Live VJ Ball

“Ball Control” was and interactive installation which allowed a user to control digital visuals and sounds while using a responsive pink soccer ball as the controller. It is a program created in Isadora using a laptop, projector, wiimote and foam soccer ball.



Placed inside the ball is the wii mote which tracks things like the x,y,z and rotation axis's and as well the velocity. The different ways the ball is kicked, thrown bounced or spun control different effects to the audio and sound presented on the computer screen or projector. The project was build in Isadora.



For my capstone I would like to take this project to the next level. When I tested my project in front of a class it was very engaging and interactive. It was easy to use and fun to experiment with. I was really surprised how well the wii mote responded to certain movements. You really did feel in control.

While there where a few bugs in my patch i built it still worked properly with room for improvement. One being using the OSculator to track to wii mote rather then the pre existing wii watcher. This way I could have faster response and more then 1 wii being detected at once. The constrtion of the ball could have been better as well.

Here are a few ideas that just poped into my head. Am I thinking too hard?

1. Attach 1 or more wireless live fed cameras into the ball with the lens looking out. I think this would be neat to do with a soccer ball that could be kicked up high into the air or even during a soccer game.

But....what I think this would work really well as is if you attached a few small wireless cams into a beach ball and threw the ball into a crowd during a live concert. You could then project the live feeds of the cameras onto a projector that is displayed onto a screen behind the band. You could layer all the cameras video on top of each other though several projectors onto one screen for a neat effect. If the ball in the audience wasn't being tossed around or an issue occurred you would always have an option to lower the video transparency of the projectors displaying the balls wireless video feed until someone started using it again and tossing it around or you fixed the issue.

Another thought would be to instead have one ball with 2 cameras just have two balls with 1 camera. The enviorment would be inside a dance club where a dj was performing, inside a concert hall to a live band, or even outside at a music festival or other large venue.



Possible Issues with this project::

-Someone keeps damaging the ball
-Its not fun or interesting
- the cameras have an on off switch that would be inside the ball
-ball going outside wireless range
-Getting the ball back? Does it matter?
-Amount of people in crowd as this would be designed for large crowds
-Finding a venue to test my project