For our final project, we have gone through multiple ideas to finally come to our final idea, the Black Box. Initially, we wanted to create a project that dealt with human emotion and interaction. Another aspect that we wanted to discover was use Muscle Wire in our design. We had several ideas initially but they either lacked the level of interaction or embodiment or had technical problems that during our time span would just not be feasible to complete.
Through research, we developed the Black Box which interacts with user through the sense of touch and vision. Black Box uses two motors that have feathers attached to touch the user and a series of fiber-optics attached to RGB LEDs would create the face. The user would place their head on a chin rest activating the speed of the motors. If the user is in a relaxed state, they would be placing more weight therefore slowing the speed of the motors. If they are in a nervous state, the speed would increase. The user can move their head forward using the chin rest, as they do so, the colours of the faces would change and since there are 2 overlapping faces, it allows the user to formulate their own unique face depending on the distance and colour configuration.
Black Box is an intimate space as well, allowing the user to form an attachment with the face and possibly trigger abstract images in their mind when viewing the faces.
While building and testing the Black Box, our group faced several challenges, we realized that the Arduino has difficulty providing enough power to both motors since they require more than 5v. An external power source would solve this problem. The motors themselves were an issue since they did not have enough torque to spin under pressure.
Black Box from mark nazemi on Vimeo.
We used various materials and multiple Arduino boards to complete the project. Since there are so many levels to this project, I have included both the codes, a video link, slides, and research to get a better sense of our project. Also check out my previous posting to learn about our initial idea for this project.