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Technology

Realization with panStamp and pulse sensor

Following the Food for “Thought” , we continued to discuss our ideas. A good thing is that the script was out, so based on it,  we get a general concept of how things will be. As for technical side, panStamp and pulse sensor were chosen for the next phase

PanStampIMG_20150122_131355

We need to send information from the sensor on the stage to the computer. That is where PanStamp comes in

The PanStamp battery board is our sender- read signal from the sensor and pass it to the PanStick. A bit of soldering work is done on the battery board, mainly for the mobility of using sensor- instead of fixing the sensor, we can remove it at will.

While the energy source is 1.5V AA battery, PanStamp battery board itself can amplify it to 3.3V.

The PanStick reads wireless transmission from PanStamp battery and pass it to the computer via Serial protocol.

Pulse sensor

IMG_20150122_131444

Pulse sensor uses the principle of light-sensing in order to calculate the heartbeat. It is assumed that when the heart beats, there is some kind of shockwave throughout our body. From that perspective, the beat-per-minute (BPM) and interval -between-heartbeat(IBM) can be measured.

It was kind of a fun journey with the pulse sensor. At the beginning, the result was unstable , but after a while of tinkering, this pulse sensor does what it is supposed to do. Still, low power supply usage can be quite deceptive since the sensor “appears” to be working fine , but instead, you will need to change the code–or to wire it differently.

The guide for it can be found here: Guide for Pulse-sensor

The Pulse sensor ,in our project, shall be wired to the PanStamp battery board.

Model of our approach

The model of our approach

 

Concept

“Food for thought”- The mess that we made (Version 1)

In the first stage of realizing our goal -portraying the inner thought of Gorstby, we came up with several ideas. Now the job is to polish ideas we thought to be feasible, working on technical part going along with those and at the same time, creating more ideas

1. Polish current “golden egg”

On the date of 11/12. we were working on “Doubt tree”. “Doubt Tree” involved projection of a tree-like- growing animation and input from actor to determine its growrate. The scenario is supposed to be during Gorstby’s conversation with the young man in which “Doubt tree” represents the doubtness in Gortsby’s mind. At the end of the scene, when Gorstby found the soap and immediately came to the conclusion that the young man was telling the truth, the “Doubt tree” will be shattered.

As suggested above, “Doubt tree” would require fair amount of work on 2 main aspects: Animation and actor input interaction. For the animation, the current is done by Processing. But the choice of art style and theme to go with the whole play is not yet determined, so things might be change in the future. The interactive input is done by using wireless transmission using panStamp and sensor. The panStamp part is more or less done, and we are working on which sensor to use between: Force sensor(tested and worked), or new biometric one(heart sensor, gas sensor) . Further update will be on the next blog. Stay tune :).

“Water ripple” idea, which is a floor projection simulating the step-on-water effect, is currently on hold due to the fact that we are not aware of the actual stage. If the stage is not significantly higher than the audience, then the  floor’s projection won’t be much of a impact. Thus, we put it on hold for now.

2. Technical state

As mentioned above, panStamp is our choice of wireless transmission. The choice of sensor varies according to the design of interactivity. But we also think we would limit the range of sensor due to budget limitation. Detail implementation should be available once we conclude our design choice and script.

Literature

Live Media: Hand on Interactive Technology and Theatre

David Z. Saltz. Live Media: Interactive Media and Theatre. Theatre Topics, Volume 11, Number 2, September 2001, pp. 107-130 (Article)

In this paper, David Z. Saltz showed us thoughts on the subject of categorizing types of interactive media through her great deal of  experience. The author shared her opinion on 3 main distinguishing factors between classic, old, “linear” media versus the new, innovative, “interactive” media, supported by the rise of digital instruments. She also went carefully through various pieces in order to give further insight on how “interactive media” was practically utilized on stage. At the end of the work, Saltz presented a “neither exhaustive or mutually exclusive” list of relationship between actors and  the media.

The first play is Hair– a rock musical piece famous in its time for addressing urgent social issues such as Vietnam War, the hippe movement and recreational drug usage. Digital technology was used to generate animation to enhance the sensation of drug-induced hallucinations. Notable interactive element was mostly the projection breaking the norm and influence the stage in a somewhat “mediated” way. It means that rather than restricting the actor to a linear projection, the offstage player used hundred of MIDI-triggered still images and video clips to conform with the actors activities in a tight manner.

The second play, Kaspar, was ideal for interactive implementation due to its content. Objects were rigged to produce sound and effect as the actor interacted with them correctly. There was also an eye-like object which followed the main actor , controlled by a offstage computer operator. In this play, the element of “unmediated” interaction between actor and the media was introduced, featuring Kaspar’s investigation of each piece of furniture, achieved by using various type of sensors.

The third play, The Tempest, employed an interactive-human tracking to portray an ethereal entity, a spirit. A player offstage was equipped with tracking devices and literally controlled the animation projected on the stage in real time. This type of representation is not available with the traditional linear media.

With the paper, we can learn many things about practical case of interactive media integrated into theatre’s plays .And with the list of relationship provided, one can somewhat narrow down the choices of what should be implemented interactively to achieve certain positive effects. It is also notable that using interactive media, while considered to be the new age, does not come hand in hand with the guaranteed “better” result than traditional media. It is even stated in the paper that interactive activities, without proper representation, might not even be distinguishable from normal, simple linear media.