Zauberwald 2018

Project Brief

The 3rd semester Interaction Design students will create a light installation for the Zauberwald festival 2018 in Lenzerheide. The project will be part of the Physical Computing and Interactive Visualization courses. As the project is supported by Energiewerke Zürich (EWZ) we will take the topic of "Renewable Energy" for the installation. 

Partner

EWZ produces and delivers energy in Zurich and Graubünden and also powers the festival with 100% renewable energy.

Topic

The light installation focuses on the topic of renewable energy, specifically the production, efficiency and use of those energies today and in the future.

We will look at the following energy sources as part of the project:

• Water
• Solar
• Wind

Output

The 3rd semester students are tasked with creating an input object and visualization that is presented in a common installation in the forest.

Each input object embodies one of the energy sources as an abstract, minimal, symbolical interpretation. The visitors should be able generate "power" by interacting with the object which can be aligned with the actual way of generating that power or in a more simplified fashion. The objects will emit the a value between 0% and 100% representing the capacity of generated power, 0% meaning none and 100% meaning at full capacity. As the light installation will be presented in harsh weather the objects must be solid, rugged and fit for snow and water.

In the second phase, the students will create a visualization that is projected on a big circular screen in the forest. The visualization harnessed the data emitted by all the objects and may for example show the different efficiencies of the present energy sources. The visualizations are played after each other and may deal with the same or similar topics. Every group should develop their own visual style that fits the "magical" forest scenery. An additional poster will present the used data, visualization approach and process of each visualization to visitors that are more interested in the project.

• Every energy source is represented twice. This means that the power is relative to the available capacity. For example, wwo solar objects at 40% and 70 % would produce in total 55% of the total capacity.
• The visualizations are played in order and repeated. Each visualization gets three inputs: the current capacity of water, solar and wind power.

Goal

...

Format & Constraints

The physical objects must be self-contained and have the size of 40x40x40cm. Each object sends its value over MQTT to a separate topic e.g. "/object/a".

The visualisations are Processing sketches that work with a resolution if 1080x1080 pixels. The sketches will be invoked with the following function:

void viz(float t, float a, float b, float c, float d, float e, float f) {
  // t: time from 0 to 1
  // a, b, c, d, e, f: object values from 0 to 1
}

Deliverables

Physical Computing

• 6 Interactive Objects

Interactive Visualization

• 6 Interactive Visualizations
• 6 Posters

Important Dates

Resources

https://www.ewz.ch/de/ueber-ewz/unternehmen/energieproduktion.html#Kehricht

Data Sources

http://www.bfe.admin.ch/themen/00526/00541/00543/index.html?lang=en&dossier_id=00772

Todo

• Define Visualization Topics?
• Book Hörsaal for PC final presentation. 
• Finalize Process (Object refurbishing?)
• Research Materials / Resources
• Write Description for Booklet
• Finalize Installation Plans (Blueprint)
• Order Materials (Projector, Rig,  ...)