Fortune Teller

This project is a modern day satire on humans obsession with wanting to know the future. We are drawn to horoscopes, crystal balls, and psychics all to find out clues about our future selves and relationships. Many people have general anxiety about the future and seek direction from outside sources to ease the pressure and help them make decisions. This project will act as a fortune teller where users can ask a question and the device will respond with an answer. While the user is asking the question it is likely that they have already made up in their mind which answer they hope will be displayed. In this sense, the fortune teller can ideally encourage a bit of self understanding.

The seemingly arbitrariness of a fortune teller translates well to binary logics. In this project, the users will be instructed to press a button down while they ask the question and the output will depend solely on how many seconds the button was pressed for. I am providing audience users with answers to their questions based on an input that is irrelevant to their question but still a conscious decision. This project would be sited in a public setting and the experience is meant to be playful while the audience tries to figure out how the responses to their questions have been evidently randomized.

Maquette:

Design:

The main part of the device will be a box made out of mirrored acrylic so that the inside of the box might have the effect of an infinite mirror. The button will be at the center on the inside of the box so that the users have to reach into the mirrors to ask their question further emphasizing the magical aspect of fortune telling.

There will be a fake microphone at the top of the box with the words “Ask me a question” printed next to it to give the illusion that the machine is listening. On the sides of the box there will be two speakers that will announce the answer to the question once the button has been released. Lastly, the inside edges of the box will be lined with LEDs which light up either green, red or yellow after the button has been released. The mirrors will reflect the LEDs and light up the whole box when the answer is announced via speaker.

Logic:

If the user held down the button for an even number of seconds, then the device will light up green LEDs and send power to a speaker to play the sound “Yes.” If the user held down the button for an odd number of seconds, then the device will light up red LEDs and send power to a speaker to play the sound “No.” If the user held down the button for longer than 8 seconds, then the device will light up red LEDs and send power to a speaker to play the sound “Concentrate and try again.” The device will use a timing mechanism to identify exactly how long the button was depressed which will feed into an arduino to power the LEDs and speaker

Materials: 

  • Arduino (ideate)
  • Mirrored acrylic (ideate)
  • Arcade button (ideate)
  • Two speakers (ideate)
  • DFreader + SD card (ideate)
  • color changing LEDs (ideate)
  • wiring and power (ideate)

Word Equation:

If E AND NOT L –> Y

If NOT (E NOR L) –> N

If L –> TA

Logic Diagram:

Truth Table:

Next Steps:

First I need to upload recordings saying “yes” “no” and “concentrate and try again” onto the SD card so the files can become outputs on the DFreader. Then I plan to code the timing between the button being pressed and released via arduino so I can use that information to drive the LED output and speaker output.

Figuring out code logic

  • When the button is high (pressed) start timing until button is low (released). int x = round(flt)
  • If x < 8 and (x % 2 == 0) then “even”
    • Delay (5);
    • If even then play file zero and colors[i] = rgb_color(0, 255, 0);
  • If x < 8 and (x % 2 != 0) then “odd”
    • Delay (5);
    • If odd then play file one and colors[i] = rgb_color(255, 0, 0);
  • If x >= 8 then long
    • Delay (5);
    • If long then play file two and colors[i] = rgb_color(255, 255, 0);