We thank everyone who have been involved in the course, visiting lecturers, the friendly and helpful people over at 3:e våningen, exhibition visitors, and of course the devoted students for making it happen.
Looking forward to do this soon again.
Color Caller is an attempt to introduce colors to the blind individuals and the visually impaired. The portable prototype serves two purposes: firstly, allowing users to identify colors by the means of a color sensor and sound. Secondly, augmenting the knowledge base of the users about colors by making use of olfactory sense. Each color is associated with an odor that subjectively describes it. The purpose of these odors is to enrich the user’s experience by providing an alternative way to sense colors. The ultimate aim of this project is to allow the blind to appreciate/understand colors even in a way that totally different from how sighted people appreciate/understand them.
1- Ideation phase:
The project’s concept started with the idea of helping blind people identify colors. Initially this seemed to be a challenging project. Through several brainstorming sessions, the idea has developed into a well rounded concept. The main discussions that took place during this phase were:
The final decision was to use audio as the primary output and use olfactory sense as an alternative to sight. The discussion extended to which odors represent which colors and this led to the second phase.
2-Iterations and user testing:
The main purpose of this phase was to assign odors to colors, the aim was to translate colors into smells that best describe these colors. A relationship table of potential color-to-odors was compiled by the members of the group and then tested to create the best color-odor match. Afterward, there was a need to test the first prototype with the target user group. The group contacted a special school for blind students, but unfortunately with no answer from their side. As an alternative, the test was performed on sighted people providing them with odors and asking them to pick a color that best matched each odor. The testing process was repeated several times, until the results showed a general agreement on best color-odor pairs.
Another set of iterations were performed to test the physical prototype and practical implementation of the concept. Physical requirements were discussed and accordingly decisions were taken about which electronic parts to be used to best serve the purpose, specifically type of color sensor and motor to be used.
3- implementation:
connections and breadboard layout
First prototype for user testing
Second prototype iteration
final prototype - electronics
final prototype - motor
final prototype - image 1
final prototype - image 2
Working on this project was challenging yet very interesting, The final prototype fulfilled its task, and the concept itself raised the awareness to many possible approaches to deal with colors and blind users in a creative and intuitive way.
The exhibition was a good opportunity to get feed back from people from different walks of life. Generally the concept was appealing and thought of as daring and original. The discussions and suggestions were very interesting.
Ideas for further developing this concept in the future can be concluded in making better ways of dispersing the odors, including more color ranges, make better use of sound to provoke feelings.
Creating the womb
The Frame and Subwoofer
The womb is holding by the frame. In order to create the feeling of swing, the fish net was build to hold the frame. The net is holding by a list of hooks which were fixed around the frame.
Under the net, a subwoofer is placed for creating the vibration which distort by the program. Several sponge mats are used for holding the position of the subwoofer. To make sure the subwoofer could contact with the user space and the user won’t feel uncomfortable with it.
Color Scheme
the color scheme of the project is based on the picture of the baby in the womb which you can see the details below.
The Electronics
The Womb has nine vibrators embedded in the bottom mattress. These nine vibrators are located in a grid under the top part of the mattress; three rows with three vibrators each. The first row is located under the pillow, the next under the shoulders of the user and the last under the hip area of the user.The vibrators are serial-connected three by three and powered by an external 9V power supply. They are also connected to a transistor that is connected to one of the digital pins on the arduino board. The pin will control the amount of current going through the vibrators.
There are also nine red LEDs in the roof part of the womb. The LEDs are located just as the vibrators in a three by three grid, but in the lower part of the womb instead of the upper. The LEDs are located underneath a sheet of fabric. They are serial-connected three by three and powered by the 5V outlet on the Arduino board. They are then connected to a digital pin that will control the blinking of them.
Both vibrators and LEDs will pulse on and off in the rhythm of a heartbeat, to simulate the heartbeat of the mother.
The Soft Space
When the vibrators were embedded in the mattress, with the cables on the bottom, it was covered in dark red fabric. The mattress cover was first put on and the red fabric was then sewn on to the cover. A pillow was put in place beneath the mattress cover at the top of the mattress.
The two short sides of the womb were cut out in the shape of half circles. They were then sewn into the dark red fabric.
When the LEDs had been put into place in the top of the womb, with the wires on the outside it was also covered in the dark red fabric. On the side with the LEDs, the bottom part that would be the inside of the roof of the womb the fabric was taped to the mattress, to not hang down in the face of the user. The fabric was then sewn together on all sides.
A metal wire in the shape of a half-circle was sewn into the bottom end of the roof, to help it keep the half-cylinder shape. When these parts were created they were sewn together. First the “headboard” of the womb was sewn onto the mattress. Then the roof was sewn onto one of the long sides of the mattress. It was then sewn onto the half-circle shape of the “headboard”. Lastly the roof was sewn onto the other long side of the mattress. The long sides were sewn with two seams, to help keep the shape of the womb.
The last part of creating the soft space was to sew on the opening hatch at the bottom part of the womb. The hatch was sewn onto the bottom part of the mattress, and then it was fastened to the half-circle with a zipper, so that the opening can be opened and closed.
The Sound Distortion
For building an environment which can mimic the acoustical effects in a womb, some basic
research has been made during the development of our project. In order to try to discover the sound effect being received by the fetus, researchers inserted nano microphones into ewe’s womb and the inner ear of fetus. The result shows that the inner ear recordings were inaudible. That is because the high frequency part of sound was distorted when it crossed the matrix.
In order to make distortion to the ambient sound, digital signal processing has to be carried out. In consideration of the limitation on development and costs, we decided to adopt software DSP which would be running on a computer during the try-out and exhibition. Sound waves are caught by a microphone and transmitted to the laptop. A DSP software is running on the computer and distorting the input sound, lowering the pitch of the input, then the result wave is outputted by a sub-woofer fixed under the frame.
Fmod sound library was used in the implementation of the software DSP. Fmod can be a
open source library as used for noncommercial purposes. The playback channel in the Fmod is independent to the recording channel. However, there must be a short delay between the recording and playback because of digital processing of waves. We defined two channels for playing in the software, one is the ambient sound and the other is a soundclip of stream, in order to manufacture the fluid sound effect in bodies. For each channel, a signal processor was connected to reduce the frequency.
Discussion and Evaluation
Discussion
The discussion has been carried out since our presentation and first try-out in our class, and three points were mentioned. The first issue is about the ambient sound isolation. Since the womb acoustic is disorted ambient sound, a delay must exist because of digital processing. Thus, the user laying inside could hear the disorted sound as well as the ambient sound, which led to a ridiculous feeling. However, limited by the cost, we cannot find a perfect foam material for sound isolation. Therefore, prolong the microphone cable could be a compromising solution. Second, flashing LEDs inside the womb were not concerned so useful as designed. The original idea of embeding LEDs inside was to mimic the illumination of matrix, but the implementation cannot realize the expected illuminating effect. Finally, users enrolled in the test donated strong curiosities on the entering and exiting manners. They considered that the feet-out way of exiting could be changed to a more matching style to the real childbirth.
Future work
The design could be better if the led lights are bigger and the sound distortion without delay. But due to the limitation of the budget and the hardware. But the microphone wire was extent as long as we can, to collect the sound from another place, so the user won’t be able to notice the distort sound is delayed.
Baby In The Womb, What Do You Hear?
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/2-28-2004-51063.asp
Röda Sten area, close to Banehagsgatan, into the yard there of that great red brick building, and you will find signs.
I have now updated the projects page on the course website, make sure to check this info as we will be using it for the exhibition signs as well. We are missing info from Origin and Plug’n'Sense (is that name still valid?). Official photos will be taken next Tuesday and the exhibition website should be available by Wednesday January 12. http://www.ixdcth.se/augmentedbodies11
Give a thought or two on how you want to display your work, we should find flat surfaces at 3:e våningen, but everything else we might want we should bring along. We plan to move the projects on Friday January 14 after lunch, if you want access also on Thursday it’s possible.
Hope you all have a nice vacation! Looking forward to the exhibition!
