Final Project

Our final project is an exploration of the reactions of interactions between people when they come into contact using bare skin.

The project is a shirt that is made of two materials, vinyl and a gauze-like material, with several sets of LEDs running up the arm and around the shoulder. These LEDs react depending on two sensors, which require skin contact to work. The sensors are located on the hand and on the shoulder of the individual. The idea was to have the suit react to skin contact. We also wanted it to react differently to different kinds of contact between individuals.

The first way that the suit reacts is when the hand is touched by bare skin. Drawing inspiration from people's own reactions to touching skin with their hands, we wanted there to be a quick light up of all the LEDs on the arm all the way up to the neck. The LEDs would beat quickly from that point then slow to a steady beat as the contact is held. The red LEDs around the face would light up as well to simulate the somewhat involuntary act of blushing that can occur when skin contact is made and even more when it is maintained.

The second form of interaction involves a touch sensor on the shoulder. When this touch sensor is pressed once, such as in a friendly pat on the shoulder, the lights on the arm and around the neck light up and pulse a couple of times. This is to simulate the quick rush of excitement the wearer may feel when contact is made, though it's not the same as when the hand is touched, which activates the blushing mechanism. Shortly after contact ceases, the lights will slowly fade down the arm.

The third form is reserved for discomfort. Again, it involves the touch sensor in the shoulder and the LEDs. When the touch sensor is activated repeatedly over the period of three seconds, it starts only the blue LEDs around the face and neck. These LEDs shine the blue light onto the face resulting in the wearer looking uncomfortable in the blue light. This would communicate to the person touching or jostling them that they don't like being bumped so much. The light around the face would fade slowly after the jostling has stopped.

Our process in creating this project involved many prototypes. Initially we built the outer layer, which would, in the final project, be made of vinyl, in both paper then in a rougher brown pleather in order to get the best possible fit. We wanted it to be fitted because we wanted the project to look as wearable and "real" as possible. For our user testing later, we would want the project to be convincing as clothing as to not distract the other participants

with any unfinished parts.

The under-layers went through iterations as well as we tested a variety of different ways to diffuse and reflect the light from the LEDs. We tried such things as reflective sequins, sewing the LEDs sideways and upside down before finally deciding the create a silver layer of translucent fabric over the entire arm which also helped to hide the conductive threading and protect the lines from short-circuiting.

We also worked on several different patterns of lighting up the LEDs during our development of the arm and neck parts.

Material Exploration

This week we've been looking at new materials to use for the various parts of the work. We're very fond of the leather and lace combination, but we also wanted to consider the gender of the piece. If we chose lace for the arm, the piece would look much more feminine than other wise.

Your touch powers my heart. Version 2 (or) Wearing my heart on my sleeve.

Concept: A shirt that responds to its wearer making physical contact with other individuals, representing the emotional charge of contact in a visual way by firing lights rapidly up the arm and across the wearer’s body and face. The lights will pulse in representation of the beating of the wearer’s heart starting out quite fast at the initial contact before slowing to a more reasonable beat. When contact is terminated the light will continue its pulse for a time at a slower speed as the shirt calms down before finally turning itself back off. Additional representation may come in the form of vibration/shivering that will either shake/move the shirt visually or(preferably) transfer part of the feeling to the person being touched.

Materials:
- A shirt that we have already begun to sew.
- The conductive thread used in the sewing.
- A large collection of LED’s (white, red, blue light in white casing or other cool color)
- Possibly a capacitive touch sensor.
- Soft Pressure Sensor
- Small vibration motors or servos.
- Wire Ribs.
-Possibly some fiber-optic strands to spread and diffuse the points of light in some parts of the shirt.
- An Arduino Diecemila, a 9v battery and some wires

Technical Specification:
Analog pins 0 and 1 on the arduino are to connect to touch and pressure sensors sewn into a glove and the shoulder of a shirt.

When a touch is read by the glove sensor LED’s light up in a quick cascade starting from the forearm closest to the point of contact and spreading up the arm, shoulder, collar and chest. The LED’s begin to pulse quickly at this point, reflecting the first emotional charge of the contact before slowing to a more normal pace. After contact is lost the lights will continue to pulse at a lower rate for a time before going out.

The pressure sensors are sewn into the shoulders of the shirt and are meant to read less intentional and less welcome contact. When the shoulder sensors read contact the lights near the shoulder flare briefly before quickly going out. These contacts are counted by the arduino and if enough hits are recorded in a short time the flare of lights crosses the full shoulders more insistently, blinking and staying on for a longer time. In addition to the light, small vibration motors can be set into the shoulder near the pressure sensor, delivering a vibration warning back to the person making contact with the wearer.

Space Requirement: Nothing of note. A body small enough to wear the shirt and glove and enough control of light to be able to see the shirt in a dim to dark environment.

Timeline - Weekly Plan
Monday Nov. 29: Handing in project plan
Sunday Dec. 5: Lighting re-sewn and reprogrammed, initial prototype of form (neck piece), Fiberoptic prototyping, Research done for paper
Wednesday Dec. 8: Rough draft of Research Paper


Research Questions:
- Body contact and gestures, and what they mean - what kinds of emotions do certain body contact gestures pertain to?
- Boundaries between comfortable vs. uncomfortable

Conceptual Research:
(Paper: Touch Communicates Distinct Emotions - Matthew J. Hertenstein and Dacher Keltner) http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~keltner/publications/hertenstein.2006.pdf
- “Twelve emotion words were displayed serially to the encoder on sheets of paper in a randomized order. The encoder was instructed to think about how he or she wanted to communicate each emotion and then to make contact with the decoder’s bare arm from the elbow to the end of the hand to signal each emotion, using any form of touch he or she deemed appropriate.” The decoder was asked to match from a list of 13 possible emotions to the gestures. The study shows that (top 3 common gestures in order):

• Hitting, Squeezing, Trembling = Anger
• Trembling, Squeezing, Shaking = Fear
• Swinging, Shaking, Lifting = Happiness
• Stroking, Squeezing, Lifting = Sadness
• Pushing, Lifting, Tapping = Disgust
• Squeezing, Lifting, Shaking = Surprise
• Shaking, Tapping, Pushing = Embarrassment
• Pulling, Lifting, Stroking = Envy
• Shaking, Lifting, Squeezing = Pride
• Stroking, Finger Interlocking, Rubbing = Love
• Shaking, Lifting, Squeezing = Gratitude
• Patting, Stroking, Rubbing = Sympathy

(Paper: Meanings of Intimacy in Cross and Same-Sex Friendships - by Michael Monsour)
http://spr.sagepub.com/content/9/2/277.full.pdf+html
- Lower proportions of males and higher proportions of females in same-sex friendships mentioned physical contact as a meaning of intimacy
- Intimacy to those in same-sex friendships mean when they see each other, they greet each other with a handshake, hug, or occasionally a kiss on the cheek
- Touch is considered as intimacy across all friendship groups, but more so for females
- It is suggested that females in cross-sex friendships equate physical contact with intimacy although their friend is not a romantic partner, they are still a member of the opposite sex. Males may not equate physical touch to intimacy because the contact is not sexual in nature.


Scenario
- Setting: At night, going to a party and meeting a new acquaintance.
- Interactions:

• Being jostled on the skytrain (crowded)
• Holding hands with someone

On the skytrain, Carol is standing because there are no seats. She is going to a party where she’ll meet a few of her friends. It’s reasonably roomy on the skytrain until she gets to Broadway Station. At this point, the skytrain becomes overcrowded, people jostling Carol and invading her personal space. The sensors in her shoulders and back are repeatedly bumped and cause the lights around her neck and face to turn blue, signaling her discomfort.

Carol exits the skytrain at Granville Street Station. The lights around her neck do not deactivate for a up to 30 seconds after she has left the stressful situation.
She walks towards the party and upon arriving, is greeted by her friend to introduces her to other friends. Due to Carol’s friendly contact with her friend Jillian, her suit lights up gently with white and pink around the face. She is comfortable with her friend Jillian. When George is a new acquaintance and and asks her to dance. She is pleased and her suit responds with the lights pulsing gently up her arm when her hand is taken. As long as her hand is held, the lights will sustain and will stay lit up for a fraction of the time longer after her hand is released. Once the lights start to fade, they will slowly fade down her arm from the neck until only her wrist is lit before going out.

Sketch two: With Images

For our sketch two, we wanted to move from a defense suit more towards a sensual form. After some testing, we came up with a more sculptural form based on a set of wireframes under the "skin" of the suit. These wires will eventually be able to move depending on a proximity sensor (most likely).


After completing the wireframe, we sewed in the LEDs that are controlled by our home-made touch sensor and programmed Arduino. The lights were sewn in 4 sets up the left arm. When the user touches skin with their hands, the circuit in their gloved hand would be completed and would turn on the lights in in sequence. The lights will then slowly pulse and spread up the arm.

Sketch two

For sketch two, we moved forwards with our ideas by combining several of them into one that we can push forward for our next project. We took the original idea of the defense suit and moved it towards creating something a little more sensual. We took the idea of communicating through color and light from our hair light idea, similiar to how birds of paradise would communicate, and integrated it into the suit in order to move away from the idea of the suit being defensive to one of it being attractive.

This week consisted of mostly focusing on the light and touch sensor and the possible shape of the suit. The light for the suit was designed to spread from the point of contact with another person, up the arm and towards the heart of the user. For this iteration, we used red lights; but, for further iterations, we may want to look into using white or blue lights.

These images show how the lights were placed in the suit and how we wanted them to be wired in order for the light to spread up the arm.

Sketch Two Ideation Concepts

For this week we spent time developing the ideas we would present in lab. We narrowed it down to three concepts, all of which have the idea of nature worked into a piece of wearable technology.

Hair Lights

The first idea is of a method of communication involving light and and movement. We focused on the concept of using movement and color, like certain animals use them, for communication. Particularly, we wanted to communicate joy. Our piece for this concept is a wig that reacts to the user's movements; that is, it reacts to their speed and quality of movement as well as to their interactions with others while dancing. The hair lights up different colors depending on this data that would be caught from accelerometers attached to points over their body. When the user comes into contact with another person, a touch sensor located on their hand or arm, if activated, will cause their hair to flare a bright warm color.

The actual hair will be made either into a wig with fiber optic extensions or made with embedded LEDs. Another option as well is for actual hair extensions that could clip onto the user's own hair. We also are looking into using El Wire to create different lighting effects.

Furry Shoulder Friend

The next proposal was for a small furry companion for people afraid of the dark. The fuzzy friend would be attached to a scarf-hood piece. The light sensor at the top of the hood would detect when the lights became dim and would cause the furry companion to begin to shiver gently on the wearer's shoulder. In order to comfort the creature, the user would gently pet the companion until it began purring, indicating pleasure and contentment. By doing this, not only will the furry friend be comforted, but the user, reacting to the needs of something else, will also have the feeling of being comforted as well.

The sensors involved in this idea would include a light sensor and a touch sensor. It would also include a mechanism to produce the vibrations of the creature and something to make the purring noise.

Defensive Body Suit

Our third idea was to create a body suit that would react defensively, similar to how an animal would react to a threat. The suit was designed, however, not to look like an animals per se, but instead more sculptural. Taking inspiration from BMW's Gina car, we wanted something sensual and powerful looking. Our suit changes its shape from a standard long sleeve shirt to one that is almost "inflated" looking, using wires controlled by motors under the skin of the suit. The wires on the back would lift to raise the back and shoulders of the wearer while the motors on the arms would compress, forcing the wires there to bend upwards. The rib cage as well would be emphasized through the use of wires, making the

user appear larger. This would all happen in response to two things: A sudden loud noise that becomes unceasing and an invasion of the user's "personal bubble". These two things together would trigger the suit's defense mechanism. If the suit was going off all the time though, the user ma become frustrated so, by making a simple hand motion that touches a sensor on the wrist, the users can restrict the suit.

First Wearable Things

Our First Wearable sensor was designed into a garment that detected the amount of light in the area and effected a set of LEDs embedded into a shirt. When less light is detected in the surroundings by the light sensor located on the person's chest, the blinking lights start blinking more rapidly. This is to simulate the increase in heart rate for a person who may be afraid of the dark.

Sketch 1: Fairy Companion

For our sketch one we have created a small fairy companion to interact with. The fairy is a simple flash animated quicktime file that has been manipulated to move around the user based on their speed and location.

There are three main distinctions in this interactive instillation. In order to give the fairy a believable appearance, we have the program detect where the user is using a centroid tracker. The fairy will move on the side from the user based on the centroid's point in order to give it more believable movement.

The second distinction the fairy makes has to do with speed and motion detection. In order to give the fairy a sense of personality, it is designed to respond to quick movements from the users. If the users move too quickly, the fairy will move further away from the user.










Another base for the interaction is based on the height of the user. If the user is close to adult size, the fairy will be more frightened of their quick movements. Since our initial inspiration was from J. M. Barry's Peter Pan, we wanted to make something that would be designed for children and make the fairy seem like a real creature. If an adult sized person steps into the interactive instillation space and tries to make themselves smaller, the fairy will be more comfortable with them.

The last part of the interaction is a color changing to signal the emotion of the fairy. If the user moves too quickly, not only will the fairy move away quickly, but it will flash red after a certain difference showing that they're annoyed at the user.



My main job for this project was the programming in Max MSP. I used a variety if resources but mainly focused on the cycling 74 website and various tutorials on the actual Max MSP program. I also was responsible for creating many of the images for the presentation.

Sketch One Ideas

These are some of our ideas for Sketch One.

Our first ideas for Sketch One assumed that we would be building our project with the camera and projector above. However, it seems that we will, instead, be projecting on the wall with a camera behind (or in front?) of the user.

These are our 4 newest ideas.

First Plan: Light Fight












Second Plan: Silhouette Screen














Third Plan: Pan's Shadow















Fourth Plan: Light faeries

Ideation Session 01: Projector, Camera... "screen"?

Azmina, Paul and I sat down to come up with ideas. We looked at various things, from what could be detected by the camera, which was to be our "sensing" tool, to the possible emotions that would be created through the experience of our space.

We ended up coming up with four main ideas. the first was dependent on the placement and clustering of people in a space. Using a camera and projector placed on the ceiling, we are able to detect where clusters of people are located on the floor below then, depending on the concentration of people in any given area, project white spotlights of varying light intensity on those areas. At the same time, areas that are left relatively unattended would be given to more subdued colored lights, blues and purples perhaps, to signify their general attitude towards being neglected.

The second idea involved using other objects instead of ourselves or other people. We were thinking of how a room could read a person's emotions or intentions by the way they manipulated the objects in the room. We thought of using other objects, perferably ones with some kind of pleasant tactile sense to them, to control the room's responses. Generally these responses could be dimming the lights or turning on music, depending on where the objects being tracked were.
Imagine the room had a set of bright green pillows. The camera, mounted on the ceiling, would capture wherever the pillows were placed. If the pillows were all located in one area, a projector above would shine nice bright light on that spot, imagining that a person was sitting there reading on the pillows. If one of the pillows was in the northwest corner of the room, the music would turn on at a low volume. If more pillows were added to that corner, the volume would go up on the music. Other uses for the pillows could be imagined.
We considered using other objects as well, like a cup that would be brightly colored and depending on how close it was to t he person in the room, the temperature would change or if you had a book near you, the light on you would be brighter versus when you had a pillow and blanket with you, which would dim the light.

Another idea was to create a space that would provide a friend to the user. We thought of how children reacted in a dark space and what they would need. Most of all, we focused on relieving their anxiety about the dark by creating a "friend" for them to play with. Our friend could take a few different forms and was projected down on the floor by a projector on the ceiling. One was of a blob-like creature that could be pet and interacted with. The user could walk up to it slowly and crouch down to encourage the blob to interact with them. This motion could be detected by two cameras, one on the ceiling detecting where on the floor the user was and one on one of the walls detecting the posture of the user. A soft, carpet-like flooring would encourage this interaction as well by being pleasant to touch. The other friend idea was that of a set of footprints that the user could play tag with and chase around the room as if it were another person. The footprints could change colors from pink to a light blue to signal when it was playing and when it was just walking along with the user.

The last idea is the hardest to implement and involves the use of hanging fiberoptics. Using the idea of predicting motion, we wanted to create a space where the hanging fiberoptics would light up depending on where the user intended to move. A camera could detect this by seeing how a person moves just before making a motion and exaggerating it in the opposite direction. When a person goes to take a step forward, they always move back slightly, giving them a smooth motion. This is what makes people not seem like robots when they're moving. Robots don't have this kind of motion. When the user starts to move, the hanging fiberoptics around them would react and light up in the direction that the user was intending to move. Because the fiberoptics would all be hung at different heights, they would create a dynamic swirl of light around the user.

These are just some of the ideas we developed over the course of our first ideation session. Look forward to next post!

Body Interface - Let's get started!

Welcome to April Pierce's Body Interface blog! Here you'll find cool info on my part in IAT 320 and my view on what Body Interface means.
Keep checking back for updates!

-April