Saturday 4 February 2012

Project Collaboration

Following my introduction to Arduino, and playing around with the lights and sensors, Shaun and I began to think about what we could collaborate on for our final project.  Initially, I thought it would be fun to do something with ballet, and Shaun wanted to use a goalie mask for his exhibit.  Between the two of us, we had a hard time deciding between our ideas.  After a bit more experimenting with Arduino, and the Processing tool, we both had a couple of new plans...

Trying to figure out how to program the LED (unsuccessfully.)




















Both Shaun and I are avid American historians, so it was no wonder that we decided independently that we wanted to use an event or an icon which was central to the American story.  Shaun thought it would be interesting if we could recreate the JFK assassination using an electrically controlled car.  Then we could program the music to play the president's march until the shooting occurred.  Although I agreed that this would have a great impact, we decided that it would be a bit too macabre.  Another idea we came up with (after consulting with Professor Turkel,) was to have a model White House. In the White house, one could move a figure into each room on display and they would be able to hear a historical background to their choice.  I especially liked this idea, as I have a longstanding love of all things playmobile, and think that the interactive aspect is a great way to get people involved.  Hopefully next week we'll be able to put together a plan and figure out what kind of technology we could use to execute our idea!