We are proud to present our final working installation, Veritas!

CONCEPT

Veritas is an attempt to reflect humans’ relationship with truth.

Truth exists, but we think that as humans, we can never really fully understand complete truth, as subjectivity would often get in the way. How are we ever sure that a fact is the truth? We never truly know if we view the world in the same way as others.

This installation illustrates an aspect of this phenomenon; it encourages viewers to think of their own relationships with truth.

[FINAL VIDEO]

EXPLANATION   

By default the eight panels would show side A, displaying the word “TRUTH”.

As a viewer steps in within the detected area, the panels would rotate to show side B, displaying the word “OPINION”.

The panels turn relative to where the viewers are, i.e. only when the viewer is in front of a panel would the panel turn to show side B.

As a result, we hope to evoke a curiosity in viewers such that they would try to walk back and forth across the installation to find out what the hidden word is.

The message we hope to get across is that whenever we look at an issue, a “fact” or a “truth”, it is an opinion relative to each individual, and as a result we are unable to see complete “truth” when ourselves are involved.

[FINAL ARTWORK PROCESS VIDEO]

CONSTRUCTION OF FINAL INSTALLATION

Material Choice

Working with our prototypes as references, we acquired materials for the final installation, which included:

  1. Balsa wood
  2. CFoam boards with 2-sided white paper lamination
  3. Clear acrylic
  4. Wires for extension
  5. Various glues
  6. Acrylic Paint and other adhesive materials like tape etc.

First of all, we had a lot of ideas on the presentation. We started with the ideas of reflection, so we explored ideas of using reflective materials like 2-way mirror sheets to use as the background, or reflective materials to construct the words with. We also thought of rastering the words on.

We were also thinking of painting the panels using a solid colour, but decided that the balsa wood looks good on its own, and would make the panels stand out more against the white pillars and rod.

After discussing further, we decided to keep it simple and just use acrylic paint for the words, with no fancy fonts. We feel that we can better deliver our message in a simple, non-convoluted way.

We measured and drew the outline of the words as accurately as possible. (see faint pencil marks)

We then proceeded to paint the words with black acrylic paint.

We also decided to use grey for OPINION to create a sense of difference. We wanted

subtlety and refrained from using colours like red because that would be too flashy.

On hindsight, a lighter shade of grey would have shown a little more contrast.

 

Development and Choice of Words

We also thought that we could perhaps add another layer to the installation, i.e. adding two more words by constructing a triangular prism instead of just using flat panels. This way, we can show three different words.

By doing this, we hope to encourage a higher level of interaction, as we feel that having the panels “disappear” would not be interesting enough. Having to move around to look for the other words would make the audience more invested in the installation and this would also hopefully prompt them to reflect on its meaning more.

We quickly realised that the servo motor we have are only capable of turning a maximum of 180°. If we have 3 panels, we would need the motors to turn a total of 240°, which is not possible. Hence, we decided to have just two sides in total. We were also not very sure how we would justify the choice of the third word in the case of us using all 3 sides.

After deciding to showcase 2 words, we discussed about what word we would like to show as a reflection of the viewers. We thought of using “lies”, “truth” but in another colour or “truth” but reversed/mirrored, among others.

In the end, we thought that the word “opinion” was most fitting, as we feel that in issues or things that people consider truth, these are really their opinions, and are only truth to a certain extent. People might have different ways at looking at what most consider truth. I guess we can say that we are looking at this topic in a somewhat philosophical way.

 

Physical Construction

First of all, we cut and assembled the acrylic boxes intended to hold the motors in place.

After making a few minor changes to the dimensions of the box to make it fit better on the rod and for the motors, we laser cut the boxes and glued them together using acrylic glue.

As the words were painted on, the wire extensions were also done up. Careful labelling was done to ensure that the motors are connected correctly to the Phidgets board.

 

The panels were constructed using a cut triangular prism out of foam for the interior and balsa wood panels glued on to them.

 

 

We also devised a way to connect these panels to the motors in a way that would not damage the motors, since we were to return the motors afterwards.

 

We screwed a small piece of foam on to the motors, and glued the foam onto triangular prisms that are glue gunned to the foam skeletons. This way the motors would be untouched. 🙂

After that, only assembling was left.

We also built a support for the rod and a cover to hide the motor boxes and the wires.

 

Challenges Faced

When we were done with the construction and assembly, we started adjusting the camera and redefining our regions for detection. However, while testing the motors out, we found that one was not working.

After some consultation with LPD, we went to locate the problem. We suspected a few things: the motor is faulty; the wires were not connected properly, the Phidgets’ 7th channel is faulty. After troubleshooting, we found that the motor is working, and the wires are working too by switching the  suspected faulty wires to other channels as well as switching working wires to the suspected faulty channel. The motor only does not work when it is connected to the 7th channel. We got ourselves a new Phidgets board, however, the same problem persists.

This is when it occurred to us to check the patch. Surely enough, we eventually found the problem and fixed it. (We had to add an eighth route).

ERROR:

FIXED:

 

Afterwards, things went rather smoothly, and we just decided to use a curtain to cover the background so as to not let the background of windows to be distracting. It also gives a more finished look to the installation. Since the region detection was a little wonky, we also marked the ground with a recommended route.

 

THINGS TO IMPROVE

The sensitivity of the area detected: it extended further than what we intended to have. So we have to make the users detour about the presentation area without accidentally stepping into the detected area.

This is probably due to the placement of the webcam (height) and inability to zoom into the intended area only.

 

2) We did not expect the motors to be that heavy which actually bent the rod sightly, especially in the middle which made us realise that the support needs to be sturdier for stability. Hence we made some changes to the design and added triangular pieces of 2SPCFoam board to make it more stable.

 

3) We could have extended the USB for the phidgets so the wire extensions do not need to be too long. While we have extended using USB for the logitech camera, we did not think about extending the phidget using USB, resulting in the use of many extension wires.

 

 

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT:

As this is done on a small scale, we envision the installation to have a longer piece of wood to accommodate longer words. The number of panels could also increase such that it can at least fill up the length of one walkway to increase the amount of interaction. Besides words, we can also start to mix visuals with words together to increase the narrative component.

We can also close the gap between panels so words are more easily visible.

We can also develop or work on the patch such that the panels would stay straight no matter how many times people walk across it, as currently the panels would eventually become a little wonky after a while. This is because the panels might not rotate fully when a person walks across it too fast.

 

REFLECTION

Ling Ern:

This is my first kinetic installation in ADM and the process has been very enjoyable. From the start, it was slightly difficult figuring out how to programme the patch on MAX but I quickly realised we can make use of the motion detection knowledge learnt in Vejee for this project. I then started to research and figure out ways to make appropriate changes to suit the nature of the project. After which,  we also started looking at the technical aspect of what types of motors to use and how to program the motors to turn exactly the way we wanted it to. Taking into the account that the motors were borrowed from Prof LP, we have to be extra careful in handling it hence we also spent quite some time thinking of a safe design for the motors as well as the weight of the installation so as to not put pressure on them. This led to a calculated choice of materials as well.  I felt that the overall finished product of the installation looked pretty complete and neat. The balsa wood blended in quite well with the top cover and 2 pillars being light in colour with the words with high contrast, making them stand out more.

Through this project,  I have learnt that having an organised workflow is very important and that progressing according to the set timeline really helped us a lot. I have also explored deeper into the wonders of MAX and how the Phidget is much easier to use together with MAX, than Arduino. The physical component of constructing the installation requires precision at every step, every single piece glued and cut has to be identical. Though the installation may look simple, it fulfils our aim of targeting the general audience, making it easy to understand and interact with.  The overall experience was very fun and I am glad we went ahead with the idea.

 

 

Clarita:

This project has been one of my favourites in ADM. I have finally completed one of my goals of building a “kinetic model” of sorts. Max is really helpful and the construction was very fun. We aimed to have a professional, finished model at the end and I think we have achieved it to some extent. The installation looks completed and clean at the very least. I’ve learnt to be ambitious but calculated at the same time, and learnt to work from the simplest things first and improve on it when we have the time. This way, we are less likely in danger of not completing our installation. I also learnt to work with the materials that we have, as we might not always have access to materials or resources we desire to have. Moreover, I think we also learned to not take simplicity for granted, and this would help us in the delivering our message to our audience in the way we want.

 

 

After our first prototype, we made several changes for our 2nd prototype.

1.We set up the 8 servo motors with proper linkages in the patch as opposed to the 2 trial ones for the first prototype. 

 

  1. Instead of the laptop webcam, we have also set up webcam linkage patch for the Logitech webcam so that we can attach it on top of the panels of the installation.

  1. After much consideration, we have decided to use:

1) Balsa wood sheets for the panels, instead of foam boards.

Rationale: It is significantly lighter than form boards so it would not place stress on the motor and the motor holder hanging at the top of the installation.

Foam Boards:                                                           Balsa Sheets:

        

 

 

 

 

 

2) Using acrylic for the motor holder, instead of cut blue foam.

Rationale: Blue cut foam is rather unstable even if it is properly cut. There is a high chance of breaking (which occurred twice during our first prototype) So, we decided to measure the dimensions of the motor, laser cut and assemble a motor box which holds the motor including an opening to slot the box into the metal rod.

Limitation: The balsa wood panels only come with a maximum width of 10 cm, 2 cm shorter than our ideal length.

After doing the template in Adobe Illustrator, we booked a time slot in the print centre to laser cut the boxes.

We test cut one box, and were good to go.

 

3) Changing the design of the installation:

In our first prototype, our design included 8 flat panels of foam with the word TRUTH eventually spread out throughout the 8 panels.

Upon trigger, the panels would turn 90 degrees and the audience would be left looking at the thin side of the panel when they are in front of it. This would give the illusion of the panels “disappearing”.

However, after much thought, we have changed the design into triangular shaped panels where 2 balsa wood sheets are attached together at an apex.

FOAM:                                                                           TRIANGULAR PANELS:

               

 

Rationale: Instead of the direct approach of turning a single plane 90 degrees to play around with the visibility of the word which may be rather flat, adding another panel with another word could possibly add more interaction to our installation, where people may get curious about the 2nd word and walk around to catch a glimpse of it.

 

[follow up the explanation for the word choice will be in the final post]

 

Hello, we are back with some progress for our prototype.

Originally we wanted to use Arduino to control the motors, and connect them to MAX MSP but in the end we were introduced to Phidgets by Prof LP, and it is a life saver!

At first, we planned to control stepper motors using Arduino, and faced difficulty in controlling the reset, however once we switched over to using servo motors with Phidgets, we could achieve what we wanted more easily.

We adapted the Vejee motion region patch into specific motion regions for detection. We swapped the vejee photos to our sketches for checking purposes to see if it works. We also changed the sound system patch into a motor patch.

The motor moved a little slowly and I realised that it is due to the connection of our acceleration setting.

Due to the nature of our installation, we definitely need an extension for the wires connecting to the motors.

Connecting extension wires to male female wires.

This is how we managed to hang the panels for our prototype 1 with the foam designed as shown above, slotted into the gap of the metal rod.

This is the video for our prototype 1 which works according to the way we want it to. Although the prototype looks very rough in design, we will refine it further when we add a webcam and more motors to the panel. Meanwhile, we will source for other nicer looking materials for our panels, other than the foam board we are using now!

Our next steps would be to adapt the motion region to a top down position and adjust the size accordingly, and to design a cleaner and more proper version of the panels, and boxes holding the motors. We are also going to figure out a non permanent but sturdier way to connect the panels to the motors since we are going to need to return the motors after the project.