Final Exhibition and Presentation: Thesis II Final and Reflection 4/22, 5/6

Progress photos:

Testing CV tracking the colors of the assets

Fabricating the table

Reflection:

In our final crit, I was able to finish the fabrication for both physical assets and the table by the time of the presentation. The technology is currently not working because I haven’t get a chance to get to the camera installation part. Mainly due to the tight scheduling from major major, I was only able to install and test after they clean up for the show.

Overall it was the first time I was able to see the look and feel of my project. I like how the aesthetic part turned out after many iterations. Even though the sensing part is not completed by the time of presentation. Audiences were still able to play with the interface in progress. I received positive feedback from the crits.

 

In the upcoming weeks, there are few more tasks need to be done. The projector was overheating because of the way that I left it facing up. After asking around MFA peers and other design students from other school, I realized that it is meant to be laid flat parallel to the plane. I had to come up with a new installing method to address this over heating issue, see final installation for solution.

After building out the product in progress. I realized there is a lack of explanation for the project based on user feedback. I used illustrator to lay out the text where it contains explanation of users tasks and each power plants information. I created graphs to visualize the pollutants level for each power plants. These data are being extracted from environmental research paper. They are being visualized in the interface visual. The goal for this design decision is to argument people’s perception on visualizing how is each power plant effecting our environment. After users interact with the tool, the box on the right hand size encourage users to leave their thoughts on the post it.

 

The commentary completes my overall concept of engaging public with environmental challenge. The commentary box serve as an analog sharing platform next to the exhibition piece, that allows users to share their thoughts after interacting with this playful interactive interface about environmental challenge.

In order for the exhibition to look more polish, I printed the instruction on vinyl sticker. I have seen other exhibition uses similar technique to show their project explanation. During the process, I placed all text on a translucent transfer sheet. Then transfer the text onto the wall and removed all negative spaces to have only the text remained.

 

Design diagram of the table: since the table is custom made for this special installation, I went through various iterations in order to make it compatible for the tracking. I first build the table then realized that I need to change the projector installment. It means I need to design additional parts to accommodate new tech install method.

For the solution of the projector, instead of directly projecting up, I need to lay the projector flat and reflect the projection onto a mirror at 45 degree angles. There were a long process of debugging between the process of figuring out the design diagram and getting the tech to work. In addition to constant reaching out to resources besides the course professors for technical challenges.

The technology is working with my own laptop. However when I tried to run the program on Mac mini with openframework, I was facing a few problema. The older version of iOS does not support the newest open framework version that I was using on my laptop. In addition to that the Mac mini wasn’t able to support openCV with external camera. So for the thesis demo I was able to demonstrate the function tech on my own laptop, and only showing a video to mock the effect during the showcase

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