Sound Blocks - Final project proposal

Magdalena and I decided to team up together since both of us are interested in interactive playful sound installations with Lego or blocks. We would like to do some kind of modular structure which is so easily understandable and intuitive in it’s appliance that it is not necessary to explain the user how to deal with it. Furthermore, no electronic components should be visible and the appearance should be contemporary, simple and limited to the minimum.

The first idea was building wooden blocks just like what children play. Every block has a different sound by stacking up or just put it down on the ground. We think that the way that people can simply play with blocks and led to make sounds is making some limited ground that looks like carpet on which the user can freely interact with the blocks. The block itself are not electronic at all, only the ground is reacting.

One idea is to have a carpet on which you can play with the sound cubes. The carpet is devided into different sections. First into quarters – every quarter has a different beat. Once you put/or throw a piece on the quater you turn its beat over a pressure sencor on. Second the carpet is divided into four concentric circles. Depending on which circle you put a brick, the beat changes. Also depending on how many pieces you put on the ring, the pressue sonsor reacts on the weight and changes too.

Another idea, also based on the principle of using bricks in order to produce different sounds, is to install flexible sensors on which the user can adapt different bricks in different shapes and colors. Those elements are made out of various materials. Every material has another weight. The user can put the bricks flexibly on the string which reacts in sound on the change of weight.

The question is.. how can we make several types of SOUNDS...?