HAIR PROJECT / itp / fall'06 / carolinapino

weekly status journal and production schedule

week 6 - please refer to the project main page to see concept and ideas, since this journal intends to be refered to the technical aspect of the object.

So, is still not decided, but already ordered QT301 sensors, or Qprox Capacitive Touch Sensor, which senses a person touching an object. These sensors take advantage of the fact that objects and people always carry an electric charge, and that every object or person has a slightly different charge. When two objects or people touch, they exchange electric charge, so that they end up with an equal charge. Charge-transfer sensors detect that charge as we touch an object to which they're attached. A conductor is attached to the object or embedded in it, and when a person comes close to the sensor, charge is transferred, and the sensor reads it. These sensors work best as touch sensors, with the conductor embedded just below the surface of the object -- for example, with the sensor underneath a cloth covering, cardboard covering, etc. The closer you can put the conductor to the chip that reads it, the better >>read more here

-Still, it may be a good idea to use an accelerometer to control the pitch of the sound. >>see model at sparfunk here.

-My brother said I could hack the idea of the accelerometer (mechanically speaking and coil a wire from less to more in a long stick, kind of, to have it as the controller underneath the hair.

The idea would be to build a grid with 12 or 10 of these sensors to cover a reasonable range of the area to be touched.

The grid would be underneath the hair that I plan to interact with.

accomplishments

decitions...

-2 main actions are meant to be done with the hair: smooth touch and pulling.

-in regards to the plan to follow to build this, I think this code can be enough to make the analog out risponse to happen, to route the analog sensor data, I was thinking to use a multiplexer , a digitally controlled analog switch.

-after a couple of days of having problems to run arduino, finally a my operating system was re-installed, blah....and finally compiling!

issues/problems

-deciding also what kind of sound i'd like the come out. a good thing is that i had simplyfied the whole thing a lot and finally i'm getting where i want to. In one hand, I think I'm going to start with the opera for then messing it by changing the tempo and turning it into electric signs(i don't know how this is call); from analog to digital?--- from colors and temperature to black and white...(?)///(working on the sample.

Q- 1.- can this last point be made in max msp?

I had talked to Tom Igoe and gave me 2 wise advices:

1- try not to be controlling and on stage at the same time if your main purpose is the performance aspect.

2- try to rehearse without tech first, in order to have (hopefully written down) the momentums or main actions on time where things happen.

-so, i'm working in point nb 2, so far.

plan next week