Process
Our prototype showcase 3 spheres, each of which represent a flavour of the ice cream flavour being launched.
We started off with 3 possible ideas, all of which revolved around the nostalgia of older games we used to play, like Toss the Ring, Spot the Differences and so on. With the idea of using ice cream in order to connect with everyone, it was something that was very easy to work with and it is also something that is commonly found in carnivals. To narrow it down, we knew we wanted to work on the characteristic our 3rd idea had, explosions because the idea of something dynamic gives us a lot of room to work with both visuals and sound.
Having said so, somewhere along the line, we combined our second and third idea to create a new one, where we present an interactive experience with the 3 flavours Gourmette wants to launch - sour plum, condensed milk and chocolate malt. These ingredients were chosen with the final execution in mind since we want to allow people to touch more than one ingredient, which would result in a mix of visuals and could create something potentially interesting visually. This would be made possible using an Arduino, which would start an immersive display that represents the flavours using their characteristics, created using Touch Designer. To allow for interactivity, we would use buttons to provoke the users' curiosity and encouraging them to explore. This will enable them to challenge themselves by interacting with the displayed objects.
Our Prototype
For our prototype, we wanted to mimic the texture of the ingredients that we’re working with on “sculptures”, made out of styrofoam, to give off a sophisticated feel. These spheres would also hold a button that would allow users to interact with the spheres. Upon pressing the button, the user would be able to see a visual representation of the flavour in front of them.
The 3 spheres, as mentioned before, represented 3 flavours. The chocolate malt texture was created by using fine grain sand, the sour plum texture was created using paper mache, and the condensed milk texture was created with hot glue. These 3 spheres were also painted so that the users can try to guess the flavour while experiencing it.
Making of the Prototype
Due to time constraints, we were unable to connect the two softwares we were working with since reading and converting the data takes a lot of time.
This is why we paid a lot of attention to our button prototype. Using the reference images we collected as our starting point, we started working on the form of the spheres, which would be held on these other styrofoam forms that would look a lot like the ones in our reference image. Texturising the spheres took a bit of time since we used hot glue for condensed milk, sand for malt and paper mache for the sour plum.
Not being able to link the two softwares also meant that we had to focus on our visuals as well. For the visuals, we wanted to focus on the characteristics of the ingredients that we were working with to build on the effect of synesthesia. Using Touch Designer, we tried to create what we thought worked best for our ingredients. Lastly we had to combine the visuals for the other part of our interactive experience, which allows users to mix flavours. We decided to layer them on Premiere Pro because each visual on Touch Designer had so many nodes by itself, and the final combined visual lagged quite a bit and was quite glitchy.
Challenges Faced
Most of the challenges we faced while working on this project dealt with the technical parts of our prototype.
Linking the Arduino data with Touch Designer was one of our biggest challeneges, which eventually played a role in how we did our final presso. We tried methods creating an if-else condition but unfortunately it wasn’t quite easy and we weren’t pro with the software. Referencing online tutorials were too complex and didn’t also exactly work out the way we wanted them to.
This also meant that we had to “fake” the execution and document it in such a way that it looks like it works, since we had everything as individual items but unable to connect them to work as one interactive experience.
