RFID Project

Finished my RFID project and presented it yesterday with the Bill Buxton there. I think it went really well. 

On the left top is my desk with the prototype going, and on the left bottom there are some of the artifacts of the finished project. The colored circles represent the instruments and each color represents part of a song. So magenta being rhythm, peach: lead, blue: melody and so on. The cards represent the three genres that you could choose from. It is unreal how these simple artifacts make the idea so much more real than the prototype. In fact all that was done is the electronics (just how they are in the top pic ) where shoved in a styrene box, and stickers were  placed over the RFID tags, but it took this project way beyond where it was and made it so real.

How it works:

You go into a party, and you reach into a jar and grab a token. By placing it in the stereo like device it adds to the music. But being colored, you know that you can remove one of that color, and replace it with the one you have, or you can add to it. One of each makes the best song, but you could have it play only drums if you really wanted to, or all 20 instruments all at once. If you dont like the gene of music playing you could just swipe a card it would change.

After everyone was done presenting, Bill Buxton talked for a while. I think it was the greatest part of class we have had, and some how he managed to touch on almost everything I had been thinking about in the past few weeks, and all that had been bothering me. My friend Molly even came up to me and said the same thing.

Anyone interested should really read his book: Sketching the User Experience.

 
Here is a video of the prototype in action: (password: risd)

RFID Music from Adam Meyer on Vimeo.