Shout-outs to David Rios, Addison and Yony for helping!
Unofficial final presentation of our audio project during our ICM class, we invited classmates to try our "sound installation” piece.
For this project, we pursued something that was more hands-on and closer to a physical computing class project. Viewers are invited to squish the colorful silicon objects, which will play a sound on the connected laptop.
The components of this project include: 8 unique shapes made of silicon, with 8 force sensitive sensors attached, each wire wrapped to connect to a longer wire in order to connect to the breadboard, a borrowed and overdue Arduino nano, and a laptop running the P5 code that will play the sounds (also one red LED light for my sanity, which you can see next to the Nano in the video below).
Brief video of our project being tested in class (side effects may include getting minorly shocked)
Brief video of our project being tested in class (side effects may include getting minorly shocked)
We had a lot of help from Addison, who taught Effy, who in turn taught me the secrets of mixing silicon.
Effy mixing the silicon
For our silicon shapes we used silicon graded 00-30 on the Shore hardness scale, which gave the bounce we wanted when pressed down on lightly.
Image from AeroMarine
To make the silicon mix, it comes in two bottles labelled Part A and Part B. The ratio for the mix is 50:50. For our small circle shape, we used about 12 grams each, for a total of 24 grams.
Taring the scale before we begin
Pouring Part A into cup
Loosening up Part B
Pouring Part B into cup
To dye the silicon to the desired color, only a little bit of dye is necessary. Mix well!
Effy had sorted out all the colors first in Illustrator. For the color palette of this project, we went with less saturated, pastel colors.
Adding a little bit of white dye to brighten the yellow color
Loosening the yellow dye
Stirring it all together
After the mixing is complete, place it into the vacuum chamber, adjust the valves, and watch carefully for the silicon mix to start bubbling. Once the bubbles subside, then it’s ready to be poured.
Placing it into the vacuum chamber
The left valve is open; the right valve is close (?)
The mix bubbling
Watching the bubbles subside