Category: Interaction Lab

 Intelligent Ear Protector

—-By Alan Guo & Jieyi Wang, Instructor: Andy Garcia

Context and Significance

In the group research project, our team performed one mask that can record user’s five senses, and then project these senses to the other user so that the one can experience one period of time others had once been through. One key element I figured out during the group research project is about the concept of interaction. Previously I always think of interaction as what happens between the user and the device. But with the performance, I found out that there exists another form of interaction that the device is no longer the target, but only one tool for user to interact with the outside. With the five senses mask, the user is not only interacting with the mask he/she is on, but also the virtual environment and even the previous user that creates the certain environment.

So, for the midterm project, our term isn’t limited in the interaction only with the device itself. During our research and discussion, we found out one serious problem in our society, the sound pollution. Both Jieyi and I suffered a lot from the sound pollution, and after discussion with instructor Andy, we decided to make one product that illustrates this severe problem. Even under some circumstances our brain can help to neglect the noice around us, our ears are still exposed to the sound and being damaged.

We are inspired by this picture Andy showed to us. So, we decided to make something wearable that people can put on their head. Through this product, people could interact with the outside environment. We specify our target users to be those who suffer a lot from the sound pollution.

Conception and Design

At first, Jieyi and I came up with some ideas about the functions of this wearable device. We thought about strengthen the sound to alert the problem of sound pollution or block the sound as a useful device. After considering about the feasibility and drawing the drafts, we decided to built one earmuff that can rotate. When the environment sound is too loud, the earmuff would close automatically, and open again when the outside is quiet enough. Also, we designed one button that can open the earmuff when the user wants to hear something clearly or talk to someone else. In this sense, our device provides one way for the user to interact with the outside world concerning the noice and sound.

To build the whole product, we used 3D printer, laser cutter and borrowed some equipments. We borrowed the soundness sensor to detect the outside sound. To rotate the earmuff, we chose the servo. We used the servo provided in our Arduino box at first, but it turned out that the small servo is not powerful enough to rotate the whole 3D printed earmuff. So we borrowed two standard servos, where are bigger and more powerful than the smaller ones.

For the earmuff itself, we used 3D printer since it’s no easy job to find something with similar shapes, we also printed the axis to connect the earmuff with the servo. At last, we laser cutted a wooden box to contain the Arduino, breadboard as well as the button.

Fabrication and Production

We met quite a lot problems in the building process of the product. To name a few of them, the loudness sensor would detect the sound of servo when rotating as huge since these two are close to each other. So the sensor would regard the environment as loud all the time. So we changed the codes to take the average loudness in several seconds. In this sense, one sudden noice would not disturb the device.

                                axis before                                                                         axis after

The axis we printed at first turned out to be not strong enough. We can’t attach the earmuff to the axis. After asking Andy for help, we printed a much thick axis with the groove of the shape of earmuff. In this way, we connected the servo with the earmuff.

In the user text section, we received a lot of suggestions and advice.

                          before improvement                                                         after improvement

1. The loudness sensor is placed at the top of the device, so it can only receive sound from above but not the direction the the user is facing. We revised by putting the sensor at front, the same direction of the user. The accuracy and efficiency improved a lot by shifting the positon.

2. There are too many wires around that is annoying and hard to wear. We then tied up all the long wires using tapes. With only one thick wire, the devise is easier to wear and carry.

3. The usage of button is hard to understand and ineffective. We tried to change the codes so that pressing the button would only function as opening the earmuff for five seconds. But the code didn’t work out well. So we chose to write some short instructions around the button to guide the user.

4. The 3D printed earmuff can’t isolate sound effectively, there’s still noice after closing the earmuff. We also noticed this problem before, so we used sponge to place around the earmuff. The sponge isolated the noice a lot, and it becomes more comfortable for users to wear.

Other improvements:

To make our device truly wearable, we used power banks to power up the arduino instead of the computer. In this way, by putting the power bank into the button box, we get rid of the long wire connecting to the computer, and our device are moveable with the user. User can move around wearing the earmuff and having the button box tied on their belt.

                           Thanks Krabs a lot for our user tests again and again

Conclusions

Our project, the intelligent Ear Protector, aims to arise people’s awareness of the sound pollution around us as well as help those who suffers a lot from this problem. This earmuff can automatically close to reduce the sound when the environment is too noisy, and open again when it’s quiet enough. The button wearing on the wrist can open the earmuff whenever the user wants to hear something clearly or talk to someone.

This earmuff functions as a channel for the user to interact with the environment around him/her. To interact, the user rejects the noise and accepts the preferred quiet environment. However, there still has a lot to improve about the interaction. Now, the device has the only function to open and close, and the user doesn’t has much choice besides opening it. The interaction between the user and the earmuff itself is also not strengthened.

For improvements, we can add more functions to the ear protector that it can suit different environments. Also, we could add sensors to detect sounds from different angles, we could have the servo rotating various of angles corresponding to different levels of noice. Most importantly, we could strengthen the interaction between the user and the device, so that the user can have more options and controls over the earmuff.

For things learnt in this project, there are difficulties in every step and the experience of solving them one by one is really inspiring. From the brainstorm of what to built, the process of making prototypes, debugging the code to improvements from the user test. We reached to fellows and instructors a lot for help, and talking with others, having different ideas and solutions to come up together. I learnt about plan making, problem solving, project improving, and so on in this whole project.

All in all, we hope to build this Intellectual Ear Protector to alert people of the sound pollution problem around all of us and help people suffering from the noise. With successes and failures in the whole process, I learnt various of skills in dealing with problems in projects as well as in the real life. We hope our project can, to a little extent, awakes people to notice the sound pollution, as well as other invisible things damaging our bodies and make efforts to shift this situation.

Circuit Documentations

My partner and I built one drawing machine this recitation. Since the code is given to us along with the circuit diagram, the building process wasn’t hard. For the step of assembling the mechanical arms, the 3D printed component doesn’t fit so well at first. By manually adjusting the size, we succeeded in building the arms and drew one “artwork”. The arms didn’t hold the pen so tightly that sometimes the pen couldn’t draw exactly what we want. But at least we made something artistic.

Answers to the Questions

1.What kind of machines would you be interested in building? Add a reflection about the use of actuators, the digital manipulation of art, and the creative process to your blog post.

I would like to build a pair of earmuffs or something that can reduce the loudness of the environment according to the users’ will. For I want to address the problem of sound pollution, which is one serious concern damaging people’s health. Though we may able to ignore some sound in noisy areas, our ears are still exposed to the voice and damaged because of that.

Thus, I want to use the motors or servos as the actuator to control the earmuffs and voice sensors to detect the loudness in the environment. In this way, the earmuffs can automatically turned to block the extra noice in the environment if the sensor detects such sound.

2.Choose an art installation mentioned in the reading ART + Science NOW, Stephen Wilson (Kinetics chapter). Post your thoughts about it and make a comparison with the work you did during this recitation. How do you think that the artist selected those specific actuators for his project?

This art installation creates sounds with metal rings raising and falling. The whole process of making sounds is just like the working of a system, and by building such system with metal structures and rings, the sound produced can be regarded as the output or expression of such “mechanism”.

Both this Centripetal Sound Machines and the mechanical arms I built this recitation used motors. I used motors to control the pen and draw things while motors are used in another way to make sound in that art installation. Though motors can only move in one particular way, which is to rotate, but with different devices connected to it, there can be various of outputs in very different forms. To use actuators properly, the reacts in different fields can be joint together to present brand new interactions and creations.

Five Senses

I am in a group along with Mia, Ray, Wayne and Campbell. We five together came up with the artifact called five senses, which is a mask that can record the five senses of the user ( tactile sense, visual sense, auditory sense,  olfactory sense and taste) and transmit them to another user later on.

Origins and Background

Our artifact, the mask called “five senses”, is originated from the story of Newton’s Sleep. In our discussion about the artifact, the first idea wasn’t actually the five senses mask. I t was a pair of glasses that can navigate visually imparied people as well as reading aloud written down informations. This idea came from one character in the story called Esther, who has bad eyesight and needs surgery for her eyes. However, after doing researches upon that artifact, we found out that similar inventions has already been created with the name of AngelEye.

So we tried to make some improvements and adjustments to the glasses to make it unique. My artifact for Newton’s Sleep was a pair of AR glasses for citizens to see the scenery on Earth. Combining these ideas together, we finally came up with the artifact of a special mask to record people’s senses. To put it into the story, this mask can help the citizens who are living out of earth to regain an experience of lives on Earth, for the elder people are missing that memory.

Building and Performing

The building part isn’t that hard as all we need to do is cutting a mask. We used cardboard and paper for that.

Instead, we focused more on the performance and the story of it. To better illustrate the function, we used a drama way to perform a murder case. To tell the story in short, a man was killed with the five sense mask on, then a girl passing by found the body and put the mask on out of curiosity, then she experienced the whole process just happened and thus found out the real murderer. In this story, we tried to illustrate that the mask can represent the five senses to the user by replaying the murder case in front of the girl. For the story involves fierce quarrel and drama-like killing part, we rehearsed a lot and polished the performance by changing details and dialogues from time to time.

And here is the video of our rehearsal.

About the Interaction

Intuitively, the five senses mask involves two parts of interaction. Firstly, the user interacts with the mask to record the five senses, the mask would sense whatever the user has got with the outsider world. And secondly, the mask interacts with the another user to present and share the recorded senses and feelings.

But I would also think that this special mask creates different kinds of interaction. By regarding the mask not as one object of the interaction but the tunnel, we have the two users actually interacting with each other. The two users shared “part of the memory” using the mask. However, this won’t actually meet with my definition of Interaction in the pervious documentation. Since the later user can’t actually give feedback to the first user as the interaction doesn’t happen simultaneously. In this sense, I may here raise an improvement  as that two users wearing the masks can share senses with each other simultaneously.

Last but not least, from another point of view, to some extent we can say that the later user is interacting with the scene he/she senses through the mask. But the same flaw exists that the scene can’t give feedback (output) to the later user. So the improvement mentioned above may also be adapted here to complete the interaction process.

Successes and Failures

For the successes, I think my group has came up with a really interesting and helpful idea. Though we performed the mask within a murder case, there can be various usages of the mask (if it can really be created). Also, I would think that the drama is a nice way to illustrate the functions of the mask and the murder scenario is  unique and attracting.

For the failures, I think there are many aspects we can improve and do better. First, we didn’t spend much time in building the artifact, though the mask is easy to create, we could have chances to further perfect it and having it shown some of the functions. Secondly, our story of performance may be too complicated and not easy to understand within a five-minute performance. We didn’t find the best way to present the function of “having the five senses of another person”. What’s more, there exists some flaws in the designing of the mask. For example, one professor raised one question that what would happen if one get sleep with the mask on. We actually wasn’t sure about the answer because we hadn’t really think about how the mask would sense and record everything. By completing the setting and details of the mask could help us further understand it.

Review on The Helmet of Emotions

The Helmet of Emotions is a helmet that enables people to regain their emotions when putting it on. People can feel the emotion of happy, anger, sympathy, sad and so on. For the background story, this artifact is based on Newton’s Sleep. It is said that humans in the story regard emotions as useless and they don’t show these feelings up in daily life. So the helmet is invented to let people regain their emotions towards everything and have a normal human live.

I think this artifact is pretty relevant to the story as they looked deep into the personality and characteristics of the citizens in Newton’s Sleep. Though I think people there may not be willing to actually use this helmet, I think this invention is creative and interesting. Furthermore, this helmet also raises a deeper social problem that people tends to be indifference and selfish when interacting with others, especially when communicating through the Internet. This invention enables us to pay more attention to this problem.

For the artifact they built and the performance, it really amazed me a lot that they got balloons with different colors representing different emotions, bursting one balloon means the showing of one certain emotion. I think this design is truly unique and understandable. The performance illustrated the invention clearly. I wasn’t sure why the characters were speaking and reacting emotionlessly at first, but when the helmet came out the balloon bursted, I got the key idea of the invention loud and clear. Also, the performers dealt with the emergency (the balloon won’t burst when pulling the trigger) on the stage calmly and actively, making the emergency not flaws but outstanding points for the whole performance.

 I think the artifact and the performance are already pretty nice. For some tiny suggestions, I would think that building the helmet easier to use (easier to burst the balloon when pulling the trigger) may further perfect the performance. Also, at the beginning part of the performance, there was a long introduction to the background by one speaking, I may suggest that convey the background knowledge by the way of act may be more intuitive and attracting. Overall, I think The Helmet of Emotions is a creative and interesting artifact along with an excellent performance.

Circuit Documentations

In this recitation, I chose the vibration sensor and built a circuit around it. With the help of the vibration sensor introduction on Arduino, building the circuit isn’t difficult. Instead of using the code provided in the example, I used the code learned on Thursday’s class and made some changes to it. I used the map() function to let the vibration sensor control the frequency of buzzer and the brightness of LED. There was one problem when I used pin 9 as the output of buzzer and pin 11 as the output of LED, only the buzzer can work, while the LED had no light. I asked the professor for help, we checked all the equipments and coding part to be fine. After looking up on the internet, we found out that the timer was conflicting the output of LED when using pin 9 and 11 at the same time. So we then used pin 5 instead of 11 and the whole circuit worked well.

const int vibration = 0;

const int buzzer = 9;

const int light = 5;

int brightness = 0;

int value = 0;

int loud = 0;


void setup() {

  Serial.begin(9600);
  
  pinMode (light, OUTPUT);

}

void loop() {

  value = analogRead(vibration);

  loud = map(value, 0, 400, 1, 24);

  brightness = map(value, 0, 400, 0, 255);


  Serial.println(brightness);

  tone(buzzer, 440 * loud, 1000);

  analogWrite(light, brightness);
  
  delay(100);
}

Answers to the Questions

1. What did you intend to assemble in the recitation exercise? If your sensor/actuator combination were to be used for pragmatic purposes, who would use it, why would they use it, and how could it be used?

I intend to built a circuit that the buzzer and LED can have reactions to the knock and press of the vibration sensor. I think this circuit can be used as an alarm in real life. When certain object is touched, there will have sounds and lights in order to alert the user. For example, this can be equipped on a safe box containing dangerous objects like lighter and iron. If the child at home accidentally touches the safe box, there will immediately be noice and lights to alert the parents as well as the child.

2. Code is often compared to following a recipe or tutorial.  Why do you think that is?

I think that the computer will act according to the code given, just like chief will cook with the recipe or students do work depending on the tutorial. The code is the guideline for the computer to operate. Just like recipe and tutorial, the code itself would run or function, but it can tell the computer to run accordingly.

3. In Language of New Media, Manovich describes the influence of computers on new media. In what ways do you believe the computer influences our human behaviors?

No doubt that computers have changed human life completely in nearly every aspects. Human now depends on computer a lot for so many things. Human let the computers to do many basic things instead of manually. For the most simple example, with a powerful calculator, we no need to do calculations by ourself, and our ability of calculating may even decline because of the computer. We tend to type in words instead of writing it down on paper, so we may feel weird when holding a real pen to sign the name. Therefore, I think many basic things human used to practice has been replaced by computers, this is for sure more convenient and efficient, but at the same time, it also means that human may lose the ability to those basic things since there exists fewer chances for us to practice.

Circuit Documentations

1. Fade

I built the fade circuit without having troubles.

2. toneMelody

The problem I met building this circuit is that it took forever for the Arduino to upload the code and thus the speaker made no sound. By pulling and plugging the wires for a several times, the it succeeded in uploading it and the circuit worked fine.

3. Speed Game

The third circuit is a lot more complex than the previous two, but with the help of the diagram in tinkered, building the circuit isn’t that difficult. The hard part is to read the codes and figure out why each component is used in such way.

The circuits works well and it’s really fine after I understand what does the circuit does and how it accomplishes its work.

Answers to the Questions

1. Reflect how you use technology in your daily life and on the circuits you just built. Use the Introduction Chapter (page xvii-xxix) of Physical Computing and your own observations to define interaction.

According to the book, the interaction of a computer contains input, processing and output. The book regards people expressing themselves through the screen or speakers as input (Igoe and O’Sullivan 21). In this sense, the daily use of computer to type in words and browse websites is only the input part, not finishing the circle with output, and thus it could not be defined as interactions. While the circuits above contain output in various ways, from the shining of lights to the sound making of speakers. Though these are all easy circuits, they have the all three elements of input, processing and output to be called as interaction.

2. Why did we use the 10K resistor with the push button?

As shown in the diagram, the push button is connected directly to the input of 5V, which is too much for the button. The 10K resistor here can effectively reduce the electricity run through the button. In this way, the push button is protected and can function correctly.

3. If you have 100,000 LEDs of any brightness and color at your disposal, what would you make and where would you put it?

I would like to build a tree with only LEDs and some basic frames. The tree can have various colors and status as season changes. It can show leaves from green to yellow, and fallen down to the ground. When Christmas comes, it can turn into a Christmas tree automatically without any extra decoration. I want to put the tree in the school library, as the library is now too monotonous.

Work Cited

Igoe, Tom, and Dan O’Sullivan. Physical Computing. Thomson, 2004.

Folding Beijing

In the story, thousands and thousands people are doing the rubbish sorting work in the third space. One artifact fits the story would be a machine that can automatically detect and sort different kind of wastes. The machine has several claws to grab and sort rubbish in the right way. This kind of machine must be very popular in the society, but will also cause a huge decline in the employment rate.

Newton’s sleep

In this story, one conversation is about removing the monitor to reveal the true ground of the Spes. One interactive artifact can be a pair of glasses that has the same function as the monitor, to cover the ground with the image of the earth. Using this artifact, people can see the scenery on earth through the glasses while there is actually nothing but ground. As designed by the user, the glasses would be able to show different scene as well as different seasons. Problems caused by this invention can be that people may see a fake tree or a fake lawn that is not convenient for people to walk.

The lifecycle of software objects

As the digients can only live in the digital earth without the help of a robot body. The interactive artifact in this story can be a room with many projectors and cameras that can project the digients in real world. People can see and interact with their digients inside this special room. The vision of digients can be provided with the cameras in the walls, while they can also speak through certain micros. The limit of this artifact is that people can’t actually touch their digients as they are only projected into the room and have no entities.

My Definition of “Interaction” :

In order for an interaction to take place, there should exist multiple, at least two, objects. The objects can be either human or robot, but they must have the ability to input, process and output. In other words, the ability to “listen, think and speak” (Crawford). And in the process of interaction, all these three elements should be involved in some ways. As the extension of the thinking process, the interaction should have variability. This is to say that the output of the objects are unique, the output should embody objects’ thinking in the interaction process.

Two examples:

1).

In the project called “Suntory HIBIKI”, there is a special kind of whisky glass that senses tilting, touching, swirling, or drinking from human, and corresponding scenery and changes would appear on a screen. I think this project satisfies my definition of interaction perfectly.

Firstly, the objects are humans and the whisky glasses. Secondly, they all do input, process and output in the interaction. The output of humans as well as the input of glasses is the behavior of touching, swirling or drinking. The showing on the screen is the input of human and the output of the device. The thinking is involved as people has to think about what to do with the glass while the device need to decide what to show on the screen according to the touch it recieves. Also, the variability is reflected in this project. As there are limitless ways to touch with the glass and so many sceneries that the screen can show, the output of every single touch would be different. The figure showed on the screen contains both the thinking of human and the device. Therefore, I think this project meets with my definition of interaction.

https://www.manamana.net/video/detail?id=2030#!zh

2).

The other project is called the “The Shimmering Pulse”. This device contains hundreds of colorful discs that can show the traffic and the pulse of the city of Shenzhen. Users can pick one from the nine districts to have the city pulse showed by the discs. I think this project doesn’t meet my definition of interaction because it doesn’t show the thinking and variability from both of the objects.

Indeed, the traffic of the city is always changing, thus the discs shows the thinking of the device and it contains lots of changes for sure. But the user’s thinking isn’t showed in the image of discs.  The user can choose one district from nine, but this also means that he/she can only choose from the given nine. The thinking process of the user doesn’t relate to the input, the image of the discs, because the user can’t make correspond changes and reacts to the image he/she sees. In this sense, the user isn’t having a complete “input, process, output” course. With the separation of input and output, whatever the user is thinking, the device can only show one of the nine pre-coded situations with current data.

It is also when reviewing this project that I figured one important part for my definition of interaction. That the output of the interaction should contain the variability that represents the thinking process of all the objects.

https://www.manamana.net/video/detail?id=196189#!zh

Works Cited

Crawford, Chris. The Art of Interactive Design. No Starch Press, 2002.

“Suntory HIBIKI.” Mana, uploaded by MH’Studio, 12 Jan. 2018,    https://www.manamana.net/video/detail?id=2030#!zh.

“The Shimmering Pulse.” Mana, uploaded by panGenerator, 8 Sept. 2020, https://www.manamana.net/video/detail?id=196189#!zh.

Components in the circuits:

1. Power: The Power provides the electricity for the whole circuit to function.

2. Capacitor: Capacitors can store the electricity flowing into them. In these circuits, it is used the stabilize and smooth the flow of electricity.

3. Voltage Regulator: The Voltage Regulator changes and stabilizes the voltage for the circuits. In these circuits, it changes the input to be 5V for other components to function .

4. Resistor: Resistors can resist the flow of electricity to control the flow of current. In there circuits, it is used to prevent the speaker and the LED from having too high current.

5. Variable Resistor: Variable Resistors have the same function as Resistors while they can adjust the amount of resistance. In these circuits, it is used to control the brightness of the LED.

6. Switch: Switches can be used to interrupt the flow of current through a circuit. In these circuits, it is used to turn on/off the speaker and the LED.

7. Speaker and LED: A speaker can make sound and a LED can give out light.

8. Breadboard and Wire: They are the essential parts for the electricity to flow through the circuits and connect all other components.

Building the circuits:

In the process of building the circuits, the biggest problems I met are 1) to understand circuit diagrams provided 2) to figure out what each component is and how to use them properly. To name the items, the voltage regulator and the variable resistor are the ones I don’t know how to use as they have three legs. By asking the LA for help, I understand what does the “ground” on the circuit diagrams means as well as how to use the voltage regulator and the variable resistor. In the next stage of putting everything on the breadboard and finishing the circuits, I didn’t face much trouble to have them done. By comparing the circuits I built and those from my classmates, I found that I’m using a lot more wires than they do. I think this is the part that I may be able to improve by using less wires and make the circuits more clear.

Answers to the Questions:

1.After reading The Art of Interactive Design, in what way do you think that the circuits you built today include interactivity? Please explain your answer.

The author uses “two actors”, “listen”, “think” and “speak” to define interactivity. For the circuit to show these different stages, me pushing the switch button can be seen as “listening”, the flow of current through the circuit is “thinking” and the speaker to make sound or the LED to give out light would then be “speaking”. For the part of two actors, I would think me building the circuit involves more about interactivity than pushing the button. As in the process of building, I really have to observe the components, think about how to do it and finish putting everything together.

2.How can Interaction Design and Physical Computing be used to create Interactive Art?

In the example of “EyeWriter”, the Interaction Design would be to let the graffiti writer to draw with his eyes, and what came out last that the graffiti writer could draw again and has his pieces projected on the wall is the Interactive Art. To let the design become a fine art there needs a lot of physical computing such as the computer program and the DIY hardware. Therefore, combing the Interaction Design and physical computing can the interactive art be produced.