randomclapping applause happens in venice

Concept: A wave of lights tells you if a vaporetto is approaching the stop at the end of a long alley. Keep up with the crest of the wave and you will be in time to catch the boat. As you walk or run in the alley, your steps trigger a musical voice inside the vaporetto stop, so those already waiting hear an ever more complex composition generated by people hurrying to catch the boat.

This is the storyboard of our project.

Prototype: We bought a MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) board for the basement. This is the only cheap material that doesn’t flex with a board of 1,00×0,8 meters and only 16mm (millimeters) in thickness.
We have to drill the metal board with hand tool, in order to be more fast and accurate. Then we use a metal guide and glue the metal parts with superglue for metal.

wav - interaction in venice

Music programming: The sound part is done in Max, and we built two trigger using a keyboard. Check the [code] and [how to hack a keyboard].

We put two metal-paper stripes for each trigger and we make two action figures that in the lower part are conductive. So when you pass trough the stripes you activate the trigger.

wav - interaction in venice

graphic programming: We done the programming of the matrix of led in Wiring, that is Processing for manage the wiring board. The matrix, 16×8 led, is built with two 8×8 matrix managed each one with a Maxim chip. So there are two maxim chips inline that receive instructions by the Wiring board. Check the [code] and the [documentation].

wav - graphic progrmming

This video explain what we did in the prototyping stage.