The Team
From L to R:
[ Vijaya | Vaibhav Jain | Sanket Bindle ]
KOMBATOR
An installation to demonstrate the swing interaction. It uses a hand-held element sword and when the person hits the targets on the panel in front of him a reaction is generated either on a computer using a corresponding software or a special device.
Process
Objective
To think of a basic interaction of humans and demonstrate it using a device.Also meaning translation of analog input to a digital output.
Exploring various human interactions
Various basic human interactions were explored. This involved brainstorming and discussions. A number of interesting actions such as scooping,shake,push-pull
etc were captured as a result to base our interaction on.
Choosing an interaction
Swing action was chosen after discussions as it was one of the most interesting interactions.
Exploring different 'swings'
Various ways a swing action can be performed were explored. A few users were also asked to perform a swing action and thereby a number of possibilities were captured at this stage.
Fixing Particular Swing Interaction
After various explorations the most common swing interaction was fixed. The reason for fixing one interaction was limited time for demonstrating the first prototype.
Mapping interaction in 3D space
The selected interaction was mapped in a 3-D space. Sketches of different views and exploded view were made. This helps to capture the complete action with co-ordinates in all 3 axes in space where the action takes place.
Creating a physical structure
The interaction had to be demonstrated physically. This involved positioning some points mapped in earlier step in the physical space.
There were two parts of the installation one involving a hand-held element and other was a panel which will capture the swing.
Hand-held element:
Sword was chosen since it was the first thing that people would swing strongly and hence would be easy to use.
Panel:
The purpose of the panel was to capture the swing action and facilitate interaction thereby. The requirement was a 3-D space or points of contact. Some explorations were sketched and a suitable structure was selected. The points had to be large enough to give enough surface area for contact while swinging but at the same time we needed something strong as well. So wooden blocks were used.
Weapon's contact with any area on the four projections on the panel completes the circuit to transmit the analog touch to digital signal on computer interfaced.
Aluminium Foil
Aluminium foil was used to cover up the contact points as it has less resistance,is easily available and facilitates conduction by easy completion of circuit by touching anywhere on the contact points.
Physical computing(The circuit)
Our circuit loop comprises of the leads coming from the point of contacts on the target panel and the sword. PCB derived from the keyboard is used for
interacting with the computer.
The points of contact(leads) were mapped to four combination\keys by soldering to related terminals on the PCB. Thereby, whenever contact was made between sword and panel the corresponding key was invoked and sent as output signal.
Output (Software Interface)
As the circuitory has 4 key combinations, they can be mapped to any software which can take 4 key inputs and which uses swing interaction eg. - Sword fighting game.Currently for demonstration purposes, we have a visual interface having a grid of 4 squares. The 4 keys on the PCB match to 4 squares of the grid on screen. One of those square blinks(changes colour) when the corresponding key is pressed (or one of the circuit combination is closed).Hence, The swing motion gets simulated as direction of blinking of grids.
This installation can be used in much bigger applications to create real experiences using 'swing interaction'
