Prototyping has been one of the strongest challenges of the physical computing Lab. Most of our efforts have been spent on building a prototype that lets us test and appreciate the physical experience of Auditum.
Making
To have an impressive and useful response to what we were defining, we built a colonnade, based on the real one, that suggested the relation between the human body and the artificial one (the column): a structure that used PVC pipes, fixed on the upside-down steel frames of our lab tables and covered (for the ceiling) with modules made with a wooden frame and fabric. Each module had a neon light and on the last modules were fixed the loudspeakers. On the central column were taped a microphone, in order to manage the potential noise. The floor was covered with black cardboard: under the floor module were located the switch sensors made with metallic tape and electrical wires. We used this kind of sensor in order to solve the problem of the proximity sensors we had wrongly bought. On the sheet that closed the last two columns appeared the Latin phrase giving the information. We used a cardboard arch in which were cut, as a stencil, the Latin words, lighted by a lamp behind the sheet. All the light elements were activated by the high-very-high switches: switches able to close the circuit using 220V rather than only 5V of the Arduino board.
Testing the experience
A prototype built at human scale is a surprising an suggestive way for testing the experience, and correct it if something doesn’t satisfiy you. The Auditum prototype was activated by stepping on the switches set on the sensitive area: Arduino received the input from the sensors and the output was sent to the actuators which lets the interaction perform.
Light and timing aspects
Fundamental has been timing. We had to time how long a user took to complete the procession, how long each light had to wait before lighting up in order to follow the audio flow, how long the thermochromatic ink needed to appear and, in the final solution, how long the light had to remain switched on in order to let people read all the Latin text.
Sound aspect
We spent a lot of time trying to fix the problem of increasing-decreasing the audio volume when someone makes noise. And even in this case there was the problem of the timing: how long does Processing has to wait before increasing again the volume after a user makes it drop?
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