Sensory box

Sensory box is an interactive device that could be useful in the treatment of tactile hypersensitivity. The inside of the box consists of elements that are supposed to resemble a forest to the touch. They are made with different fabrics and connected to the sensors that pass the signal to Arduino UNO. Electronics are hidden behind the bark, that is also interactive thanks to the conductive fabric and conductive thread. When the user touches the elements that trigger the sensors, different sound are emitted. Sound can overlap, fade in or fade out depending on the strength of touch. Sounds are made with samples from website bandlab.com and they are played from SD card that is connected to the WAV Trigger.

Electronics consist of:

-The Robertsonics/SparkFun WAV Trigger
Arduino UNO

-Trill Craft – capacitive sensor

-Hand made sensor with conductive fabric and conductive threads

Interactive elements are:

-bark

-2 mushrooms

-2hanging plants

-bush

What did I learn?

The way how the conductive materials work and how sensible they are.

How to use capacitive sensor.

How to connect different sounds to different sensors.

How to make a sensor by my own.

How to use WAV Trigger and how to manipulate volume of sound with Arduino.

How important it is to check limit of Volt of the device I’m using.

What could be done better?

The box itself could be more visually appealing.

Sensors responsible for playing sound from bark and bush are a little bit too sensible and sometimes they play all the time and turn of only when the user stands half meter from the box.

I wish I added one interactive thing more in the box.

It would be good idea to add a reset button that would be more accessible, because Arduino reset button is now hidden behind the bark.

First sketches

Black box 50cm/50cm with two holes for hands.

Projector that shows visuals on the wall in front of the box.

Inside of the box there are different objects attached. They have different density, texture etc.

After pressing/touching each object there are different sounds and different changes in the visuals.