Ambient Wood II's Sound Horn

This information was selected from Cliff Randell's horn webpage after the horn was developed between March and June 2003. Cliff is based in computer science at Bristol.

Background

Cliff's first thoughts and sketches for a simple interactive device using location triggers from Pingers. In response to observations at the 2002 Ambient Wood trials:-

"We had engineered the digital information to be presented to the children in a more pervasive way, i.e. where their bodily presence in an area triggered the digital information to appear on the PDA, or sounds to be played through nearby wireless loudspeakers. In these contexts, the children did not have control, but relied the serendipity of their movements as to whether they passed in the vicinity of a Pinger. The children were never quite certain when this would happen and were often surprised when they heard a sound or saw an image on the PDA screen. Part of our intention of using this pervasive technique was indeed to introduce an element of surprise and the unexpected. Another reason was to augment their physical experience, by drawing their attention to certain aspects of the habitat, they might not have noticed otherwise, and providing relevant contextual knowledge that they could integrate with what they saw. Sometimes this approach worked, and the children related the digital information that was being sent to them on the PDA with what they saw in the wood in front of them (e.g. a real thistle). However, at other times, the children were too engrossed in doing something else and so would miss the beginning part of a voice-over or not even notice a sound. In these moments, the children were often reluctant to switch their attention to what was happening on the PDA from what they were doing."

The intention of the Horn design is to try to maintain the effect of the surprise by the apparently serendipitous triggering of digital information (by the location pingers), and at the same time introduce an element of control, or interaction, which would allow the children to choose exactly when the information is played. This would also ensure that the beginning of each audio sequence is properly heard. By being able to turn their attention to the Horn when they choose the children can remain engrossed in other activities until one of them notices the LEDs flashing. It's envisaged that the Horn would be worn on the body so it would be more likely that the 'hornless' child would notice it flashing before the wearer - leading to interaction between the children - "hey, the Horn's flashing, let's listen to it!".

The sequence of operation is envisaged as:-

• Children enter Pinger zone
• LEDs flash on Horn
• Children notice lights and agree to listen to sounds
• Horn is held to ear (tilted upwards), or
• Key is pressed to play sound
• Optional elvin notification (ping to PDA)
• Optional image displayed on PDA

The Final Design

The final design builds on the lessons learnt from the prototype 'Techno-Horn'. To reduce the bulk of the device, and to avoid accidental operation, the MP3 player has been removed and an ISD2560 sound chip installed in it's place (thanks, Danielle). The overall design has been made to appear similar to the Ambient Wood Probe with a rotary switch to select either plant sounds or wildlife sounds The specification of the sound chip is more limiting than the MP3 player - only 60 secs of audio are available - however the speed of response is almost instant (the MP3 player required 1 sec/track to cue i.e. 12 secs for track 12) The push switch now triggers the playing of the sound and does not require to be held on. An additional indicator LED has been added (the horn also 'honks' when a ping is received).

Acknowledgements

Some others involved in the design were Yvonne Rogers, Danielle Wilde, Mark Thompson and thanks also to Ted Phelps and Eric Harris for input over those beers after the London to Brighton bike ride 2003!