This week was the week of presentations as well as showcasing our prototypes. As mentioned in the previous blog, our aim is to find a way to properly construct the molecules within the tree. Vanessa re tried the glue and yarn method again at home. This time it was successful after popping the balloon! The tricks included adding more glue and less water water, using a thinner yarn and leaving the balloon the dry overnight. This would have allowed it to harden and take the shape of the balloon. The next step was creating a larger version of this. Therefore, we needed to get perfectly round balloons as well as they need to expand to at least 13 inches wide. Ken was able to find these special type of balloons and purchased them for us. Once we obtained all the materials such as the pipes, the joint and the balloon. The process of constructing the prototype began on Monday. We planned on using our same coding for the modes, except this time, we were going to make sure that everything worked perfectly. Kim was responsible for the bluetooth aspect of the installation and I was responsible for making a test virtual world, that works on the projection max patch. There were quite a bit of difficulties initially with the bluetooth Bee, since it was hard to identify the name of that specific bluetooth. Hundreds of bluetooths began showing on the app, so we had to go back to the HC-05 for the class presentation due to the pairing difficulties. Once all the coding was done and worked perfectly, we began making the large-scale molecule. The segment that we would be focusing on for the presentation is one of the ceiling ones. Once we were finished, Netra took the balloon to his house so it could dry faster and be ready for Wednesday's presentation. However, on Wednesday morning, when Netra bought the balloon, it compressed and hardened due to the cold. Netra and I spent quite some time peeling off the balloon from inside the yarn, since the balloon was too hard to pop. Once we were able to do that, we cut a hole on the weaker sides of the molecule and placed the joint and attached the four pipes. Then, Kimberly, Netra and I, placed the neopixels inside the molecule and left the other arduino materials on the outside. I think our presentation went pretty well, Dan, Suzanne and the professors gave us some helpful tips such as hanging all the molecules, drilling holes into the pipes for light to escape and music tips as well. We will definitely take those tips seriously and embed some of them into our installation.
