Axel Roest, Saro Van Cleynenbreugel, Luis Fernandez, Seth Hunter

ikStaar

Technical stuff

This article describes the technical choices made inventing and making the ikStaar

Two people staring
One blinks
Connection

The idea is to use facial blink recognition to do a staring contest, make video clips of both winner and loser and show the final moments on a big screen.
For facial recognition the scene needs to be lighted well, but both subjects are facing eachother and the camera must not be blinded by the illumination. Also the object must be visually attractive and entice interaction.

For this we have iterated to the following design:

Enlarge

sideview ikStaar - sideview of the ikStaar installation Axel Roest

Enlarge

frontview ikStaar - One of the oval frontviews with the leds. Axel Roest

This prevents the cameras from being flooded by the light needed to illuminate the face of the other person.
The frame is sized to fit the smallest and tallest person on the devcamp, which gives a nice median.
Why oval? Oval objects reminds us of the mirrors they used to have and invite people to stare into.

On a separate screen, not directly visible to them, the faces of the contestants are shown for the audience.
After a minute the screen will change into a collage of winners and losers.

WALL OF FAME

WALL OF SHAME

Here's the schematic overview

Enlarge

Flowchart - Schematic overview of equipment and signals Axel Roest