Using Light and Sound to Build Connections…
The Archeon is an interactive light and sound sculpture that asks participants to consider how social isolation has impacted their lives and challenges them to “Rebuild True Connections.”
The sculpture brings two participants together and engages them in a vocal call-and-response, guiding them with visual and auditory feedback towards singing notes in harmony. They face each other, hear each others’ voices and vocalize notes together. The sculpture responds to their intentions by opening its heart, targeting a celestial object, and beaming a message of hope into deep space.
Electronics, hardware and software
This post is about the software, hardware and electronics that control the sounds, light animations, harmony detection, flower movement, laser firing, etc... all the entertainment and interactions that allow the sculpture to create the emotional experience of connection between the two participants.
What you see below is the start of what we write down to describe how the software operates in plain English so that we can then begin writing code (C, Python, etc) to make it work.
First is “The Archeon State Model" that describes the system's and sub-system’s states and the events that trigger transitions. It should be very readable and tells the story of what's happening at all times. You can follow the arrows and see how it operates over time.
Next, there's a "Systems Diagram" that describes the major hardware/software systems in the sculpture. These systems will map directly to software and possibly dedicated hardware to make it all work. At the moment, we are thinking of several single boards computers (Raspberry Pi and Arduino) to handle the various tasks.
Both diagrams are just abstractions at this point meant to spur our thinking and help make decisions about the actual hardware that supports the project.
Finally, in this post, here is a link to the software requirements document (PRD). A PRD is a written description of what the software and systems must/should/may do. Using English, we try to write down how the system behaves and what criteria it must meet.