PROJECT TITLE
Wand: 11” long, holly, Phoenix feather core
PROJECT STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
I am a Harry Potter fan, and have always fancied having a wand that could cast magic. With the skills I learned at interaction lab this is for the first time an achievable dream. I hope to fulfill the imagination for people like me, who are ever waiting for the Hogwarts letter carried by an owl to their window, or buying their own wand from the wizard shop. In doing this project, I also hope to challenge the traditional form of controllers with buttons and switches and explore new medium of game control for the players. Instead of the plain yet effective common design, it can be fancy and designed according to the setting of the imagined world, which would definitely bring about a more immersive experience.
PROJECT PLAN
I will investigate the Harry Potter series and find some spells that we can realize by animatic effect on Processing. For now, some achievable goals are “Lumos”, the lighting charm and some spells that plays with natural elements such as fire, water, ice and lighting. We aim to display those natural element charms on the screen with corresponding sounds and make dramatic effects when the user wave the wand in a certain way and utter the spell, while “Lumos” would light up an LED at the end of the wand like it does in the novel. Our project relies mainly on the technology of voice recognition, Processing animation and the tilting sensor. To make the wand more interactive and the experience more immersive, we also plan to have a force sensitive sensor and a vibrator on the wand, so that we have more elements that we can play with.
The most crucial steps of our fabrication process would be 1. to figure out how to use the voice recognition program; 2. to figure out the tilting code; and 3. to make stunning visual effects.
CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
In my research for the final project, I aimed to learn more about designing devices or installations that would combine physicality and challenge the way people usually see the world. The water installation I saw at the maker faire where the user could immerse their hand into the water and invoke sound challenged the usual perception of water, and the spider installation challenged the way people usually see and sense the world and their movements in the environment. These inspired me to think of more magical, out-of-the-world things and play with natural elements. The wand is a tool in an imaginary world, where wizards and witches use in their daily life. It would challenge we muggles’ perception of tools and modern controllers. It is common for us to use standardized buttons to manipulate our surroundings yet there is rarely more complex physical movements involved. But by transforming the controller into something as simple as a piece of branch(a wand) all mechanic complexity was reduced and we come to a more natural state of using our voice and physicality to change and influence our environment. In reference to Tom Igoe’s metaphor of interaction as conversations, this would be a conversation that changes the person’s perception of the way of conversation itself. I hope it would be a refreshing experience for not only Harry Potter fans but general audience as well, for a taste of magic is never bad. It always boardens our imagination of all the interesting things that we can achieve with modern day technology, and remind us in a world of bustles and plain realism the sweetness of romance and fairy tales.