1B – Arduino Project – Breath Visualization Meditation Goggles

Group Members: Aditi Sarkar, Annabelle Lee, Claire Hentschker, Daniel Hua
Roles: Daniel Hua as tutor, Aditi Sarkar as designer, Annabelle Lee as integrator, Claire Hentschker as scribe.

 

Introduction

 

 In this project we explored the Ganzfeld Effect, as well as the the focus on breathing during meditation. By combining these two ideas, we were able to make a pair of googles that fully immerse you in your own breathing. When worn, blue light floods your vision, and as a breath in taken though the nose, the color turns pink. This visual representation of breath not only allows someone to visually focus on their breathing, it allows them to alter their state of mind at the same time. The perceptual deprivation the goggles offer due to their uniform debth of field, require the brain to amplify the neutral noise and can give rise to mild hallucinations. Hopefully, through both meditation and breathing, as well as the Ganzfeld effect, the user can reach an altered state of mind using these goggles.

 

Video

Technical Notes

We covered swimming goggles in frosted paint, and then added a half a pingpong ball with two rgb led lights in each side to both eye holes. The rgb input for these lights is controlled by an arduino uno, which is determining where in the gradient between blue and pink the lights should be, depending on the input to the wind sensor. By breathing on the wind sensor in the nose, the arduino gradually turns the lights more pink. With no breath on the wind sensor, the lights return to blue.

circut2

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