Below you will find three basic Scratch shells that make use of the video/motion control aspects of the web-based portal. Please feel free to interact with, remix, and/or use them as inspirations for your own. Use these to get yourself started right away when you have limited familiarity with Scratch.
/food
To demonstrate a design-based project that underwent pilot-testing and iterative design, let's explore an installation informally named "Free Food that Sounds Good." Ryan Bledsoe, Isaac Bickmore, and I created this installation for Dr. Evan Tobias' course MUE 598: Digital and Participatory Culture at ASU. As a group, we hoped to craft a musical experience that:
1) had low barriers to participation (anyone could engage and feel welcome).
2) allowed for multiple means of participation (playing, eating, discussing, listening, etc.).
3) used music and food to allow for a unique social experience.
Now, let's explore the steps we took:
Though the initial experience was well attended for the particular time and space, we considered it a failure as it did not really meet our goals. Here were some of the problems:
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Participation: People we leery to engage & only a handful considered themselves participants.
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Sounds: The loops were too long and complex for users to identify when/what they were playing.
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Spectacle: Users considered this much more of a spectacle than a social experience.
However, as a way to build buzz, before the contest, we planned an informal experience that allow anyone to serve themselves some finger foods. When users scooped out food, the spoons acted as the ground and triggered random, individual sounds in Ableton. Take a look below:
The original form of the project involved holding an eating contest connected to the musical work Carnival of the Animals. We chose this work to draw from as it was connected to another class project. We planned to use a Makey-Makey to connect metal cake pans of food to the program Ableton live 9. Loops from Carnival of the Animals would be triggered by users holding a canning ring (the ground) and eating the food (like an animal).
Prior to sharing the project, we tested individual functionality of hardware and software. During the planning and initial test, we uncovered what collective intelligence and distributed cognition meant within the context of a group design-based project. Each of use brought to the table different intellectual strengths; one of us was the dreamer, one of us knew the hardware in and out, and one of us was interested in the coding and software end. These were not specialties that we entered into the venture acknowledging, but that were emergent through the course of the project. The group's output was greater than our individual contributions.
Once our mini-tests were completed, we planned the pilot-test. This pilot of the project was set up in the lobby of the music building with the pans on a square table. Below is a video of that pilot-test:
This experience, which we called "Serve Yourself," ended up being the jewel of the entire project. We found that everyone who ate, walked around, and observed really enjoyed the experience. Here were some of the reasons we deemed this a success:
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Lingering: Observers, users, and everyone who walked by seemed to linger in the area, discussing the installations. However, some users lingered a bit too much and crowed out others.
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Playfulness: Users played around a great deal. One user tried to play all the instruments like a drum set. Everyone wanted to figure out what was going on and how to make sounds.
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Openness: Since there was no pressure to "perform" or "compete," users felt free to come in, grab food, chat, play, and leave.
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Pleasureable: Everyone involved mentioned how enjoyable the experience was.
Contest
Free
Based on the success of "Serve Yourself," we scrapped the eating contest and retooled the experience. We took the serving concept and made subtle changes based on issues we found during the pilot. Here are some changes that led to the success of the second iteration of this project:
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Setting: We found a more suitable setting that would hopefully open up the experience to a wider and more diverse set of participants. We set up in front of the busy Memorial Union at a peak time (6:00 PM).
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Arrangement: The pans were arranged in one row on tables that required participants to step up, serve themselves food, and exit in a more orderly way. This encouraged more users to engage.
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Building a Buzz: Based on ideas suggest by Dena (2011), we set out to build a buzz by advertising, opening up choices to possible participants regarding food and sound selections, and personally inviting many "strangers" to partake.
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Background: Building on the work of Turno (2008), we set up a background track (in the form of a Scratch generative sound controller seen here) for its "cloaking function." This, we hoped, would make playing around with the sounds less stressful as users didn't feel singled out in the mix.
Take a look at one portion of the beta test below:
No matter what level of your participation, please include your observations and/or reflections about your experience with the "Free Food that Sounds Great" installation. Consider how this project or the pilot-testing process might look in your classroom.