The Assignment
For this school assignment, we had four weeks to work together with a partner to create two masks that could impact the sensory experience of the user by picking up different kinds of inputs with sensors connected to Arduino. My partner was responsible for the coding, and I was responsible for making the masks and the physical aspects of Arduino. During this assignment, we used Arduino and Max/MSP.
Process
To develop the idea of the mask, we created various low-fi small prototypes that could be used to alter our senses. These experiments ranged from putting a bag around our heads to placing plastic cups on our eyes. Thanks to this, we decided that our masks would change the user's senses by using light, sound, and air. We achieved this by using small lamps, a Bluetooth speaker connected to Max/MSP, and a CPU fan rebuilt to be activated by an Arduino.
Challenges
Due to health reasons, my partner and I only had 3 weeks to make the masks, making a well-planned schedule crucial. We also wanted the two masks to communicate with each other wirelessly, but our teachers did not know how we could do this using Arduino. This meant we had to research and educate ourselves on this topic. It ended up not being as easy as we thought from the start, requiring us to change our planned schedule drastically to ensure we could finish the project in time.
Result
We ended up finishing the project on time and creating two masks connected wirelessly using Arduino Wi-Fi boards. The orange diver mask experiences the sensory inputs from the red fish mask. If light shines on the fish mask, light is going to shine on the other mask. If water falls on the fish mask, water sounds are going to play in the other, and the fans stop spinning.