Week 9, Part 2- DRESS REHEARSAL!!!

 DRESS REHEARSAL (3/11):

TIME FOR THE BIG DRESS REHEARSAL!!!!  AHH!!!!!!

Vivian, Lara, Cindy, and several other team members met up at the motion capture lab at 3pm to start getting ready. My thesis class is from 3pm to 5:50pm, but kind Father Emil let me, Nick, Varun, and Yash go at about 4pm so that we could help set up for when doors to the project opened at 6pm. 

I brought a cape I had patterned and sewn previously for Nick to wear for his ringmaster role.   I knew he was going to be playing a big bombastic personality and figured he needed a little pizazz in his appearance as well so that visitors would be able to see that he was a part of the performance.  

Nick in his ringmaster cape

FINAL COSTUME: 

Vivian grabbed the costume from me at 3pm and was kind enough to solder the wires I had sewn in and labelled onto the 12 point capacitive touch sensor.  There are three different levels of discomfort divided throughout the 12 different sections of the body suit, with level 1 being the most comfortable, and level 3 being the most uncomfortable.  Both hands, forearms, and upper arms are level 1, along with the two lower legs.  The back/stomach and outer thighs are level 2 discomfort, and the chest and butt/crotch are level 3.  As such, the wires are arranged on the 0-11 slots on the touch sensor in the order of:  0: Left hand. 1: Left forearm. 2: Left upper arm.  3: Right hand.  4: Right forearm.  5: Right upper arm.  6: Lower left leg.  7: Lower right leg.  8: Stomach & back.  9: Outer thighs.  10:  Chest.  11: Butt and inner thighs.

 

The capacitive touch sensor on Cindy's lower back

Cindy in costume and in postition

 

PROMPT CARDS:

While Lara, Nick, and Yash got all the technical systems up and running, Varun and I moved in tables, set up different stations for the performance, and then worked on prompt cards.  Together, the two of us went through all of the card prompt submissions our group members had come up with and vetted each one with Cindy to make sure she understood what each one meant and would be comfortable executing all of them.  We scrapped ones that would be unlikely to work with the motion capture kinects (ones that involved getting too far down on the ground), ones that would possibly break the suit (anything that involved pulling on Cindy in different directions or making her stretch to extremes), ones that were too unclear (like "make the puppet hate you" or "embarrass the puppet") or ones that were uncomfortable for Cindy.  I had to convince Varun that the "YMCA" is NOT obscure and everyone would know what it meant, despite his protests (I was right btw).  We then wrote down all the approved prompts onto prompt cards to be placed on the table outside.  

Approved prompt cards included:

• Give the puppet a bear hug  
• Make the puppet strike an embarrassing pose 
• Make the puppet dance the "YMCA"
• Make the puppet bow
• Waltz with the puppet
• Stroke the puppet from head to toe

 ...among others.

PERFORMANCE FLOW:

Audience members come up to the table outside, where Preeti and Lianna introduced people to the project, saying it's an interactive puppet we created and that we are currently testing the sensors built into it if you want to come pick a prompt card and play with it for us.  Participants pick a prompt card, then head into the room.  Upon entering the motion capture studio, they realize for the first time that the puppet is not a doll, but in fact real live human being Cindy.  Cindy wears the capacitive touch sensor suit and stands still, gently smiling in front of the big projector screen, which shows a wooden puppet in the same position standing in a child's room.  Nick serves as the ringmaster and directs participants one by one to step up and interact with Cindy.  He goads them into physically touching Cindy in order to complete the task on their cards, with the promise that they will get to write their own card if they successfully complete the task.  By touching anywhere on the suit's conductive tape designs, the participants fire off different signals in Unreal Engine based upon which of the 12 areas they're touching, and those drive the values of the "discomfort index" inside Unreal, which in turn controls the midi controllers and makes increasingly upsetting sounds play over the speaks.  More touches also trigger more events in the virtual environment on the screen, until eventually it triggers a "puppet.exe has crashed" window pop up, and Cindy collapses into the fetal position.  Nick then apologizes for the technical difficulties, we call a reset, and we start over again for new participants.  Participants who successfully complete their card go over to Yash's table and get to write a prompt card of their own.  

User generated prompt cards

ROLE AS SAFETY COORDINATOR:

My role during the performance is as safety coordinator.  I sit at the edge of the "stage" area and carefully watch Cindy to make sure no one is doing anything untoward to her.  She and I have a debrief before each performance where we go over her hand signals for "help me" in case she feels uncomfortable but unwilling to speak up, which I constantly watch for.  I reviewed each of the prompt cards with her and made sure she understood what each of them means and that she would be comfortable doing all of them, and we discarded those that she did not approve.  I check with her periodically to see if she needs water or a break, and bring her water when requested.  I also would get up between rounds of people enter the room to verbally check in with her and see how she was doing and if she needed anything.  At the end of the day, we talked about how it went and what concerns she had so that they can be addressed in the next performance.  It went really well!

I also pointed out a few other safety issues around the room, like getting everyone to tape down the wires on the floor that spanned areas where guests would walk so that no one would trip, haha. 

RECEPTION: 

I was absolutely thrilled with the reception this project got.  Preeti, Lauren, and Lianna scouted for anyone around the building willing to come try out our project, and we had a good number of people come through and test it for us.  This "playtest" of sorts was vital because Paul repeatedly emphasized, almost every week, that the core concept of our project was flawed because "you are overestimating how uncomfortable people are with touching someone else".  I thought this was a totally wild thing to say, because I personally am very uncomfortable touching someone I don't know without them acknowledging some form of consent, and I thought other people would be to.

I cannot describe how thrilled I was to discover that Every.  Single.  Participant.  required heavy and persistent encouraging to even TOUCH Cindy, let alone pose her or interact as requested.  I was absolutely thrilled.  People tried EVERYTHING to avoid touching her.  They tried miming motions to see if she would mimic them, pleading with her to strike the pose, asking her if it was okay to touch her and getting increasingly upset when she wouldn't respond, even pretending to touch her and hovering several inches away- it was beautiful.  When they finally did get pressured enough to touch her, they did everything from whispering "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" while touching her to delicately prodding her with a single fingertip as if fearing she would electrocute them.  I was over-the-moon excited that the project did exactly what I wanted it to do: put people in a weird uncomfortable position and demonstrate their own values through their actions.  It was so good.

A participant mimes a bear hug, giving Cindy an air hug, out of discomfort at the idea of touching her.

Dave takes considerable encouragement to touch Cindy, after first striking the pose himself and trying to get her to imitate him.

A participant mimes a bow several times and repeatedly requests Cindy to bow before tentatively touching her.

TO FIX: 

The performance for the most part went really well!  I was personally extremely pleased with it.  Preeti and the publicity gang ran user feedback surveys to get the thoughts of everyone who participated and we got some great responses.  The main things we're focusing on for next week are:

• Have Nick, our ringmaster, stand in front of the screen so people look at it more instead of facing away 
• Double check every individual circuit in the suit, since some of them were responding better than others and some were sending out incorrect signals
• Make flow of performance clearer so that people aren't left confused by the sidelines
• Add additional effects to the visual display which provide more direct feedback for each touch
•  Create marketing and publicity materials
• Incorporate user feedback from the surveys, particularly regarding instructions that were unclear