Weeks 13 - The Sophomore Album & Final Act

Here is a list of our six sensors and what each did with the revised mapping in [ ]:

- Copper coin glove + coin circuits: Binary coded to change playlists ---> [Removed the glove]
- Photo cell attached to glove: Swap songs ---> [Paint with Jitter and change playlists according to frequency of painting]
- Right elbow conductive foam + copper tape: Right channel volume ---> ["Scratching"]
- Left elbow conductive foam + copper tape: Left channel volume ---> [Cross-fading between two songs]
- Left armpit conductive foam + copper tape: Playback speed ---> [Frequency modulation effect]
- Right armpit conductive foam + copper tape: Echo (the effect was not giving us the feedback we wanted with our loops, so we disconnected that sensor reading.) ---> [Master Volume]



I changed how I processed the loops and created loop pairs so that there would be a beat loop and a rhythm loop that matched. We also cut off the Copper coin glove sensor because John managed to code an alternate method of playlist changing. By "painting" with the photo cell, the patch takes readings that counts how many times the user painted in ten seconds. Painting 1-2 times would result in playlist 1, 3-4 would trigger playlist 2, and 5-6 times would initiate playlist 3.

It was hard to remember these combinations and in the presentation, the class did not get to see the painted result because we were using two laptops to run the patches and had netsend/netreceive to send the paint data to the painting laptop, and the netsend/netreceive connection got disconnected. Gordon pointed out that it would have been easier for the user to have the coins and change the playlist. Completely agree with that but like I mentioned in the previous post, having those coins on the body was an easy way out and we wanted to try another approach that worked with "beyond arms reach".

If I had to redo this project from ground zero, I would improve the harness design. Each of us had little knowledge of sewing, and didn't know the basics of tailoring something so custom. For a first try it was great, but for a second round I would use different elbow and armpit strap material. After the first presentation, My elbow joints were red and blotchy because of the abrasive material.

Another improvement I would look at is the durability of the foam. Initially, we doubled up on the foam, but found that it was really uncomfortable. So we went with one layer for the rest of the design and never thought about durability until the first presentation when I noticed that our readings were weakening. By the second presentation, the sensors were on their last performance. Like many other groups that used conductive foam, the foam just wore out due to all the bending.

Perhaps I would move away from foam and use accelerometers like the Nintendo Wii controller and we would add a bit more spice to how the GoGoDJ might be used. It would also have been nice to have worked with the RFID tags that we initially wanted to use to change our playlists.

Overall, my experience with GoGoDJ was fantastic. It opened me to DJ culture and music even more, working with cheap sensors that were so sensitive in control was amazing, and being able to revise our idea was a great bonus.