Blog 1: - Musical Pi-casso

Musical Pi-Casso

Hello everyone, I am excited to participate and get involved in the build for the project and hopefully finish within the designated time. This is my first time participating in any design challenge and I am pumped to get the things going.

Below is the complete idea of the project and all the plans to go for the build and everything.

As the title goes, the product proposed is to create an interactive environment for people by technical art installation. The product is a wall mount display that controls lighting, sound and displays art images on screen.

Introduction: An abstract on ART

Art can be defined in different words for different individuals. However as far as the intuitive understanding goes, Art can be defined as the expression of human skills by leveraging the creative liberty. More generally this creativity is depicted in physical forms as pictures, dance, music, sculptures etc. Now let us examine various emotions that Art intimates in the viewer:-

• It provides value to the society
• Translates energy and synergy between artist and viewer
• Translates experience across the space
• Installs a variety of emotions

With the modernization of society, Art has also taken a different route towards these aspects. Tech is being used in Art extensively including sound operated lighting systems that give a great experience.

Art installation is another genre of Art that deals with creating a different perception of the space by creating three-dimensional experience for the individual or anyone in presence. With more and more technical approach in the domain and with the advent of sci-fi installations, art has taken a leap by using different genre of music and lighting to give a great user experience. Things that are invoked in an Art installation:-

• Visual effects including slides, images or animation
• Visual lighting emotions
• Music in accordance with the mood and lighting

The intention of this project is to give a tech feel to these installations by making it more interactive and intuitive to the user.

Idea & Outcome

So, the idea of the project is to give user access for interaction with the design. The product proposed will involve: -

1. 1. A wall mount screen to display images of paintings and Art.
2. 2. A camera will be used to capture the images of individual and morph it over painting of your choice
3. 3. User buttons for interaction and control
4. 4. Speakers to produce music depending on the lights
5. 5. LED strip covering the outer of product to give a radiant feel
6. 6. Lights controlled using the Relay board

The overall build and product is discussed in the subsequent topics.

Build Of The Product

Research

The idea is to produce a product which is essentially a wall mount display. I would use the Pi-cam around the Bessel of the screen to capture an image. Following would be the flow of operation: -

1. Peripherals start and LCD displays images stored in the memory.
2. User can use the buttons to control the features.
3. A filter would be chosen out of the options
4. Image of the user would be captured and morphed over the existing filter/ image
5. The chosen image would be then displayed on the wall.
6. Two speakers for musical feel would be provided
7. The relay board would be used to control two LED lights in the room
8. An RGB strip at the back of LCD would be used to give a sort of Zen look ;0.

Most of the research is to be done on compiling the images and music to be used on the product.

Hardware and final cabinet is to be researched to house the whole setup

Software is to be made to capture and morph the images over paintings. Control of music and lights are also to be done. Preferably using python + OpenCV.

System Design

Block diagram

PCB Design ( mostly for buttons or power)

Cabinet design

Software Design

Power supply design ( preferably using a wall mount adapter)

Material Procurement

1. Raspberry pi 3B+
2. Camera
3. LED lights
4. RGB strip
5. Relay control board
6. LCD monitor
7. Complete cabinet for the wall mount setup
8. Miscellaneous electronics
9. PCB for button control. Might as well for the audio amplifier to drive external speakers. (any suggestions are open to drive the speakers 4-8ohms from the audio jack of raspi

)

Final Product & Conclusion

So the final build is supposed to be a wall mount LCD screen with some interactive buttons for the user. The LCD will display paintings as slides. Moreover, the user can 'morph ' their own images from the existing templates and can be placed on the display. There would be RGB LED strips on the back of cabinet to give it a radiant feel.

Also speakers are to be attached within the cabinet on the sides to give a surround feel of audio along with the lighting. I initially plan to operate two LED lights in the room using the relay board which will give the whole room a soothing experience. Note that the placements of speakers is preferably on both sides of the display or at the bottom.

We plan to have a product which is intuitive and interactive to the user such that the transfer of Art in general is felt to everyone in the space. More of like a Zen meditation if we have to call it.

Further Future Add-ons

Though we plan to make the above discussed product initially however once the final build i.e. the cabinet and casing is ready, I plan to make some add-ons such as:-

1. 1. Giving a bluetooth/wifi controlled phone app to change the image or upload new image and control the lighting and music
2. 2. Some reserved buttons are added to incorporate any other features such as controlling the pattern of Lights and/or color.
3. 3. Since Pi comes with an inbuilt codec I also look forward to integrate voice APIs which can be used for music and other things.

Note that these are possible add-ons subject to the availability of time.

Design ChallengesPiCasso Design Challenge