week 6

the results of my procrastination

prototyping

i started prototyping following the sketches i did. i first used materials i had around the house, then went to buy sturdier materials that would allow me to envision the structure of the prototypes better.

the prototype to test for exhaustion/sighing was a concern i had. i wanted its users to be able to do their work comfortably, but the prototype seemed uncomfortable to wear. it hung off the users ears. initially, i thought using a lighter material would solve the issue that was discomfort, but i realised that if the material was too light, it would not be able to hold up the sound sensor component. these were important considerations i had to make while designing the prototype. the second iteration took the form of a necklace. it was less restrictive for someone to wear and it looked less stupid. because it was more comfortable, i was able to use a thicker wire this time. the wire was able to support the weight of a small sound sensor in a styrofoam box.

as i managed to make the sound sensor work in the previous experiment, i had a bit more confidence in getting this one to work. the prototype that should react to sound required a sound-powered servo motor. this worked fine as well, and the only problem came when i brought in the companion component of the prototype. i wanted users to be able to confide in this prototype. the prototype should be something attachable to a user’s existing plushie.

the issue with this was the when i placed the servo motor on a little plastic stand and attached it to a rabbit plushie, the toy was too heavy. it ended up moving the little servo motor instead of the toy, and i realised i had to place more thought in designing the stand which was holding the servo motor. thankfully, i had a heavy metal book divider lying around, and with styrofoam, was able to craft out a temporary stand for the servo motor to sit on.

visualiser

i found a threejs tutorial online to recreate one of those blobs i really liked. as this was a music visualiser, i figured i could use this tutorial to understand what i could do to create my own blob that was reactive to the artefacts. did not go well, unfortunately. i don’t know what happened during the process of bringing in files from github, but my package.json file could not be located. i tried downloading node js and all, but it still did not work. i will have to find better tutorials on how to use shaders on my blob.

dissertaion

the rest of my time was spent on dissertation.