Jamais Vu

DPA38 - Peripheral Audio

JamaisVu Creating awareness of the loud environments experienced daily.

Name: Lulin Ding s109815 Coach: Saskia Bakker Individual Report

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Contents Introduction; Peripheral Audio Project brief Idea Generation

Chapter 1.1; Concept One Inspiration Design Process Chapter 1.2; Concept Two Inspiration Design Process Chapter 1.3; Concept Three Inspiration Design Process Chapter 1.4; Midterm Self Evaluations

Chapter 2.1; Final Concept Inspirations Design Process Chapter 2.2; Concept Changes Evaluation Chapter 2.3; User Testing Results Chapter 2.4; Conclusion Self Evaluations

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Introduction; Peripheral Audio The intention of the project was to design a system that can interact with the peripheral of our attention. I started to brainstorm first with the definition of key words from the brief to gain an understanding of what was asked.

The words I looked at were first the two main words, peripheral audio.

Peripheral definition – 1. Related to, located in, or constituting an outer boundary or periphery.

2. Perceived or perceiving near the outer edges of the retina: peripheral vision. 1 Audio definition1. An audible acoustic wave frequency. 2 2. Of or relating to humanly audible sound. 3

behaviour. Another area that increasingly interested at this stage was ‘natural instinct’.

Our innate behaviour is the way we are inclined to act towards a particular situation.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is ‘learned behaviour ‘which can become a permanent fixture as a result of experience, i.e. playing sports. 5 Then I began looking into the idea of space and how space affects sound, the behaviour of people in certain spaces, and why people can be comfortable in a space filled with constant white noise.

After doing significant research into different topics that I wanted to explore I came up with a simple system to keep me on track. This also became helpful at the end of the project as the resolved idea happened to fit very well in this chart, helping communicate the original intention... 6 From a wide range of different concepts I came down to three main concepts that I exhibited at the TU/e midterm exhibition.

With this, other words began to branch out.

Human skills/senses, sound, noise, the environment, personal, public… As the list of words grew, questions began to form.

What is the role of technology in our lives?

What does educating through sound mean?

What is relevant information?

To answer these questions I began to look into the peripheral nervous system, and as I began to make sense of it all I drew up a flow chart 4 of how this system works. This helped me think of what peripheral recognition is all about, and controlling/changing human 1

Houghton Mifflin Company. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language.

Houghton Mifflin Company: 2009.

2 Princeton University, Farlex Inc. WordNet 3.0.

Princeton University, Farlex Inc.: 2003-2008.

3 Houghton Mifflin Company. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language.

Houghton Mifflin Company: 2009.

4 Appendix A; fig. 1; Peripheral Nervous System Flow Chart

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Kimball, John W. Kimball’s Biology Pages. John W. Kimball: 2010. http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/Biology Pages/I/InnateBehavior.html.

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Appendix A; fig.2: The Original Interaction Chart

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Chapter 1.1; Concept One; Jamais vu; an introduction into reliving in silence.

Jamais vu. Definition: The feeling of doing something for the first time despite having done it many times.

I began with looking at space and sound. After talking to several of my peers and after the user testing they were doing at the time, I came to see a pattern people’s opinions on ambient sound. Why were people saying that they were more comfortable when they had the television on or any other type of background noise? Why did silence have such a negative connotations? Silence is good for you - It stimulates your health, it betters your hearing by giving your ears a rest. Ears don’t have ear lids so we have to take extra care to protect them. We are bringing up a generation of deaf people; caused by headphone abuse and constant traffic noise.

track the silence in the household and at the end of the week one would be able to see the result of whether there was an increase of silence or not.

I made an initial prototype for this concept on sketchify as well as a video that illustrated the idea, however the interviews that I undertook revealed that there wasn’t really a suitable system in place. What I did was come up with a philosophy, but what this concept lacked was substance. The sound I proposed was actually disrupting and annoying. I also needed to think more about the intended use and context of the product. Did it really explore what silence was? What is a healthy sound? I needed to further acknowledge that I was creating a system that judges people, or else change the system to be less judgemental.

I also drew a flow chart 7 to outline the type of system I was designing in this concept. This chart was to remind me of my original intent the requirements of the brief.

Silence was a topic that was really intriguing to me. There is also a lack of products on the market that have anything to do with silence, the closest thing I could find was a wall material for soundproofing rooms.

So I began to think about developing an object that would ease silence into someone’s life.

The product I proposed was a system that produces a sound that resembles a heartbeat.

The heartbeat sound was to help people listen to what one another has to say and take it in, rather than just hearing it. This heartbeat would also ease them into silence with a fadein-silence mode, which would happen when the noise level had lowered for more than thirty seconds. This mode would be used so that the person wouldn’t feel the need to turn on music or the television to replace the silence that has grown. The device would

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Appendix A; Fig.3: Concept One Interaction Chart

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Chapter 1.1; Concept Two; Bring the Distance Closer This concept was inspired by looking at the lives of people that had loved ones far away.

It was about wanting to be close to someone despite being apart, regardless of if this person were a parent, friend or partner. I found this to be an interesting topic because it is something that has been inspired from my personal life, so to gain further inspiration I looked at systems that already tackle this issue such as internet chat, text messaging and telephone. Systems like Skype that do bring the distance closer are done in a voluntary way, you are conscience of your decision to contact someone, so instead I sought existing projects that in some ways imitated human behaviour. One project in particular that I drew inspiration from was Accessories for Lonely Men by Noam Toran 8.

One of Toran’s designs from this set is a machine that would steal the bed sheet from you every couple of hours as a real partner would sometimes do; this concept was meant to question what we miss about a relationship. Stefan Ulrich’s Funktionide is also an object that’s been designed for the lonely; he visions:“future people are lonely and with all the new dimensions products offer, they eventually turn to ‘robots’ for emotional satisfaction.”.To create his object he used artificial muscle technology so the object would interact with you in different ways. 9 When I starting thinking of a system I wanted to bridge the gap between an artificial object and two people that want to feel closer to one

another. I thought about what I missed about the relationship; one obvious aspect of which was that I miss is being able to be in the same space as my loved one. Based on this I imagined two devices that would play a live fifteen seconds of the distant person’s life to the user and would continue to do so throughout the day. I felt that fifteen seconds was perfect because it conveys some idea of what going on without invading one another’s privacy. These devices would provide the feeling of being there with each other without being overwhelming. For fifteen seconds their worlds would be united by sound.

People’s responses suggested that this could be a bit too much like big brother, always watching you. Some people didn’t like the idea even if it were only one second of live audio… as long as they were carrying it, they felt their privacy would be invaded. However others really liked it, particularly those that have travelled and lived overseas. They liked the idea of hearing something familiar when they are far away from their friends. What I had to be aware of was if the user would actually want to think about their loved one that often, or what the consequences of hearing these loved ones would be from an emotional point of view. I didn’t continue this concept because of its engagement with privacy violation, to me this project felt too conceptual; I didn’t feel the users would really need this device.

I made a video as well as a flow chart 10 to try and further explain what this concept was about.

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Toran, Noam. Accessories for Lonely Men. Toran Noam: 2001. http://noamtoran.com/NT2009/projects/accessori es-for-lonely-men.

9 Design Indaba. For the Lonely. Design Indaba: 2010. http://www.designindaba.com/newssnippet/lonely.

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Appendix A; Fig.4: Concept Two Interaction Chart

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Chapter 1.3; Concept 3: Growing/Balancing the Social Network This concept came from looking at various technologies that are supposed to help the user either contact someone or be contacted.

I began with the observation of how much communication technology people use in an average day. The way in which I saw people using these technologies brought to mind the behaviours of different plants.

I attended an interesting lecture: The experience of Love, Sex and Death in a Media Life given by Prof.dr. Mark Deuze. In it, he talked about how we are never without a computer, whether it’s our cell phone, laptop, e-reader, etc‌; we constantly interact with technology and should emerge ourselves whole-heartily into it. This lecture made me question whether the fact that we use these technologies so much is healthy. Should this social interaction be monitored?

When brainstorming a concept, I was trying to come up with a digital solution that could be adopted into something that exists physically.

I liked the idea of having a non-digital visual feedback, because it is then that it the idea of trying to grow or balance your social network would be more grounded in reality. The basic components were a plant and the social networking applications we use daily. These applications included; facebook, twitter, email, phone, and text messaging. Each time you would use these applications, or when someone replies to you or sends you a message, would be translated into water droplets. Through being fed, this plant tracks your social interactions with the outside world such that the more you interact, the more the plant would be watered and would grow. If you stop your interactions with the outside or are not interacting enough, the plant would decay and eventually die. The type of plant

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assigned to you would be based on your responses to an initial quiz. This quiz would ask you questions on how social you are - if you are very social you would receive a plant that has thin leaves, whilst if you are very anti-social your plant would have very thick leaves. Your predicted normal level of sociability is then used as a benchmark for monitoring your actual level, so if you are less social or far too social then your usual self, your plant will slowly wither away.

I made a sketchify prototype, a video and also a flow chart 11 to convey the type of system I was proposing. The feedback I got was that this was the most developed interactive system out of all the concepts I had presented, as it had the most of the details already developed. Feedback suggested that a reason people liked the idea was how it was a physical representative of a virtual environment. They were able to visualise the connection in a physical way, translating from virtual to real. What I had yet to consider was its engagement with peripheral audio, or whether the water drops were creating peripheral audio. Also, again I needed to acknowledge how the product would be judging the user for how they behaved; I thought I had avoided this problem with the initial quiz but this could be made less judgemental by allowing the user to judge themselves and set personal goals, rather than relying soling on the results of a quiz.

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Appendix A; Fig.5: Concept Three Interaction Chart

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Chapter 1.4; Midterm Self Evaluations; The decision that led to the Final Concept After weighing up the pros and cons of each concept I decided to combine concept one with concept three. What I liked about them was that they were both related to healthy living and public/social interaction. I was still lacking an indication of potential users and a more defined context, however I thought the notion of a plant giving feedback to a user was quite unique. I wanted to continue working with the concept of silence; of trying to promote silence/healthy ears and giving people a better idea of what silence was, which listening to a talk given by soundenvironment consultant Julian Treasure on

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healthy listening habits 12 further inspired me to do. I wanted to continue exploring silence but knew that my ideas around it were still lacking substance. After much consideration I decided that concept three, being my most developed system, could be combined with these ideas in the next stage.

While doing research about the deaf and hard–of-hearing I came across this following passage: “Researchers studying the effect of urban noise on human health suggest that planting more trees or creating inner-city parks with a wide variety of plants, can help. In fact, the United States Department 12

Julian Treasure - Shh! Sound Health in 8 Steps, TED Global, July 2010, http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_shh_so und_health_in_8_steps.html

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of Agriculture’s National Agro forestry Centre says that greenery […] can act as an effective noise buffer, reducing environmental noise levels by five to ten decibels. Your ears, brain, heart and other organs will benefit from these pro-active measures.” 13 This new concept utilised a living plant to literally give my project life and substance.

Whilst in concept three the plant was to be fed as a result of the user’s social activity, in this new concept it would be a direct result of the amount of silence the user is exposed to.

The plant continues to be dependent upon the user, who must find quiet spaces in order for the plant to be feed. Instead of living next to it’s water supply, the plant would also take its water from the environment, either from ponds or lakes, or from the user themselves in the form of saliva. I began to resolve my concept by defining concrete statements to keep myself on track: User/who; People with damaged hearing/ People who want to preserve their hearing/ People who want to monitor or become more aware of what they listen to everyday.

What; Sound the User hears daily; traffic noise, music, chatter, background hum.

Healthy Sounds; natural sounds, harmonic sounds, soft music.

Peripheral audio; the monitoring of daily/routine noise.

Information; the plant’s wellbeing is a reflection of your daily noise intake.

Context; An object someone takes with them everywhere, that monitors their noise intake.

This object is not there to judge them but rather there is a symbiotic relationship that encourages the user to spend a few minutes each day in a quiet place, to feed their plant.

Only in quiet places is the plant able to be fed.

Content; • •

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A mini quarantine bottle containing a plant A tube going into the bottle would feed the plant when you place the other end of the tube in the mouth/ body of water.

A circuit/mechanism that allows the plant to be fed, only when the user is in a quiet environment.

Bottle netting; so you are able to carry it everywhere. Provides portability.

Why; A generation of people with damaged hearing/deaf people.

Silence; there is no such thing as complete silence, instead the brain constantly adapts to absorb information of what’s going on around us.

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Au.D. Associate Editor Smaka, Carolyn. Quiet Please: Urban Noise Hurts Ears, Heath. Healthy Hearing: January 11, 2010. http://www.healthyhearing.com/articles/44627urban-noise-hearing-loss.

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Chapter 2.1; Final Concept; JamaisVu; A device that promotes awareness of your sound environment While exploring the final concept, my ideas began to alter slightly. It became less about promoting silence and more about making us more aware of our sound surroundings. The first development I made was interviewing some of the people I was targeting. They revealed that much of their hearing problems came from earphone abuse, clubbing, going to concerts… Some even revealed that they had begun to take action against their developing hearing problems by wearing earplugs to these places. Initially I implemented an ear piece microphone as a DPA38 - Peripheral Audio

way of showing the link between the object and the ear, and to avoid differences between what the device can hear and what our ears our actually exposed to. However after much consideration I eventually decided to take away the earpiece, in response to people’s concerns over exposing their hearing problems. After demonstrating the net with the prototype and the earpiece 14, I discovered people’s discomfort over revealing their hearing problems publicly. I also realized that the earpiece may have begun to overcomplicate the project as the number of components I was designing seemed to confuse people. To stay close to the essence of the project I made this cutback.

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Appendix D; Drawing Development of the Earpiece

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The netting that was made for my prototype was also taken away during this critique. At first I thought about attaching the netting to a body jewellery type of design that would make wearing the object much easier. I also liked the reference to the way in which some traditional cultures would use rope netting to carry vessels in daily life. However after considering different options such as a body jewellery piece, a clip, a key ring, necklace… It made more sense to take the netting away.. I also had to consider that this object, being that someone would carry it with them everywhere and every day, would have to be an artefact that the user would want to showcase. After talking to my mixed gender user group and asking them about what their preferences were, the decision that the object would be worn as a necklace was taken.

When choosing the plant that would sit inside the test tube I looked into sensitive plants, the most obvious choices of which were the Venus flytrap, Jericho rose and mimosa pudica. I chose the mimosa pudica because of its fast reaction time; it instantly closes its leaves when you touch it. This is because it is sensitive to heat, and so the momentary heat transferred from your fingers causes the plant to close up. This was advantageous because with the mimosa plant placed within the test tube I was able to control the leaves reactions by adding a heating element, acting as an instantaneous switch to trigger the mimosa leaves to close up 15. I wanted this so that the plant could act as the user’s ears; when there are loud noises present in the environment the plants leaves fold up to signal this to the user. After folding up It takes approximately 5 minutes for the plant to open up again, and this too is almost a representation of your ears trying to recover after being exposed to a 15

Appendix A; Fig.7: The Mimosa Plant Heat Test Chart

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loud environment. This idea of using the plant as a measure of how much noise we are exposed to rather than a providing an accurate digital measurement, is to train the user to start taking notice of the everyday peripheral sound they hear. Rather than being a personal ‘noise meter’, the plant is simply acts as a reminder of the sound levels that are around us.

Originally the water being fed to the plant was to come from external sources such as your own saliva or water from ponds, lakes or sinks. The act of going to a water source was to be a part of the feeding experience, as water has connotations of a “pacifying influence of sound to a person.” 16 After getting mixed reviews over whether the water should be external or be incorporated into the system, it became clear that although the idea of going to a place that would have a water source nearby was a nice ritual, I was again unnecessarily complicating the concept. It affects the overall concept if the object came with its own water supply, and it would make it easier for user to use in everyday life. Also, whether they want to take the object for a walk or not become an option the user can choose and build their own habits around.

After doing research into it, I realised this object was becoming more like a Tamagotchi.

What I found particularly relevant to my project was that the Tamagotchi “[…] starts to share your real time, or rather, it starts to force you to synchronise with the time articulated by its biological state: hunger, sleepiness, boredom etc.” 17 I hoped that by

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Types of Flowers and Plants Garden. Garden for Health. Rest and Restore forces Garden. Types of Flowers and Plants Garden: 2008. http://www.flowers-gardens.net/garden-forhealth.html.

17 Kawade, Eri. Go to Work on an Egg. Frieze: JuneAugust 1997.

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making my object more like a Tamagotchi pet, the person would start to care more about the welfare of the plant and the quiet environment that it needs, and that this would in turn make them more aware of their own discomfort with being in an environment filled with background noise. After doing several user tests the results came back to confirm my assumptions; several users were surprised by the noise they hear on a daily bases. One user in particular said that they never before noticed the amount of self inflected noise that they create as soon as they enter their household. After noticing the folded leaves of the plant they turned off the usually constant music they have in the background, then seeing that the plant leaves still failed to open up, turned off their television as well. I asked the users if they were bothered by the lack of noise in their surroundings after adjusting for the plants, which they weren’t. They said they were too worried that they might have harmed the plant with their usual habits.

The system that I have designed 18 has during development been reduced to just the cap of the test tube. The system of the water supply, the mechanism that feeds the plant, and the nichrome wire that acts as a heating element, have all been incorporated into the same cap.

The reason for making so many reductions has been to focus on simply getting the point across: This system creates awareness of the noise that exists in our daily life; whether it be self inflected or environmental noise we have just become accustomed to.

http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/go_to_work_ on_an_egg/.

18 Appendix C; Drawing Development of the Final Concept

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Peripheral audio; the monitoring of daily/routine noise.

Chapter 2.2; Concept Changes Evaluation

Information; the plant’s wellbeing is a reflection of your daily noise intake.

What has stayed the same during development of the product.

User/who; People with damaged hearing/ People who want to preserve their hearing/ People who want to monitor or become more aware of what they listen to everyday.

What; Sound the User hears daily; traffic noise, music, chatter, background hum. Why; A generation of people with damaged hearing/deaf people.

Silence; there is no such thing as complete silence, instead the brain constantly adapts to absorb information of what’s going on around us.

Healthy Sounds; natural sounds, harmonic sounds, soft music.

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Context; an object someone takes with them everywhere, that monitors their noise intake.

This object is not there to judge them but rather there is a symbiotic relationship that encourages the user to spend a few minutes each day in a quiet place, to feed their plant.

Only in quiet places is the plant able to be fed.

What has changed since the development of the product.

Context; the object is essentially about creating awareness of being in loud environments and what that does to your ears.

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Content; 19 • • •

•

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A mini quarantine test tube containing a small mimosa plant.

A vessel containing a fixed amount of water to be refilled daily by the user.

A simple self feeding system that feeds a measured dosage of water to the plant once the user has accumulated 20 minutes of time spent in sufficiently quiet environments. The water supply contains 6 dosages of water, which equates to 3 hours of silence the user will need to be exposed to each day to keep the plant healthy.

The object is attached as a necklace, providing portability in a way that protects the plant as well as emphasising its preciousness, and in turn the preciousness of one’s own hearing.

Appendix B; The Design Function Drawings

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Chapter 2.3; User Testing The prototype consists of: • Two circuits 20 • An Arduino program and a Processing program 21 • A threshold variable derived from graphing audio samples. 22 First User Testing Interviews 23 When I first did my user testing I had two participants that actually had a history of hearing problems, whilst the others were picked at random. Strangely, not many users identify themselves as having hearing problems or simply think their hearing problems are quite minor. However after asking them to elaborate on recent situations and annoyances regarding their hearing, it was revealed that all of them had had problems with their hearing in some way. For 20

Appendix G; The circuits used in my prototype Appendix E; Programming Code 22 Appendix F; Sample graphs to find out my silence threshold 23 CD 21

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example some had described that they hear better with one ear than the other, however had ignored this as a hearing problem. After these interviews two of the participants said they now wanted to have their hearing examined.

When I asked what they thought might have caused deficiency in their hearing, common responses were working at a club, partying too much, or going to concerts. After asking if they have tried to protect their hearing in anyway, the two who had a history of hearing problems revealed that they wear earplugs most of the time when they know they are going to be in loud environments. However, these two also pointed out that sometimes they do not do so because when they are hanging out with friends at parties, or even at home alone, they sometimes don’t notice how loud their environment is. One participant said he would wear earplugs when working at a club but has never worn earplugs when clubbing with friends. Another user revealed that she used to wear earplugs when going to concerts etc., but when her friends would ask her about them, she would feel embarrassed and stop wearing them.

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Second User Testing Interviews; after testing the prototype 24 I explained to the participants that the object was about creating awareness of being in loud environments. Some were sceptical that the device would help them in any way or even apply to their personal lifestyles. All the participants spent two days with my prototype. They had to re-fill the prototype with a syringe.

After the user testing I initially asked if anything unexpected happened, to which was said they did not realize how much noise there was around them daily. One participant said that she always prefers working at home rather in her work space at school, because it’s more quiet at home, however the prototype changed her opinion because she noticed the plant was open at school but closed at home. She never noticed that when she goes home the first thing she does it turn on the television as well as her stereo, whilst also talking on Skype. When she noticed the plant wasn’t happy she turned off the television, then later her stereo. I asked her if she noticed the quiet environment she is now in. She said it didn’t matter because the plant was depending on her, and was concerned that the sound environment she had created at home wasn’t as quiet as she had originally thought. Another participant took the prototype to a lecture he went to, and noticed that the plant was closed during the lecture.

He claims he became paranoid that the lecture room was really loud, and worried he couldn’t perceive how loud it really was in there. The plants reaction was so distracting, he said, that he had trouble focusing on the lecture itself.

while they were wearing it. One related it to using alpine music safe pro, a professional brand of earplugs, in the way they protect your ears without being overly obvious about it.

After presenting my design for the product 25 I asked if they would be embarrassed to wear this product every day. They stated they would willingly wear the product because the function of this product isn’t obvious; they feel it is a beautiful piece of jewellery and so would enjoy wearing it out for that reason, yet would carry it anyway for its noise awareness purpose.

I also questioned the participants as to whether they could imagine buying this product. All of them said it was something they would likely purchase because it would not only make themselves more aware of noise in their own environments but as an object that they would carry around and introduce to others it would also create awareness among their peers.

The participants also explained that many people questioned them about the prototype 24

CD

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Front Cover

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Chapter 2.4; Conclusion I think I have proven my concept through user testing, as it has shown that as a product it is a solution to an increasing amount of people with hearing problems, as well as a necessary device for those who would like to preserve their hearing. I set out to make people more aware of the sound exposure they receive daily, and believe I have achieved that among my user testing participants, who were surprised by the amount of noise around them after having used the prototype. One participant also said that this device would serve as a good reminder for him to wear his earplugs when in loud environments. Another suggested that I continue developing the

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concepts behind this device into a range of other products, because I have transformed an action/interaction that was originally embarrassing to them into something that they would be proud of, and would enjoy sharing and discussing with their friends.

I have been very happy with this project and I hope to continue to develop products that would provide different solutions to a growing population that is hard of hearing. I think there is still a lot design exploration to be done in the areas of sound pollution and sound awareness, and that there are still a lot of valuable solutions out there, yet to be discovered.

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THE APPENDIX

APPENDIX A; Charts Fig.1: Peripheral Nervous System Flow Chart Fig.2: The Original Interaction Chart Fig.3: Concept One Interaction Chart Fig.4: Concept Two Interaction Chart Fig.5: Concept Three Interaction Chart Fig.6: The final Concept Interaction Chart Fig.7: The Mimosa Plant Heat Test Chart

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APPENDIX B; The Design Function Drawings

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APPENDIX C; Drawing Development of the Final Concept

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APPENDIX D; Drawing Development of the Earpiece

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APPENDIX E; Programming Code Code used for my prototype Code used for processing graphs

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APPENDIX F; Sample graphs to find out my silence threshold

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APPENDIX G; The circuits used in my prototype

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APPENDIX H; User testing images

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APPENDIX A; Charts

Fig.1: Peripheral Nervous System Flow Chart

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Fig.2: The Original Interaction Chart

Fig.3: Concept One Interaction Chart

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Fig.4: Concept Two Interaction Chart

Fig.5: Concept Three Interaction Chart

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APPENDIX B; The Design Function Drawings

The blocks of red are the structure supporting the internal vessel which carries the components. They also act as a measure of the 6 different dosages stored for the mimosa plant.

Inside the central volume is where all the electronic components are held. At the top sits the servo motor.

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The red area is a simple open/closed valve allows the plant to be watered.

The solid red area is where the water is contained.

The hatched red area is where the water flows through the valve and onto the plant.

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This is where the nichrome wire is installed that acts as a heating system.

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APPENDIX C; Drawing Development of the Final Concept

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APPENDIX D; Drawing Development of the Earpiece

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APPENDIX E; Code used for my prototype #include <Servo.h> #include <EEPROM.h> Servo myservo; int open = 180; int closed = 90;

// create servo object to control a servo // open angle // closed angle

int feedLength = int heatLength = boolean feedTime boolean heatTime

2000; // length of feeding time in miilis.

8000; // length of heating time in millis. = false; = false;

int int int int int

analogInPin = 0; buttonPin = 5; ledPin = 6; HEAT = 13; micValue = 0;

int sampleSpeed = 10;

// Analog input pin of the volume sensor

// Nichrome Wire connected to digital pin 13 // value read from the pot // how many millis delay between each volume sensor reading

int heatDelayMax = 300000/sampleSpeed; // roughly 5mins in between heat cycles int heatDelay = heatDelayMax; // counter for couting down between heat cycles. int graphHeight = 300; // height of graph in processing (for consistency in checking variables) // also accumulated daily silence level target //====================== vars for averaging ==================// const int numSamples = 300; int averageSamples[numSamples]; int average = 0; int index = 0; //======== vars for accumulating silence and feeding ========// float threshold = 130; // silence threshold (0 min, 300max) float silence; // the number that stores how much silence has accumulated float noise; // the number that stores how much noise has accumulated float accumulationSpeed = 0.01; // at 0.01, with sampleSpeed 10, should reach 300 (the daily target) in about 3 hours? TBA... int numFeedCycles = 6; // number of feeding cycles during entire day int feedCycleInterval = graphHeight/numFeedCycles; int numTimesFed = 0; //======== vars for logging to EEPROM =======================// int int int int

silenceValIndex = 0; noiseValIndex = 1; logDelayMax = 300000/sampleSpeed; // roughly 5mins in between logging logDelay = heatDelayMax; // counter for couting down between heat cycles.

void setup() { myservo.attach(9); // attaches the servo on pin 9 to the servo object myservo.write(closed); pinMode(HEAT, OUTPUT); pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT); pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);

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// initialize serial communications at 9600 bps: (for graphing in processing if need be) Serial.begin(9600); // fill average array with zeros for (int i=0; i<numSamples; i++) { averageSamples[i] = 0; } silence = EEPROM.read(silenceValIndex); delay(100); noise = EEPROM.read(noiseValIndex); delay(100); } void loop() { // read the analog in value: micValue = analogRead(analogInPin); // print the results to the serial monitor: (for graphing in processing if need be) Serial.println(micValue); silenceDetector(); if(feedTime) { feedCycle(); } if(heatTime) { heatCycle(); } logToEEPROM(); checkClearButton(); delay(sampleSpeed); } void silenceDetector() { micValue = map(micValue, 0, 1023, 0, graphHeight); processing app graph

// map keeps consistency with

// calculate running average averageSamples[index] = int(micValue); for (int i=0; i<numSamples; i++) { average += averageSamples[i]; } average /= numSamples; index++; if (index > numSamples-1) { index = 0; } //accumulate silence if (average < threshold) { silence += accumulationSpeed; if(silence-(numTimesFed*feedCycleInterval) > feedCycleInterval) { feedTime = true; } } //accumulate noise, and count for Heat cycle if (average > threshold) {

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noise += accumulationSpeed; if(heatDelay < 0) { heatTime = true; heatDelay = heatDelayMax; } heatDelay--; } } void feedCycle() { myservo.write(open); delay(feedLength); myservo.write(closed);

//opens the valve //length of feeding period //closes the valve

numTimesFed++; feedTime = false; } void heatCycle() { digitalWrite(HEAT, HIGH); for(int i=0; i<255; i++) { analogWrite(ledPin, i); delay(10); } delay(heatLength); digitalWrite(HEAT, LOW); for(int i=255; i>0; i--) { analogWrite(ledPin, i); delay(10); } digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); heatTime = false;

//turns the Nichrome Wire on //fade on LED

//length of heating period. //turns the Nichrome Wire off //fade on LED

} void logToEEPROM() { if(logDelay < 0) { EEPROM.write(silenceValIndex, silence); delay(300); EEPROM.write(noiseValIndex, noise); delay(300); logDelay = logDelayMax; } logDelay--; }

void checkClearButton() { Serial.print("SILENCE VALUE EQUALS : "); Serial.println(silence); delay(100); Serial.println("NOISE VALUE EQUALS : "); Serial.println(noise);

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if (digitalRead(buttonPin) == HIGH) { EEPROM.write(silenceValIndex, 0); silence = 0; delay(300); EEPROM.write(noiseValIndex, 0); noise = 0; delay(300); digitalWrite(ledPin, delay(300); digitalWrite(ledPin, delay(300); digitalWrite(ledPin, delay(300); digitalWrite(ledPin, delay(300); digitalWrite(ledPin, delay(300); digitalWrite(ledPin,

// Check button, for clearing memory.

HIGH); LOW); HIGH); LOW); HIGH); LOW);

} }

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The code used for processing; import processing.serial.*; Serial myPort; int xPos = 30;

// The serial port // horizontal position of the graph

//====================== vars for averaging ==================// int numSamples = 200; int[] averageSamples = new int[numSamples]; int average = 0; int pAverage = 0; int count = 0; //=============== vars for accumulating silence ==============// float threshold = 40; // as percentage of 100% noiseyness float silence = 0; float accumulationSpeed = 0.01; //===================== vars for logging =====================// int numSamplesToLog = 60000; // log 60000 readings (at 100 readings per second, = 1600 seconds, = 10 mins int[][] logging = new int[numSamplesToLog][4]; int logCount = 0; void setup () { size(1000, 300); background(0); // Initialise Serial println(Serial.list()); myPort = new Serial(this, Serial.list()[2], 9600); myPort.bufferUntil('\n'); // fill average array with zeros for (int i=0; i<numSamples; i++) { averageSamples[i] = 0; } // map threshold to screen size threshold = map(threshold, 0, 100, 0, height); } void draw () { // everything happens in the serialEvent() } void serialEvent (Serial myPort) { String inString = myPort.readStringUntil('\n'); if (inString != null) { inString = trim(inString); float micValue = float(inString); micValue = map(micValue, 0, 1023, 0, height); // draw the line: stroke(150); line(xPos, height, xPos, height - micValue); // calculate running average pAverage = average; averageSamples[count] = int(micValue); for (int i=0; i<numSamples; i++) { average += averageSamples[i]; } average /= numSamples; stroke(255,0,0); strokeWeight(1);

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line(xPos-1, height - pAverage, xPos, height - average); count++; if (count > numSamples-1) { count = 0; } // at the edge of the screen, go back to the beginning: if (xPos >= width) { xPos = 30; background(0); } else { // increment the horizontal position: xPos++; } //draw the threshold line stroke(34,177,76); line(30, height - threshold, width, height - threshold); //accumulate silence if (average < threshold) { silence += accumulationSpeed; } //draw silence meter fill(0,100); stroke(0,100); rect(0,0,30,height); fill(34,177,76); stroke(0); rect(10,(height-20),10,-silence); //log readings logging[logCount][0] = int(micValue); logging[logCount][1] = average; logging[logCount][2] = int(silence); logging[logCount][3] = int(threshold); logCount++; if(logCount > numSamplesToLog) { exportLog(); stop(); } } } void exportLog() { String[] lines = new String[logCount]; for (int i = 0; i < logCount; i++) { lines[i] = logging[i][0] + "\t" + logging[i][1] + "\t" + logging[i][2] + "\t" + logging[i][3]; } saveStrings("log_"+hour()+"'"+minute()+"'"+second()+".txt",lines); } void keyPressed() { exportLog(); stop(); }

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APPENDIX F; Graphs of audio samples to determine a suitable silence threshold

300

G Workshop 250 200 soundInput

150

soundAverage Silence

100

Threshold 80

50

1 82 163 244 325 406 487 568 649 730 811 892 973 1054 1135 1216 1297

0

300 250

TRAFFIC

200

Series1

150

Series2

100

Series3 Series4

50

1 117 233 349 465 581 697 813 929 1045 1161 1277 1393 1509 1625 1741 1857 1973 2089 2205

0

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300 250

Bike/TRAFFIC

200 150

soundInput

100

soundAverage Threshold 40

50 1 1281 2561 3841 5121 6401 7681 8961 10241 11521 12801 14081 15361 16641 17921 19201 20481 21761 23041 24321 25601 26881 28161 29441 30721

0

300 250

Dinner

200 soundInput

150

soundAverage Silence

100

Threshold 40 50

1 118 235 352 469 586 703 820 937 1054 1171 1288 1405 1522 1639 1756 1873

0

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APPENDIX G; Prototype Circuit Design

Adjustable gain sound volume detector circuit /The Mic Circuit 26

26

Jacobs, Elco. Adjustable gain sound volume detector circuit. Jacobs, Elco: July 26th, 2010.

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APPENDIX H; User testing image

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