As indicated in the concept art post, I wanted to make this project into a learning lesson for people to understand the importance of waste sorting. Instead of putting everything into non-recycling and recycling (the definition of which is not even clear to some people), more categories should be allowed to ensure that certain waste can actually be recycled later.
In an ideal world, I should be able to use logical expressions in Max alongside with Makey Makey to showcase how waste sorting done differently can trigger different results. Well I have not figured it out, yet. So I took the easier route and made this project into more of a performance, rather than an interactive educational lesson that can be used by anyone.
Due to lack of supplies, I will add the video clip of me interacting with the Makey Makey board later.
Here is my screen capture of the animation:
I also added an extra animation in the end without linking it to the Makey Makey board. This moment is meant to remind people that as long as every one of us tries one’s best to save the environment, human can still continue to enjoy all the things this beautiful planet has ever brought to us.
I know I could have made the video quality higher by manually setting the scale instead of having Max forcing all the videos to be square. I will probably change that later.
Disclaimer: The videos all have a watermark not because I was not the owner but I because I used an online video editing tool to remove all the sound from the original video clips. I actually don’t have pre-taken pictures or clips that can represent “polluted environment” well, so the one I used here is actually the habitat of a crocodile.
Sound effects and music obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com
Your art piece really conveys to me the importance of proper trash organization and the way you incorporated interactivity into the scene as actually moving the waste helps emphasize this.
A way this may be improved is the correlation between the objects, the videos and the natural impact they have. For example I took that, the water bottle showing the beach is correlated to the amount of plastic in the ocean. But items such as the metal tin did not really relate to the animal in the forest (or at least a way that was obvious to me).
How did you end up doing the logic if an object is put into the wrong bin?
When I saw this I remember being surprised the amount of colorful origami and how they all go together to capture the concept of waste management. Having instant visual and audio feedback on the waste sorting acts as a great learning aid to teach users the right and wrong ways to throw away trash.
It’s also pretty neat that an interactive piece about trash organization is made primarily of recyclable paper.
The large variety of intractable objects is very commendable. It makes the whole thing a lot more effective than say if it was just “paper or plastic.” The craftsmanship of each object is also really well done and has a professional look to them.
Something that I think could be improved on is a more direct connection between your objects and the screen. It makes sense why you chose those videos when you think about it, but at a first glance it is not as clear.
The scene your paper setup makes is colorful and well-crafted, making it very inviting and enjoying to interact with. Even without the video response, the concept of recycling makes the activity very compelling.
I recall that the “wrong answer” breaking noise was repeating even when it wasn’t supposed to.
Did you pick the colors of the bins with any kind of correlation with their intended contents? For example, did you make the compost bin out of greenish paper because it’s meant for organic material?
I was honored when I heard that I provided some inspiration for this project. I’m a fan of the variety of colors that you were able to incorporate in your prop. It really catches the eye, as do the animals in the videos (that’s one big turtle). I have to agree that with you that the videos would be much nicer if they were scaled correctly. I know that there is a Preserve Aspect message that you can use on video-planes in Jitter, although that’s assuming that all your videos are in the same resolution and aspect ratio. Did you ever find a way of checking if the right waste was in the right container?
Solid concept, and I enjoyed all the footage, though it’d be nice if it connected a little bit more. Sorry the logical expressions didn’t work out.