the screen?
What is the response delay?
Is the animation variation significant enough?
How is the audience reacting to the live interaction?
What kind of engagement has the project had online?
What kind of feedback am I receiving from friends, family and mentors?