Week 8

Individual assignment
Propose a final project masterpiece that integrates the range of units covered, answering:

0) What will it do?
1) Who's done what beforehand?
2) What will you design?
3) What materials and components will be used?
4) Where will come from?
5) How much will they cost?
6) What parts and systems will be made?
7) What processes will be used?
8) What questions need to be answered?
9) How will it be evaluated?
Your project should incorporate:
- 2D and 3D design,
- additive and subtractive fabrication processes,
- electronics design and production,
- embedded microcontroller interfacing and programming,
- system integration and packaging
Where possible, you should make rather than buy the parts of your project.
Projects can be separate or joint, but need to show individual mastery of the skills, and be independently operable.

0) What will it do?
My final project is strictly connected to my thesis. In fact, it is a natural continuation of my research about accessibility and cultural inclusion of blind and people with visual impairments. Through principles of co-design and following the process of design thinking, that is passing through phases of Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test, I ideated in conjuntion with blind persons a way to explore an art-piece in a multisensory way. After a desk research, benchmark, Gap analysis, ethnography, bodystorming, object interviews, personas, workshop of co-design and an expert interview, I developed a prototype that I tested with 5 blind people and 1 person with low vision. The main idea is to reproduce a painting in a bas-relief with some embedded sensors, where one sensor via bluetooth activates the audio introduction to the artwork in the earphones of visitor and simultaneously enables the distribution of fragrances associated to 3D representation. On the surface of reproduction are placed other sensors that once touched have the role to activate the audio narration describing the specific element on which this "tag" was found. This manner to explore a painting contibutes not only to include culturally visually disabled people, but also gives autonomy and a multisensory value to the museum experience.

1) Who's done what beforehand?
In order to further develop this project, I will have to choose a particular painting that permits a narration of different elements placed within and that can embed a scent associated to the overall representation. One of the possible solutions is "Arearea" painted by Paul Gauguin and already used during the phase of prototyping.
I shall figure out a way to build a 3D model of a chosen composition outlining the parts placed in foreground, middle ground and background by raising up the relief, that is the height of an element is directly proportional to the proximity of the latter to the visitor from a prospective point of view. For a blind person, especially a blind from birth, it is extremely hard to understand the concept of perspective. For this reason, the technique described before will be implemented.
It's crucial to find a way how to model a 3d reproduction. Plus another great issue to solve is the output of fragrance and specifically the function of this mechanism. Moreover, the audio output might represent different problems, for instance, how and where to keep the mp3 files. Most likely I will use an embedded microflash.

2) What will you design?
For the moment, my intention is to construct the whole system on my own. I am going to build a 3D model by myself, print and assemble it at FabLab. Also the other parts as the scent output and sound outputs are to design manually, including PCB design and milling. The only part to buy that will be incorporated are the earphones, but their sensor and its packaging are to be modelled as well.

3) What materials and components will be used?

In order to create the bas-relief and having already a 3D model of it, I will need first a mould. The smoothness of material that is led to the pleasure of overall experience and the size of reproduction are very important for the success of my project. The main sense for blind people is such, this is why the material used cannot have the effect of "cheapness", whilst the reproduction size permits to explore certain details closer. For these reasons I have abbandonded idea of 3D printing and would rather cast the artwork. For moulding I'll need polystyrene and cement. For packaging I'll use wood, I will do a research for the fragrance mechanism, but probably there will be a need of some type of fuel, then 4 PCB's and earphones.

4) Where will come from?

Almost all materials are available at our FabLab, expect for earphones.

5) How much will they cost?

- polystyrene 4€
- cement 0€
- release agent 5€
- electronics 50€
- microflash 10€
- earphones 10€

6) What parts and systems will be made?

All parts and systems are going to be made at FabLab as described before

7) What processes will be used?

- 2D and 3D design,
- additive and subtractive fabrication processes,
- electronics design and production,
- embedded microcontroller programming,
- system integration and packaging
-output and input
-molding and casting

8) What questions need to be answered?

Analysing my final project and the current lack of any technical knowledge I would have the need to find info about:
- how to transmit audio mp3 via Arduino to earphones
- how to activate spray containing fragrance
- how to solder everything nicely in a free form

Whereas during the Test phase of my prototype I gathered some data concerning issues to solve such as:
- a need to better specify offering instructions about the functioning of the interaction system
- augment distance between tactile sensors
- improve description adding cromatic dimension and using simple indications like "in upper right corner", for instance

9) How will it be evaluated?

Ideally, I would like to organise at least another test session also during implementation phase, in order to create a project that fully responds to the needs and desires of blind persons. This is a bit complex with the current pandemic situation, so only with time we will see.