When I was doing my group midterm project I became 100% convinced that interaction which is happening between people with the help of your project is very significant. All projects that I researched supported my claim. When the project pushes people to interact with each other it is more likely to be remembered and have the influence over the audience. It is the only project in our class which requires two people to work together to achieve the goal, to turn on the light. It is meaningful for me. Also, we all are somehow new to each other here – large part of us are freshmen or just don’t know each other, and this project is the opportunity for them to initiate the dialogue and have some fun with this interactive invention. My project is intended for all the people. I think that it would be fun and interesting to all range of ages – from childhood friendship to long-term marriage. People with different backgrounds and in various relationships with each other – all can use our project. It is about love or about starting the communication. Even grandmother and her grandson can participate in this cute interactive project and unite their hearts together. People usually want not just to know about love, but to see it too. And when something goes wrong with the project – for example, handlers are for the opposite sides – pair of individuals should unite their thinking and discuss how to solve this problem, how to win the mini-game. So it will also help to start talking to stranger.
I was inspired by one Russian project – virtual marriage machines. It looks like the arcade game or like the vending machine. You need to input your personal information there like name and date of birth of you and your partner, it will take a photo of you together and give you two plastic rings – and now, you are married! But just for the game🥰 There are many of these things in my hometown and it was really fun to use them with friends and parents. My contribution to it was to make it much smaller and to add more interactivity between person and machine. Now you don’t just type letters, you need to think, to rotate, to enjoy the lights.
For this project I wanted to use the thin cardboard. I tried to use paper in the beginning, but it was crumpling. It was an opportunity to just interpret it as broken pieces of heart, but I chose to make the project less messy. Also, I found the reddish cardboard for the heart and white cardboard of intersecting shape for the standing. It results like the frame of the project. Also, for the atmosphere on the presentation I added pink fabric (to hide the wires) and non-interactive lights.
I wanted to use the light sensor at first. I proposed to put it between people and require them to hug each other or to hold hands around the sensor – it would result in O light and the heart shaped LED should light up. However, Professor suggested not to use physical interaction between people, because if they are strangers it may be uncomfortable for them to touch each other. So I decided to use POTs connected to the servo motors.
First the idea was mine and then we with my partner developed it and fixed. The first I built the circuits and Alaia made the cardboard surface. We together combined them. First trouble which we experienced was that the servo motors were rotating, so we glued them to fix on one place. Later, I made the code, and my partner made the hearts. Everything worked pretty good. We needed just to solder the LEDs. I worked on a code, so I briefly asked someone in studio if we need the 220 resistor and got the answer “no, you need the 10K one”. And that was the problem two. I further need to be more careful whose advice to use, and recheck all the information. Alaia soldered 12 LEDs and that’s a huge work, but no one of them worked because of wrong resistors. It was a fail, but we were really fast in the morning prior to user testing. We found different lights which were even more beautiful and used them. During the user testing the main problem was that the wires were poorly connected to the breadboard. They just fell out of it because of the inconvenient construction. Also, I didn’t like the design. It looked more like than prototype than the project. Also, when heart was rotating it bumped into the LED, so we needed to extend the distance. After user testing, I completely changed the heart and the surface, rearranged all the circuits. It became less messy and more strong connection appear between the breadboard and the wires. These adaptations were very effective. The overall view of the project became better, the heart halves are now more strong and pretty. The handlers are more convenient to use, and the circuits is much less messy.
The process:
User testing:
The goal of my project was to create something that would cause interaction between people and give them some fun. I think that we achieved our goals. People were really working together to solve the quiz and became happy together when they saw the result. My project results align with my definition of interaction. One only thing that I want to add later is the deeper meaning of the project. Ours is just interactive and fun, but I want to convey some deeper ideas through it. Audience controlled the movements of the heart halves and communicated with each other during the solving, they also appreciated the beauty of lights. I can add more underlied meaning like the people are themselves controlling the part of heart, and in the relationship everyone controls their action. Only work of two people will create great relationships.
If I had more time, I would add the buzzer into it or used the distance sensor to input the information. I learned that you should use stronger glue to connect the important parts of the project. Also, you need to check it many times before the presentation to get sure that nothing will break. Also, you first need to make sketches and only after that start to make circuits. Additionally, you should not be afraid to use something new in your projects. I saw that many people used things that we didn’t cover in our lessons and I am really inspired by this. I hope I will have many opportunities and time to try all that we have in kits. I appreciate that even in our project people were able to find the interesting part. One of our accomplishments is that the meaning of the project and the instructions how to use it were clear enough. We didn’t need to explain why we made it and for what reason. It was my first time to make something that will interact with another people. I used all the concepts we studied and learned a lot in the process of making this project. I had many failures on this way, but the main purpose of such projects is to learn how to fix your mistakes, how to invent, how to design, and how to make. It was a hard presentation for me, because I wanted to be much better. I want my projects to be meaningful and inspiring. I want to learn more and to try more. I will definitely became better.