Final Project Presentation: Liang
The final project goes wrong with Pin conflict on Trinket. Since I use Pin #1 to read microphone’s digital data and Pin #2 (Trinket requires “1”, which means A1, instead of “2” in code) to read analog X-axis accelerometer data, it gets confused when I have to write the same command “PinMode(1, INPUT);” in the code to execute both data read. It leads to the failure of reading microphone and accelerometer at the same time. Annoyingly, I had to use Teensy at the very last minute instead to perform my demo. It was not robust and that good, and very preliminary. I felt sorry for the audience and reviewers that night. However, they gave me a lot of feedback and suggestions on potential revise and development. Here I sum up some key points:
1. My biggest problem is that I attempt to cover many scenarios and applications, which is so generic that confuses audiences and eventually lose its value. It fails to address the major problem it tries to figure out, or the goal for its exist. It throws abstract pictures to audience, leave alone under the situation that it cannot work.
2. The gesture seems weird since the microphone works part the role of the gesture. I would argue that the gesture is kind of the way people feel the liquid in the cup. Honestly, when I design the gesture, I find only one gesture (shake) is meaningful for people.
3. Other formations. No matter what kind of stuff I want to create and make, it should respect my motivation and its goal. So, again it goes back to “Point #1”.
I agree with most of the comments in the critique and they drive me recall my original motivation: I know cup has resonance with liquid, cup has material, people use cup, and it can be an instrument to perform music. In the past weeks, I continue to do some research how to make use of these characters and what kind of music it can generate. Here I have some answers: it can generate beats, then rhythm, so it can perform some kind of percussion performance. Besides cups, other objects also have resonance property. When I look back at these, I narrow down my scenario for Tapo and come up with a new but iterative design and development solution.
Redefine the story for TAPO
Physical objects have resonance property and specific material. Tap object gives different sound feedback and percussion experience. People are used to making rhythms by beating objects. So, why not provide a tangible way not only allowing people to make rhythms with physical objects around she/he, but also enriching the experience by some computational methods. The ultimate goal for this project is that ordinary people can make and play rhythms with everyday objects, even perform a piece of percussion performance.