11 February 2008

Discussed in Class:

- focus on pleasant and unpleasant

- Piece controls audience response rather than vice versa.

- autonomous "creatures" (we thought of sheep and hermit crabs, and will probably create stylized creatures of our own - possibly putting shells on the backs of our machines)

- "Happy" when penned together; pen is lifted, they are released into the room and wander blindly, becoming "upset" as they are separated and making the audience/observers/interactors want to help them get back together.

- "Happy" and "upset" are accompanied by pleasant and unpleasant noises respectively.

Q. What materials should be used for creature shapes?

Q. How should the creatures move and should all the creatures move the same way (walking, rolling)?

25 Feburary 2008

After problems on monday creating a drive system for the creatures; I have begun to question the necessity of autonomy of motion for the creatures at all. While our previous idea had pitted robot motion against human motion with humans moving the robots to a 'happy' location and the robots randomly navigating away from it, I now think a more elegant way to accomplish the same end would be to have the robot make and internal, secret, decision about whether it is happy with its environment at certain intervals. This still accomplishes the original idea of the creatures exerting control over the humans, but avoids putting the emphasis on a locomotive system which will be overpowered by a human picking up the creature anyway.. Removing wheels and making the creatures completely dependent on humans for their movement also opens up many more possibilities for how they can look and conceal the pico components in adorable ways.

Right now I am thinking of creatures equipped with light (eyes), resistance (maybe one on each hand so they know when you are holding them), and a sound sensor (ears) with a speaker output so you can hear them cry or purr and know whether they are sad or happy. The criteria that would make the creature happy would change after a certain amount of time (This time must be enough that you can be reasonably expected to go through all possible configurations to find what makes the creature happy, but short enough that once you have found it the criteria will change setting you back in motion).

3/3/08

Here is the Picoblocks program. When all sensors are connected the random value should be set to 8. For 2 sensor configurations the sense blocks should be moved and the random value should be 4. Anyway, right click and save as to check it out.

happytree.pb

I noticed on the project 2 page that use of a pico motor is listed as a requirement. Our project does not include a pico motor because we decided to emphasize the creatures dependence on you to move it. I hope this is not a problem since our project is very much about movement/motion into and away from light and sound and in the way the creatures are handled.