The Tree's Chime was part of an opportunity I participated in when a team of friends and I applied for the President's Award for Global Learning from UT Austin. The team I was part of, along with 3 others, went on a 6-week trip to Japan to learn about its culture and create an immersive experience. The Tree's Chime In was born from that. The role I was in charge of for this project was the Haptic interactions.
Partnering with Keio University, I was shown many haptic devices and learned how they used haptics to create sensory experiences. Using what I learned from there, I was able to bring an enjoyable sensory expertise to the project.
After I determined which haptics we would use and learned how to use them, it was decided that a heartbeat would play through them throughout the show, to make the tree feel "alive".
After that, a few others and I soldered wires onto the ends and hooked it up to an amplifier. The wires were hidden beneath the tree's roots, and cardboard was used to house the haptics and provide a large, flat surface for a user to touch.
Following the show's success, we transported the technology back to the U.S. to continue development. I'm now working on the haptics hardware iteration, new Haptic configurations and sensations, and synchronization with the entire show. At the moment, I am done testing the haptics in the US, preparing a synchronization plan, and I am almost ready for the live show.
