RIX Living Lab

As mentioned earlier, the idea is to make a simple and intuitive sound recording and playback device. This means no tiny LCD screens with fiddly menus to be navigated, just big controls whose function becomes obvious as soon as they’re manipulated.

We want, at a minimum, a device that can record and playback a single sound. Ideally, it should work with several.

The device should be easy to grip without accidentally activating its controls. The dictaphones used previously were good for this, as they have a large and easy to press record button.

A conveniently-sized sweet container, next to a omnidirectional microphone.

It would be good if we had different actions to activate different functions of the device, as this should make it easier for users with limited muscle control to select the function they want – having tiny buttons next to each other is bad.

A secondary method of input was suggested as a ‘pullstring’, inspired by toys which pulling a string activates a noise. A string also naturally invites pulling, which would allow users to discover how to operate the device through playing with it.

As many senses as possible should be utilised in controlling and providing feedback from the device. As the most complex function is likely to be selecting which ‘save slot’ is to be used, the current main idea is to have a rotating section on the device, which ‘clicks’ as it is moved into place. Different textures and bright colours should also be used to indicate the selection for visually-impaired users.

Finally, as the ultimate aim of the device is to allow users to collect sounds and integrate them into circuits of their own design, some sort of connector capable of interfacing with other bits of electronics should be present on the device. We have done some investigation into ‘littleBits‘, which are small boards with snap-together magnetic connectors. The device should play whichever sound is selected when it receives a signal.

A quick design in Solidworks- the right image shows the microphone holes and the ‘click’ mechanism indents.

We chose to use Arduino in the Sensory Objects project as it is a relatively easy to use microcontroller platform which is easily reconfigurable and flexible enough to allow experimentation. We had hoped that our co-researchers would be able to plug in sensors to the Arduino and get a little practical experience of what different sensors are capable of doing and how they differed. But in practice, the Arduinos are quite fiddly to use – even plugging in a few wires could be a major challenge (even for the care workers). For people who do not have a great deal of manual dexterity, the task of putting a tiny plug into a tiny socket is huge, and for some, not possible. We need a much more robust and straightforward method of connection, but as we discussed in the last meeting, there are lots of parameters to consider first.

To try and relate some of the difficulties challenges that we faced, here is a list of the things that emerged when we used Arduino in our sensory workshops for people with learning disabilities:

• Jumper leads and sockets are too small.
• Jumper leads tend to ‘jump’ out of the sockets. This lead to many difficulties in practice, and having to constantly check that the leads were plugged in.
• It is easy to plug the leads into the wrong socket. In addition, the writing (legends) on the sockets is very small and difficult to judge which legend belongs to which socket.
• There are too many sockets. People became confused with the large number of sockets on this general purpose microcontroller.
• The sockets are not colour coded in any way, and despite adding colours to the wires to help determine which sockets they were supposed to go into, this was of limited use.
• Sensors were difficult to understand for almost everyone using them, and it often not clear how two sensors differed apart form some visual differences. For instance, the light sensor and distance (ultrasonic) sensors are easy to confuse, as each could be used to trigger an action by moving an object closer (or over) the sensor.
• Sensor leads have to go into specific sockets on the board, and these are not meaningful to those people using them. Often, plugs are put into the wrong sockets and it can be difficult to notice as the sockets are so small.

In addition to the microcontroller itself, we also had issues with audio. Capturing audio was straightforward enough, but the audio clips then had to be uploaded to a computer, the format changed for the wave shields (the audio devices we added to the Arduinos) and then software created (and uploaded to each microcontroller) to produce the sounds that were requested. Co-researchers could not select and play their own choice of sounds using the Arduino and waveshield – the production of the sounds had to go via the project team. This is time consuming and inflexible.

Hence, we will be exploring alternatives that will provide more robust methods of experimenting with sensors so that co-researchers can attain a greater autonomy with the technology we provide, and try things out for themselves. The first step, as we discussed in the last meeting is to create a ‘sound box’ add-on to the Little Bits experimentation kit. The sound box will be capable of recording a single sound, and playing it back, and simple enough to be used by anyone. But it will also be capable of being connected to existing Simple Bits kit allowing experimentation with sensors.

Mind Map during first meeting

The image above documents the discussion of the Extra Sensory Objects research group. We noted the things we would like to change about working with Micro controllers with Co-Researchers during workshops. We considered how we could scale up the Micro Controller (Arduino) giving easier indication of where things needed to be plugged in.

How could we make the workshop process of collection in the museum, (for example of sounds), more simple and linked directly to how we trigger the sound with the micro controller?

During our Sensory Objects workshops at Speke Hall and in our Interactive Sculpture Workshops in the Art Dept at UoR we really enjoyed using Squishy Circuits to introduce the group to circuits. It was simple, tactile and there was something to enjoy no matter what your capabilties were. But moving on from this to using micro controllers such as Arduino was problematic as the Co-researchers needed so much support they lost control of the work. A similar problem was experienced with collecting sounds from museums to use with triggers in later workshops. We provided good quality recorders to capture sounds but the process of downloading the sounds to be used with micro controllers was complicated and had to be done on a computer so again the Co-researchers had to rely on others to achieve this part of the process. We wished we had simple way to collect sounds like these one press as units pictured below and then be able to connect them directly to the micro-controller.

speaking and recording units

We first discussed making a scaled up version of the micro controller we used in our Liverpool workshops Arduino but because the  arduino gives so many options to control so many thinngs it is very quite complex. One of the group, Andrea Alessandrini, mentioned Little Bits which is an open source library of electronic modules that snap together with magnets, we decided to explore Little Bits. Little Bits is made for children, it is colour coded and used magnets on units to join bits together so was very easy to use. We could control things like light, sound and motors. The Little Bits kit comes with a buzzer that we could control with various sensors. We wished there was a way to put our own sound content into Little Bits.

Trying little bits

Kassie and Craig try littlebits

Trying little bits 5

Faustina and Nic explore little bits