DALATA is a smart can crusher developed during the co:laboratorio #2

dalata.laboratorio.us

Shit Happens is a physical computing prototype, which mixes the power of wireless communication, sensors, microcontrollers, and web application APIs. Everytime the user goes to the bathroom, shit happens wirelessly alerts its twitter followers about what he/she is doing.

This is an open source project developed by laboratorio.

DIY instructions at laboratorio.us/projects/shithappens

laboratorio.us
Four guys, some beers, many ideas and the challenge of creating something different (or at least something never seen before in Brazil) for an electronics art festival. That was how Metamorfose born.
There were many options on the table, including things like toys hacking, augmented/mixed reality, maybe working with insects... playing with reality using cockroaches.
We created a simple ecosystem, a new world guided by technology and owned by these incredible creatures, which almost everybody hates. Cockroaches morph into amoebas, unicellular organisms morph into different shapes and their crazy parasites which are fed by the energy generated by the Protozoan`s movements.
The whole project was built with Processing with a lot of help from reacTVision, which is responsible for tracking the insects.
Apart from controlling the amoebas in cartesian space, the cockroaches also drive the installation sound effects. Human interaction is also possible through a mic sensor. Every noise emitted by the public causes an entire rebirth of the ecosystem.
Metamorfose is an open source project from laboratorio.

Special thanks to:
Andre Passamani
For naming this project.

hecq
Who kindly permitted us to use samples of his (great) unreleased music steeltongued (album: steeltongued / tbr 2008; label hymen records) on the generative audio effects. Thanks again hecq. We hope to have many more opportunities to work together on future projects!

Rafael Dias
For the essential help with the making of the movie.

Rafael Kfouri
Who came up with this cool (and crazy) cockroach idea, and also did everything regarding the creative side of this project. Dude, you are the man!

Layout page inspired in modernista.

Basic PoC showing how to detect/track a head using Processing.

Source code: github.com/lupeke/head-tracking/tree/master

Basic experiments with realtime (FFT) frequency analysis using the Sonia library for Processing.