This design is comprised of a base to hold all of the LEDs, a reflective cone to project the light and a distance sensor. The idea is to have something that projects light upwards and when you put your hand through the light it will change color and it will make a sound all depending on how close your hand is. It projects light upwards by have a one made of mirrored acrylic and felt surrounding the circular base. With this project we are trying to make space more tangible. When you walk through space normally nothing happens. We want to be able to actively affect the space around us. We hope this project will make people be more conciencious about the space around you. We want to make space something you can influence and change.

We were given a blank sheet of paper and five minutes to come up with 10 ideas.  Then from there is where we got started.  We collabrated as a group and name multiple ideas.

First Idea:  Our first idea was to create a system similar to the Rock Band drums.  But the disk would be seperate and each time you hit them they would light up a different color.

Our idea later transformed into our final.  This is because we realized we did not want to another version of rock band we wanted to create our own.

First iteration:  We were going to use LED lights not strips.  We soon realized that lights were more difficult to mold into the spots we wanted.  After going with the LED strips we decided we were going to cut square holes out for each of the lights.  We realized the square holes blocked the light instead of enhancing it.  We later went onto using circle holes.  This projected the light much better.

Second iteration:  We experimented with a lot of different cone/rim sizes.  Some were short and wide, and others were tall and thin.  In the end we went with tall and thin because it allowed the light to travel up instead of dispursing out to the sides.  We decided to have the cone be made out of mirrored acrylic instead of spray paint or tinfoil.  Tinfoil was not chosen because it crinkled and did not reflect like we would have hoped.  Spray Paint worked nicely as it was smooth on the surface but did not reflect much.  Spray paint more absorbed the light.

Third iteration (Final):   We used an acrylic board to hold the LED strip lights.  We also created a box to hold all the wiring in to make a more professional look.  We placed black felt behind the acrylic mirror in order to allow the mirrow to bend into a cone shape like we planned.  

Final Video

In Being an Alien: Feelings from Another World, students will explore sensory augmentation or modification to expand the human experience of both earth and outer space.

Process is being written on another document and will be posted soon

The goal of our project was to create something that would incorporate a sense that humans do not have or create something for a world other an Earth. We started out with brainstorming and we decided that wanted to make a game that could be played in another world. We decided that we wanted our game to be in a 4D world. The fourth dimension is time. In this 4D world time and space would we disconnected. We came up with the idea for a game

We designed for a 4D world. Where the fourth dimension is time. In this world there is no perception of space. For our design, when the ball is hit one never knows which way the ball goes or how long it will take to travel. Each player has a sleeve on their hand and when they swing their hand it sends the ball off to the other player. The other player does not know when the ball will get to them, or from what direction, they only know when their sleeve vibrates and they reciprocate the motion. This game creates a lot of anticipation around when the "ball" is going to reach the other player. Because of this each player needs to be ready at all times because they never know when the ball may come to them! 

People have a hard time connecting to plants, trees and most nature because they don't have the same level of consciousness and life as humans do. That lack of connection causes people to treat them as if they are unimportant. But, in reality, plants and trees are one of the most important parts of sustaining life on earth and are crucial to the survival of humans. 

In an effort to help raise awarness for this problem and help people feel another demention of connection with nature, we (Graeme, Weliton, and Matt) created a device that, when someone hugs it, it plays a certain bird call which attracts that bird to the tree. This creates a cooperative connection between a person and nature and it creates a natural and interactive environment that makes it easier for people to have a connection with nature. 

Using a pressure sensor to detect if someone is hugging the tree or not, a red LED that acts as the heart of the tree, a buzzer (or speaker) that plays bird noises, an arduino board and arduino programming skills, we were able to make device that gives trees and nature another dimention of life. We also used Rhino, a CAD software, and a laser cutter, to build the physical model.

Our first idea was to work with flowers and create a flower lie object that would have different levels of pedals according to sizes and as you spun each level, different tones would play and there would be LED's attached to the pedals. Our overall theme was interracting with nature.

We then moved on to one final idea. Interacting with trees. We were going to design something that would go around a tree and would be attached to a speaker that would hang in the branches. Once someone hugged the tree, it would trigger a pressure sensor and the speaker would play a bird call.

Arduino/Code- Our first iteration of our project was out of cardboard. We focused mainly on the arduino and the code. Once we got the pressure sensor down, we used tape to hold it down around the tree (as seen in the picture)

Second Iteration- We were skeptical about which material to use so it would wrap the tree nicely. We first tested felt and spandex material. The spandex material is stretchy so it would be on the outside so we could fit the arduino in between the spandex and the felt. Although felt is perfect for wrapping around trees, it was not enough th trigger the pressure sensor and we wanted to make something that would be comfortable hugging.

Third Iteration (Final)- For our final iteration, we thought inserting cardboard inside the band would make it more comfortable and it would allow enough space in the middle to fit the arduino board without it having to stand out. Also, to make the led light stand out, we decided to use a rice bag material. It is light, durable, and somewhat see through. Also, we constructed a cone shaped box to fit the speaker and to better project the bird calls.

Arduino Iteration 1:

This iteration of the arduino had an a pressure sensor and a buzzer. The pressure sensor would pick up the amount of pressure you applied to it and relay that signal to the buzzer which would play a corrosponding tone.

Arduino Itertion 2:

We switched from an arduino uno to an arduino nano which can attach directly to the breadboard. I also added an LED that would pulse red when you weren't hugging it. I worked on that seperatly from the main arduino. Then I started working on finding a specific tone pattern that sounded like birds. I also did this seperatley from the main version.

Arduino Iteration 3:

I connected all of the components to the main arduino and programmed them to syncronize with the pressure sensor. The final thing that needed to be done was to find a way to amplify the sound of the bird noise. So, I found an electronic transistor that I connected to the arduino board which amplified the sound.