“Cattitude”
by Putri Dina and Hannah Kwah

Milestones
Project Proposal  |  28th Mar  |  4th Apr  |  11th Apr  |  12th Apr  |  15th Apr  |  16th Apr  |  17th Apr  |  Final Documentation

Main Aim
Explore human interaction with a cat and how the cat responds to certain strokes on sensitive spots.

About
Have you passed by a cat and walked closer to interact with it? When you decided to stroke the cat, it may or may not show its temperament. Cats have sensitive spots which can trigger their mood. Such emotions include pleasure, happiness, annoyance and anger.

Through this project, our team would like to express the cat’s temperament or ‘attitude’ through sound and graphics to raise awareness about a cat’s sensitive spots when one tries to interact with them.

The Scenario

The projected screen will show a neutral ‘moodscape’ (grey theme) and when a man walks into the area where a dummy cat is placed in the middle (using motion tracking), the ‘moodscape’ changes to white (symbolizing that it is alert of the presence). The cat has a ‘touchable’ fur that makes people want to touch and stroke it.

When the man touches certain spots of the cat, sensors will detect it and produce sounds. At the same time, a projection is displayed in front with coloured graphics played according to the areas stroked. The graphics symbolize the cat’s temper (its state of mind be it angry, happy or calm – what we called ‘Moodscape’).

Input	Processing	Output
Touch Sensor Motion Sensor	Convert values to play sound and video	Play sound and video accordingly

5 Sensors

Cat Spots	Moodscape (Video)	Sound
Neutral	Grey
Human detected	White
Under chin	Yellow	“Purr~” (pleasure)
On head	Yellowish-orange	“Meow~” (happy)
On back	Orange	“Meow!” (annoyed)
Near bottom	Reddish-orange	“Hiss!” (angry)
On stomach	Red	“MEEEOW!” (furious)

 

Visual Aspects
Type of Fur

Moodscape
(insert moodboard here)

Technical Aspects
Main software : MAX
Sensors : I-CubeX – Touch sensors?

From ADM Media Store :
– Pressure Sensors (https://infusionsystems.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/135)
– USB Micro System (https://infusionsystems.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/204)
– Driver Software (https://infusionsystems.com/catalog/info_pages.php/pages_id/2)

Tutorials
– Blob Tracking with cv.jit (https://vimeo.com/10611551)
– Particle System (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRgX7rVgSAE&feature=youtu.be)

Milestone
Below are the rough milestones of the project until the last presentation (in 5 weeks time)

Week 1 (by 22nd Mar)
– Look for tutorials (sensors & motion tracking)

Week 2 (by 28th Mar) 
– Explore with the Sensors (i-CubeX) & Motion Tracking
– Create moodscape
– Compile cat sounds

Week 3 (by 4th Apr)
– Start combining input, processing and output (patches) together in Max
– Buy materials for cat

Week 4 (by 11th Apr)
– Build the cat
– Combine physical cat with technology

Week 5 (by 17th Apr)
– Debug

(By 20th Apr)
– Documentation Video & Process patches

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3-STEP PATCHES

• Default State
  – Get value 1
  – Play neutral video
• Motion Sensor
  – Detect motion
  – Get value 2
  – Play human-detected video

• Touch Sensor
  – Trigger pressure
  – Get value 3 to 7
  – Play coloured videos + sound