Interactions Colour & Texture

So far these are the colours and textures put together for rePLAY interactions. There are plenty of woodland colours available this time of year ...and better still, they will soon be in the bargain baskets.

...and some sample crochet pieces I made...

Annie.

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Programming Objective

rePLAY is using the Adobe Flash platform to display a series of interactive animations, that collectively form a forest scene. The scene will be projected onto a wall in an exhibition space. The level of activity in the scene at any one time depends on the end-user. Several elements in the exhibition space will allow a user to control and launch animations. The animations, made in Adobe After Effects, will be imported to Flash and executed via ActionScript 3.0 when triggered by a physical sensor. Animations will sometimes overlap or run simultaneously.

Coding will involve if statements to make decisions based on user activity, for loops to manipulate the animations and audio, timer class code to delay animations and to run them at timed intervals, microphone activity detection and more.

Annie.

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ActionScript Microphone Activity

We followed this online tutorial today to interact with a microphone using ActionScript 2.0 and it is working fine.

Hiccup: iMac will not detect sound input from a microphone unless the mic is connected via USB. We tried using a Sennheiser mic, with a ¼" to 3.5mm jack converter, connected to the iMac's audio-out port.

The solution offered in relevant online forums is the iMic. In the meantime, for test purposes, we will use my Wii Band Hero microphone.

For this project we are using ActionScript 3.0 in Flash CS4. As a programming foundation to detect microphone activity, we will use source code from Adobe ActionScript 3.0 help files.

Annie.

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Shopping List

rePLAY will feature unique and fun handcrafted soft circuits.

These circuits are a range of designs, in fabric and yarn, custom-made to cover various types of sensors such as pressure sensors, stoke, stretch and tilt potentiometer. A microphone and a toy paper windmill will be used as sensors that a user blows into.

Designs will take the form of organic matter found in a forest environment, for example origami flowers or conductive play-dough rocks. In addition, rePLAY may have hand-drawn circuits; using paper and conductive paint.

Shopping around for ideas; we may or may not use some or all of these.

Conductive Materials

Conductive Fabric

Conductive Yarn (pictured)

Fabric Paint

Fabric Spray

Electrically Conductive Silver Paint




Components

Screw Shield (Terminal Strip) Kit for Arduino

Arduino | LilyPad Arduino


places to shop online for components and kits...

.:oomlout:., Cool Components, Technobots, SKPang Electronics


Interaction Inspiration
examples of existing soft-circuit sensors

Squishy Circuits

Circular Knit Inflation Sensor

Knitted Stretch Sensor

Conductive Pom Pom

Crochet Tilt Potentimeter

Flexible Fabric Pressure Sensor

Zip Switch / Zip Slider

Tilt Sensor


Annie.

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Script in progress...a taster

Well, Christmas is over and the real work begins, Just a quick update on the progress of replay, 
Its been hectic over Christmas but we've tried to keep our group project in mind, and are constantly keeping our eyes peeled for inspiration as well as researching and putting together our script which is due the 3 of February! 
I have been researching our narrative and trying to fine tune it, researching Karl Jung more in depth, creating and finalising characters to give depth to our story. With particular emphasis on symbolism, what each one of our characters represents, with regards our story, the tying together of the narrative and also what the user is going to get from interacting with these characters and symbols, which is after all the most important thing! 


I have been  researching the character of the shadow, who is representing the dark side, or subconscious part of our user and indeed the forest. I have been researching what the subconscious means, what our shadow represents and reasons behind why our character must overcome this character to progress in our interactive piece.I feel like the shadow in our peice is a strong symbol that we can wokrk with as we are trying to bring out the light playful side in our user as well as visually in our animation, we must first concur the darker side of ourselves, that everyone faces.Beneath the social mask we wear every day, we have a hidden shadow side: an impulsive, wounded, sad, or isolated part that we generally try to ignore.Bringing Shadow material into consciousness drains its dark power, and can even recover valuable resources from it. The greatest power, however, comes from having accepted your shadow parts and integrated them as components of your Self."
WHAT WE DO NOT DARE LOOK AT, WITHIN OURSELVES, WE TEND TO PROJECT OUT ONTO OTHERS. In our instnce the shadow creature. By Facing it we start on a path to enlightening replay forest and hopefully the user. 

This is just a snippet of the character research i have been doing into our narrative, along with this, we have been looking at animations, with Fodhla researching different styles and methods of animation, from shadows, stop motion, flash etc. 

Alanagh has been tirelessly working on graphics and character development nd the look of the characters as well as working with fodhla to identify a strong motif to our project to really make us stand out. Pictures and drawings to come in next update! 

Annie has been working away on interactions thinking and researching new and exciting ways of making unusual tangible interactions, right now she has been working with textiles and researching buttons that will tie into our project,  as well as keeping our tweets updated, you can tweet us @rePLAYforest 

so guys that was just a quick update on our progress and where we're at right now, more frequent updates to follow with regular updates frfom all the team on the blog and twitter!! 

Siobhán