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Going of the water harmonica idea as detailed in my concept art, I completely changed what I did as I started to build it. The idea of having 3 straws being able to control the noise became very difficult as I quickly began to run out of wires and space. Using the single straw idea, I began to just make a single cup design with ambient sound design.
With a cup and context of nature, I chose a beach design as it correlates with the changing water levels. With a caps lock feature (sun & moon) change to enable more than 4 sounds allowing for more conservative space. I used only one straw and used it to change the volume and height of the tides. With only one straw I used all of the given alligator clips.
Going with a beach theme, I chose common sounds you may hear by a beach. Seagulls, Volleyball, kids, bugs, fireworks, wind, and music.
A difficult part was to try to hide or incorporate the wires into the cup design. In the end I could not find a way to produce a beach vibe with all the wires. If you have any ideas please give me feedback.
Another error found was that even though the tides went up as the user sucks on the straw, a charge still holds for a while and the tides stay up for a while even after the user stops drinking.
I wanted to add some animation with the waves, clouds, stars and plants but due to time constraints I kept it static.
The use of the straw in this project is really unique and well executed. It fits well within the theme of your project without feeling like an unnecessary gimmick.
Something that could be improved upon is the abrupt change from day to night and night to day. It could probably be done more smoothly, like going from dawn or dusk first then to day or night.
What gave you the idea to go with the cup design as your controller for your paper project?
Thanks for the feedback!
I wanted to use a cup because the motion of sucking up the liquid allowed for a correlation of “sucking up the tide” and it gave me a vibe of drinking a Piña colada by the beach.
You have good variety in your setting with the day and night scenes and the different sounds for each. The rising water with the drink is particularly creative.
There could be additional images whenever a sound is played, like fireworks in the sky or people on the beach, that could better associate the sounds with the scene.
How did you choose the art style?
Thanks for the feedback!
I chose the art style because I am generally bad at Photoshop and I think almost anything in watercolor looks okay (plus it fit the theme of water).
The use of water to complete a circuit through a straw was very clever. I think if future students could see your project as an example before starting on their own paper nature excursions, there would be much more interesting uses of physical media besides solids like tin foil and graphite. I remember in your presentation that you haven’t done a lot of digital art. This is a good start, and if you didn’t already some references might help capture the feel of a real beach. On that note, why a beach?
Thanks for the feedback!
I chose a beach because it allowed the contrast of a person sucking up liquid from a straw to them sucking in the tide of a beach.
The straw idea is genius – this basically provides a new method of input/control for the board.
I like the day drawing a lot more than the night one – somehow the colors in the night drawing just don’t speak to me a lot. I wasn’t able to associate purple with night at my first glance.
Have you considered painting the paper that sticks on the cup?
Why did you decide to use a cup as the controller for the day/night drawings?
Thanks for the feedback!
I did not think of painting the cup. If there is conductive paint I’d love to try it out.
I wanted to use a cup because the motion of sucking up the liquid allowed for a correlation of “sucking up the tide” and it gave me a vibe of drinking a Piña colada by the beach.
Interesting idea of making a project that’s more audio based. I also enjoyed the concept of switching from day to night and having different sounds based on the time of day.