Analysis

During our visit to the Children’s Museum, we found that we were quite limited by the temporary structure supporting the main mechanism and by the instability of the Arduino-Raspberry Pi connection.  Additionally, the rail system of the project would not always allow for free movement of the main stepper motor.  Overall, we observed that children were very interested in peering over at the project, although they were quite timid to do so.  We believe this was because the project did not exactly seem the most inviting or stable in structure (parents tended to discourage the children from touching or coming closer).  Children that did come closer to the project were most drawn to looking at and carefully feeling the fluffy texture of the artificial cloud.  We were surprised that the most interesting piece of our project seemed to be the cloud’s texture, rather than movement across the frame, though this may be because of the environment we were in (near the make shop, where settings are very hands-on).  Many of the children in the nearby area were also not yet walking, while we believe our project may be best suited for children who are slightly older.  Further debugging the cloud movement is paramount for visitors to further understand and perceive the “magic” in our project.  Adding motion in the y-axis will also help to achieve these goals.  Initially we felt the the structure containing the project was not as important as other components, but post-museum visit we understand that it is important for the project to seem safe and inviting, such that we can then more deeply observe visitors’ behaviors.  We have also realized that because of young children’s inherent desire to touch (fluffy) things, it may be best to redesign the container to be open in the front to encourage deeper interaction and to explore a second tactile experience within our project.

Revision Plan

Currently there are plans to redesign the rail system to be more robust and reliable.  We feel that the fundamental experience that was originally planned may not need to be drastically modified.  However, progress of the project was not quite as accomplished at the point of the museum as we would have originally thought due to unforeseen bottlenecks.  From museum observations, it is thought that we should forego the clear acrylic sheet that would serve as the “window screen,” so children can be free to touch the moving clouds.  We feel it is unnecessary to add additionally objectives to our plan (rather, we will further detail the original plan), as not all objectives have yet been completed.

 

Other Files:

The revised task list can be found here

Arduino Code: demo

Raspberry pi Code: reach_for_the_sky

(descriptions for files can be found in the  README file)