Now, our final concept if the idea of human presence in relation to sustainability. It's about the effect on the human presence on resources. Through sound, the longer you stay on a particular plank the more distorted the audio will become. More details of it can be found in our proposal.
Today, we made a start to constructing the frame and putting the structure together. Ben and I are going to be taking care of fabricating it while Jenna takes care of the programming since she's a very good programmer.
For me, I worked out all the angles and ratios we need to know based on an initial idea for the design on paper. This can be found in my journal.
After that we made our way to the 3D labs where Jenna dropped off our wood (pictured above) to see how the design to work out and to make any necessary changes to it according to what we've got to build it.
First we decided on a good height for the floor we're building. Here's Ben marking out the correct height so that we can cut the wood for the frame to size.
Next we arranged the frame into suitable shapes that work with the length and width of the corridor we're using. It took a few tries to get the size right as well as getting it to look aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Personally, I think the zig zag shape gives visual interest and it also shows how availability of resources fluctuate; responding to the choices, therefore presence, of humans.
The final thing we did was decide how to arrange the planks on top of the frame. This was particularly important especially when putting the programming, circuitry, and choice between using types of switches and sensors in to consideration.
The double plank layout shown above is better for stability and makes it easier to cut grooves in to the frame. A point today though is that we might not need to cut in grooves since we will most likely be using piezo mics as vibration sensors. However, stability is still important because we don't want anyone getting hurt. The gaps in between each double would also have to be a little smaller so that nobody would trip up if they miss a double plank. Our group favours the double plant layout over the single plank layout below.
The single plank layout looks neater and can proved more vibration to the piezo mics. However, this gives the problem of whether all planks have their own difference sound or not, if yes the circuitry would be more complicated than necessary and would take more time to cut the grooves in to the main frame. So we opted for the double plank layout since we don't need that many different sounds and also because the single plank layout is weaker than the double plank one. This makes it more dangerous to walk on, as we've discovered, because it does flex quite a bit giving the danger of snapping in half due to weakness. The double plank doesn't have this problem provided that the width is narrow enough to strengthen support.
As shown, it was worthwhile laying everything out to test which way works best.
We've cut the height of the main frame to size today. Tomorrow the aim is to finish the main frame, begin decorating the planks and get going on the circuitry. I'll help with circuitry too if that is needed.
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