Physical Computing Week 7: iterating on zen.fm after feedback

Feedback

After testing the prototype, the feedback was:

• show a countdown to 15 minutes once you’ve found zen.fm
• play something calming when you find the moment of calm
• make the disturbed moment more annoying without being too loud
• instead of the circle, show different images like leaves, an animal, a star or grass, kept as silhouettes, with animations that encourage breathing
• be able to change the amount of time on the timer

Sound

The speaker can only beep with tone(), so the sketch now drives it directly as a small synthesizer, with smooth tones and real volume. When you find the channel, a wind chime rings, then a low hum fades in and swells with each breath in and fades on the breath out. The static became glitchy chatter, bursts of hiss and quick chirps that get denser the farther you are from the channel. It’s quieter overall than the chime.

Silhouettes

The first pass drew each silhouette as its own shape and glitched it in when you got close. It lost what made the circle work: the noise settling into the shape.

Now every graphic is an outline drawn the same way as the circle. As you tune in, the warbling circle bends into the leaf, the cat, the star or the grass, and the fill fades in. Drift away and it melts back into the circle. The circle stays as one of the graphics, and each time the signal scrambles, the next one is lined up.

Each silhouette breathes in for 40% of the breath and out for 60%, starting at 5 seconds a breath and slowing to 8 the longer you stay. The countdown sits in the bottom corner so the graphic can fill the screen.

Timer and reset

The button is gone from the enclosure, so the dial sets the timer at power-on: 5, 15 or 25 minutes. Turning the knob all the way left and holding it for 2 seconds goes back to the timer screen, like switching a radio off. If you turn away from the channel, the countdown starts over.

Next

• Upload the new sketch and tune the volume on the real speaker
• Mount the potentiometer to the faceplate and secure the jumpers