Considerate Conversation

By Flora Macloed

“A voice sensitive light that, if used correctly illustrates a well-balanced conversation. It enables two users to see their flow of conversation, where balance is aesthetically represented by a wave of lights matching the user’s voice level, speed and volume. A verbal clash will deactivate the flow, resulting in an absence of light. From experience, we all know how it feels to be interrupted or not to be listened to; this light encourages people to remember this feeling, and to practice the art of sharing a meaningful conversation.

Working on a project like this with the hackspace team has taught me so much, through technical failures and success, and I hope that I will be working on projects like this in the future.”

The project uses an Arduino board with sound detecting modules listening for input through the microphones. The sound is then interpreted then output signals are sent to a series of LED strips that are triggered based on the volume of the sounds detected by the sound modules. An array data structure was used to allocate the two sound inputs to the correct LED strip outputs, allowing two sources to affect the one series of lights.