My paper nature project is an artificial plant achieved with makey makey — the “Four-Leaf”. Water is needed to “activate” the plant and it will generate sounds from the nature, with different themes for each of the four leaves ( winds , forests, droplets and birds). The animation is in harmony with the sound effects, representing the shape and state of the the leaves. They will shine and shake when there is enough water on the leaf — or actually, between the two nodes. That means this plant will “die” if it runs out of water (especially under strong sunlight ) . To keep it alive and enjoy the vibrant sounds and motions on the screen, you should water this thing like real plants.
For better illustration purposes, I used cotton swabs to accelerate the drying process in the video. A more natural procedure should be actually “watering” the “branches” with small amout of water and waiting for the water vaporized by itself under a light source.
Update: I added a dynamic looping background and bgm to make the whole scene more vivid.
Interesting use of something other than physical contact to activate the MaKey MaKey connections.
I’d suggest doing something with the background; perhaps make it change color depending on how many of the leaves are currently watered similar to what you did with the audio.
Using water as a way to show how the plants come alive is an engaging interactive medium.
I would suggest included a short animation to show the leafs wilting/rejuvenating when water added/removed.
Great use of water. I never would think to use water, but this is such a good use of the conductivity. Nice job flickering the leaves as well. I would suggest changing the background color with how many leaves are alive, I think that would be really awesome!
I felt like the use of water separated your project from others. The effect of the water evaporating over time is unique. More dynamic animations on the screen could bring more life to the plant when it is watered. This could be a reflection of how the plant might feel based on how it’s being treated.
The way the leaves of the four-leaf are colored in makes them look more realistic in a way. I enjoy the sounds you picked for your project as well, as they sound very peaceful. To improve the animation on the screen I would change the color of the background to something different (I feel like it clashes a bit with the color of the animated leaves).
Using water to trigger the event is great! I would suggest changing the color of the background to better address the change of the leaves.
Awesome idea! I like how the art keeps changing even once the user leaves as the water evaporates. It gives the piece a real sense of being alive. It’s also neat how the water smears the coloring of the leaves, making each interaction inherently unique.
I see that you have 2 wires connected to each leaf in order to ground the leaf once it’s wet. This is a really smart idea and could be improved if you put the MakeyMakey on capacitive mode. This way you’d only need the “stem” and not an extra wire.
Using water as your input is a really unique idea! I think maybe creating a holder that goes more with the theme of plants would tie the whole piece together.
The use of water as an input was quite neat. It fits nicely with the theme of leaves and nature.