February 19, 2012, Interactive Arts & Technology: Interaction Design (IAT 222) -based on an idea to reshape a drum and program it to give you different sounds. Arduino concept.

1. Drum Morphium
Tech Lab
Proposal
Tink Newman
Minsheng Zhang
Jill Chan
Jon Bantados
Yu-Chuan Felix Lai
muihprom murd

2. Citations
Production timeline
Budget -Equipment List
Detailed technical specifications
Model of interaction
Physical installation
Technical Digram
About the artwork
Why it is suitable
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Context
Design team
what’s inside...
Ideas
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3 4
5 10 12 13 14 17 18 19
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3. Biographies
Contact Us
Undergraduate students at Simon Fraser University
in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology.
J
on Bantados
jcb6@sfu.ca
Bantados takes a keen interest on anything that goes”snap”, “crackle” and
“boom”. Needless to say, he is an aspiring sound designer that loves to
express his creativity through new technology.
T
ink Newman
tink.newman@gmail.com
Newman enjoys creating artistic solutions to everyday technical and industrial
problems. She records details in an idea log for later development. She also enjoys
brainstorming, inventing, sketching and the management aspects of design.
J
ill Chan
jnc1@sfu.ca
Chan is passionate about project management, ensuring that everyone enjoys what
they do while getting the job done. She expresses her creativity mainly through
sketching, writing, and graphic design. She loves to plan to make things happen.
F
elix Lai
designfelai@gmail.com
Lai is pursuing design, who has a strong interest in Industrial
design and interacion design. Visualizing ideas through sketchingis
his favorite way of generating concepts and communicating with others.
M
insheng Zhang
mza22@sfu.ca
Zhang has a great passion in interface design. In her design,
she is not only focus on the aesthetics factor, but also takes care about the usability
factor. She believes that design is a tool to make our lives more cozy and beautiful.
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4. about the artwork...
name and detailed description
Drum Morphium is a concept of
a mold-able instrument that allows users to
create interesting shapes and sounds. It
would allow the user to choose from any
drum or other sound of their desire and
manipulate a world of cultural and unique
sounds.
There will be visualizers that
graphically illustrate the sound before the
user’s eyes as they morph the shape of the
drum, interact with and play their rhythms.
The more one ‘color labeled’ drum is played,
the more of that color would be added to
the visualizer.
Changing the shape and playing on
different parts of the drum would change
the pitch and tone of the selected sound.
The user could also connect their own mp3
player music to the system and play the
drum along with their favourite sound or
choose from some provided options. The
speakers in the room would provide
surround sound or the user would have
noise cancelling headphones.
The title of the
art installation
“
This exhibit would give the user an
immersive experience full of colorful lights,
a glowing drum stand and music, almost as
if they were putting on their own concert.
,”
is derived from the interactive aspect of the
piece, the drum itself, its
unique ability to change shape
and a scientific prefix , -ium, meaning ‘complicated’.
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5. Why it is suitable
in the
Since the TechLab of the Surrey Art Gallery is
primarily a small gallery for the presentation of
digital artworks our project would be spatially
suitable for this space. The amount of floor space
that the interactive installation would take up would
be only 2’ X 2’ horizontally.
This installation would be suitable for the Techlab’s
three month term application because it would be
just as functional at the beginning as it would at the
end due to the instantaneous nature of the work.
The physical aspect of the work would be the drum
interface and the digital component would be the
computer processing and output visualization. In
addition to users interacting with the installation
directly, the gallery could also host advanced drum
performers.
The exhibit concept as a whole represents the goals
of Surrey such as multiculturalism, creativity,
family-friendly playfulness and technological
advancements that will inspire future generations.
?

6. Ideas
Glow in the dark paint
Silicone
$103.96
Brown Sugar
FSR Sensors
30 sensors per drum (3 drums)
(7.16 x 90) = $644.40
Jumper wires
pack of 100
$34.95
Arduino Breadboard
Mini adhesive breadboard
$3.95
behind the artwork
philosophical/conceptual goals
This is an art installation would rely on
transforming data collected from force sensors
(user’s interaction with the drum) into visual
images, LED light visualizations and rhythmic
music output. The visualization displayed on
screen alters and changes differently according
to the speed, how the drum is shaped, which
drum “color” is being played, the drumming
pattern and amount of force on the drum
created by the users hands and fingers. For
example, the visualizer screen becomes more
blue as the ‘owner’ of the blue drum plays their
sound harder or faster.
Arduino Bluetooth Board
$149.95
Battery Pack
15 inches
materials
PVC sheets
1x 3 ft sheet (48x48) = 173.56
1x 2ft sheet (24x48) = 86.76
1x 1ft sheet (12x48) = 43.39
tallest drum
medium drum
shortest drum
42 inches
48 inches
EL WireControlled
3 x 20 ft Sound
Porta-light 3.2 mm $120
30 inches
Sandbag
The interior drum material is made from a soft
gel, such as silicone gel, surrounded by a water
repellent holding material. There would be a
fabric covering the balloon that would allow the
sensors to be sewn to the contour of the pliable
drum object. The drum head colors would be
glow-in-the-dark blue to match the aqua blue,
glowing E.L wires on the hourglass shaped
stand. The shape of the stand was inspired from
a djimbe and represents the original, ethic
origin of the installation.

7. Context
connection to art history
This work connects to the broader context of art history
due to the progression as drums and rock band style drum
kits. Drums were some of the first
instruments that humans created, along with flutes and
horns.
The basic version of a drum kit was first created in New
Orleans in the 1930s.
Later on in the 1960s, rock drummers began to expand the
drum kit in order to increase speed. Electronic drums were
designed to create sounds that had never been produced
and allowed modern music to develop.
The materials of industrial design have constantly been
improving over the last few decades and flexible and soft
materials exist that have been used for this project. Future
drum kits and new creations are only limited by the
imaginations and creativity of musicians and
manufacturers.
This art installation encompasses many technical and
aesthetic components that would fit in the Surrey TechLab,
that was inspired from many different inspirations and
previous artworks in history.
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8. Context
connection to other artists’ work
Since drums are usually associated with
sound rather than visual senses, we try to
introduce the visual aspect to the
drumming experience and explore the
creative remix between the two. For the
visualizations of the drum, partially
inspired by the visual effects in the movie
Tron and Avatar. We decided that the
glowing flow of lines could best represent
the dynamic rhythm and energy of the
music being created by the users.
The vivid lighting environment of
“Avatar” inspires us this interactive
lighting idea. The colorful spotlights
seem as the highlighting of the drum,
which attract people get into the
interactive space. Once people start to
play the drum, the colorful spotlights
effect transfer to the visualization on
the wall, and allow people to interact
with it by playing the drum.
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9. The way to match the specific sound effects to the different
visual effects of the movie Tron stimulates us to develop the
interactive visualization. This movie also inspires us on
the fancy glowing flow lights of the stand, and the
visualization, which enhanced immersive environment
to involve people into this visual sound world.
The 3 spot light colors of green, blue and purple were chosen to
represent a technology-oriented, ethereal, yet natural environment
inspired from Avatar’s glowing Pandora landscape. and Tron’s
glowing theme The spotlights were designed to attract the
user to the top of the stand where the drum lies.
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10. Context connection to other artists’ work
Plaster, a duo of artists, Gianclaudio H. Moniri (Kaeba) and Giuseppe Carlini (Agan), creates experimental-electronic music.
During their shows, they show deep immersive visualizations in a dark space. They collaborated with visual artist
as well as with other artists like David Terranova, Tzpx (Emanuele Foti), Lasal (Aristides Garcia).
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11. Plaster + Lasal collaboration
Lasal, also known as Aristides Garcia, is a visual artist
that collaborated with Plaster. One of his pieces,
Kristallographie (shown above), is an audioreactive artifact.
Based in the Aristid Lindenmayer formula. He develops this
real-time audio-reactive artifacts giving free rein to his
obsession for synchronicity between the musical object
and the visual one, without intending to create a mere representation of the sound spectrum.
From these pieces, we got inspired to transcend the purely hearing experience
of drum playing, and reach the visual esthetic of the audio, which
provide people both hearing and visual impact and enjoyment.
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12. technical diagram INTERACTION LAYOUT
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13. AUDIO LAYOUT
technical diagramAUDIO LAYOUT
technical diagram
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14. speakers
drum and stand setup
ceiling mounted projector
drum
morphium
computer system
Physical installation
gallery layout
The computer terminal would be on a small desk and the ceiling projector would display on the walls. The drum
itself would be only about the size of a men’s basketball flattened and reshaped. The output of the interaction involves visualizations
that will beprojected directly on the available painted walls, as well as a 10’ wide screen. We could perhaps add additional LCD
monitors available in the TechLab if we need to incorporate more of the room’s wall space or extra seating for exemplary viewing.
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15. hit
knead
squeeze
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16. Detailed technical specifications
Arduino
For this installation we will be using a
processing patch created in both
Isadora and Arduino. The role of the
Arduino program would be to gather
data from the sensors and act as an
antenna, sending signals to Isadora.
We chose to use this program primarily
because it can communicate with
Isadora wirelessly so that the user
would not be distracted by having
wires and other pieces of hardware
sticking outside of the drum. In
addition, multiple sensors can be
gathered together and controlled by
one board which would allow for the
least possible amount of hardware to
be physically inside the drum.
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17. ISADORA
visualizer
We are going along with Isadora
for this installation because it is a
perforance type program that can
communicate with the Arduino
board in order to project the sound
and visualizations. Predetermined
visual effects are attached to a
“Serial in Watcher” actor that reads
the values that are coming in from
the Arduino board. These values
would then be the values that
dictate the intensity of the various
effects being displayed by the
visualizer as well as the sound
levels of the sounds being played.
Isadora can read multiple channels
so there wouldn’t be a problem
having isadora differentiate the
values being sent by the Force
Sensitive Resistors

18. Optional Visualizer
System /Program
MAX/MSP
Alternatively we can also incorporate
Max MSP to take over the sound aspects
of the installation if need be. However,
we are sticking with Isadora to simplify
our coding so our back end does not
become too chaotic with three
programs trying to communicate with
each other. However, if the need arises,
more research can be done in this area
to compensate for any problems
encountered in Isadora.
Our rationale for choosing Isadora over
Max MSP is that we feel Isadora is more
suited towards our overall vision and
can provide us with a more stable code
that can switch content very quickly as
oppsed to Max MSP.
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19. Budget
Qty:
Equipment
Model:
Amount ($CAD)
Projector
NEC NP115:
1
599.99
Computer
IMac 3.2 Ghz
1
1290.99
Audio
Yorkville sound Excursion1000
950-Watt Complete 3-Piece PA
1
1875.00
Audio
Tourflex 10’ microphone XLR:
1
599.99
Audio
Samsung SBH-600 Bluetooth
Headphones
1
149.99
Software
Arduino Bluetooth Board
3
149.95
Software
Arduino Breadboard: Mini
adhesive breadboard
3
3.95
Software
Force Sensing Resistors
90
644.40
Software
Jumper wires pack (100)
1
34.95
Misc
Glow in the dark paint
1
103.95
Misc
Sound Controlled Porta-light 3.2 mm
20 ft
3
120.00
Misc
PVC Sheets
3
303.71
Program
Isadora 1.2.9
1
Samsung SBH-600 Bluetooth
Headphones
33.01
Total Sum
$5909.88
NEC NP115:
Force Sensing Resistors
Arduino Bluetooth Board
IMac 3.2 Ghz
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20. 2 week
Feb 19
Feb 12
Feb 5
Jan 1
Jan 15
Production Timeline
3 week
Timeline is based on amount of sponsored funding or the designers’ budget. This
proposal is based on (either we have less than our expected budget amount, or we
assume that we will get sponsors for at least half of it).
Open Display
Purchasing equipments / arranging sponsors
Programming/ Creating visualization effects
Testing connection between sensors to software
building the prototype and testing material reactivity
Placing, setting up physical installation
Final tests/ minor midification

21. Booklet Citations:
Live set visuals. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.myspace.com/xlabgallery/photos/albums/album/1251105
Megamorph. (2009). Retrieved from http://iqbit.net/
Moniri, G. & Carlini, G. (2010). Plaster's sound photostream. Retrieved from
http://www.flickr.com/people/plastersound/
Moniri, G, & Carlini, G. (2010). Plaster. Retrieved from
https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=72205618902&v=wall&so=60
Tooze, G. (n.d.). Hd sensei. Retrieved from http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/bluray_reviews51/avatar_blu-ray.htm
Tron legacy speed. (2010, December 12). Retrieved from
http://www.wallpaperhd.org/wallpaper/2535/Tron-Legacy-speed-widescreen.html
Max/Msp Codes. (2008, December). Retrieved fom
http://steim.org/projectblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/patch.jpg
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22. Thank You