final project process

By using 4 ultrasonic rangefinder  set a different heights on different walls we plan on tracking people preforming different types of dances and varying movements (curtsey of Nezla being president of the salsa club). We currently have the rangefinder connected to a piezo so it creates different sounds based on the distance of the person in relation to the sensor. We want to record the sounds produced and allow the audience to listen to the soundscapes created from different types of dance. How does the sound created after the dance compare to the sound the dance was created to? what patterns will be created? We have two plans for creating this set up:

the first involving connecting each ardunio to the computer which then records the outputs from the range finder (no piezo) and brings them into processing where we will assign tones for each value and record these tones within the computer so there is no ambient noise recorded and processing allows us more flexibility with the type and variety of tone we want to use versus arduino which had very digital default sounding tone.

The back up plan is to create sound proof boxes which house the piezo and the microphone which will be hooked up to the computer and record into a recording program (audacity, garageband etc.) This would present a higher risk of having ambient noise recorded in the background and would record only the default tones of the arduino.

We also plan on video taping each performance to give a visual representation of the sound

Some challenges we have:

communicating with processing (Nisa will be our guru)
making sure the sound proof box is completely sound proof
making sure the dances have enough variety
possible dance types
salsa
arial dancing
modern
hip hop
Chacha
ballet
swing

The dancers will also be confined to a marked off square based on the limit of the range finders

Presentation ideas:
a video interpretation
a video documentation
    set up on 3 separate computers
strictly audio stations labeled
diagraming steps
writing down the steps
train of thought while dancing


other ideas:
monitoring sounds created from foot traffic in different locations
daily routine