RGB – description

RGB

A game for kids of all ages visiting the Teknisk Museum, that has a learning aspect about how colors in light work.

“RGB” is a game where the players compete to create a given color. The kids do so by controlling the level of red, green and blue in the color they are making, and the goal is to be the first to get it right.

By interacting with the game the kids can see what effect removing or adding values of red, green and blue will have on the color they are making. Also they might notice that mixing the same amount (255) of the three colors will give them white, as opposed to paint where you would get black.

By Rune Rydland Svendsen and Jussi Nilsen

RGB – video

RGB – prototype

RGB – final graphics on the screen

This is the graphic we chose to use. We think that this is a clear and obvious layout for the game and for our demand for understand the color mixing. We consider the treshold for understanding this layout low, though there are still some issues concerning when the instructions sould be displayed, because people tend to just start covering the lights right away (which currently make the graphics disappear). The “info square” acts as a placeholder for a scoretable, and is mostly put there to inform about the project during AHO works.

RGB – the casing

We chose to go for a chunky looking casing with an 80’s arcade hall feel to it. Since the project is a game, and we want to have it in a not very well lit environment, we think that we did a good decision.

RGB – the graphics

GRAPHICAL SUGGESTIONS TO THE SCREEN.

RGB – the code

Working with processing has been challenging. None of us have any prior experience with programming (except from the arduino programming from the toy task). We have both experienced that understanding it when being showed and told is one thing, and actually trying to do the same is another. We are very pleased with the code actually working, and with the right, constant light conditions it works as intended. BUT, the code runs slow. Very slow. “1 frame pr week”. The code runs a bit faster on a stronger machine, but the main reason for the slowness probably lies
in the code for the blending of the images. Normal sized images opposed to really small (20 kb) have no affect on the speed. Huge props to Anyhony for the help!

RGB – some changes to the concept

After the workshop with Matt and Fiona where the space and equipment was adressed we chose to change from a projector to a flatscreen. This is mostly for practical reasons. When going from a ceiling mounted projector to a flatscreen, some of the “magic” gets lost in case of the colors in LIGHT and just the general experience. On the other hand it opens some other possibilities. These changes are acceptable for us beccause of two
reasons:
1. The concept is still true to the concept, it’s just presented
in another medium, and is still viable with the projector
and huge scale.
2. We were now making this innstallation spesifically for
AHO-works.
PLACEMENT IN SPACE, BUT WE ARE GOING TO USE A LCD SKREEN INSTED OF A PROJEKTOR IN THE AHO WORKS.

RGB – finding our concept

When presenting to the Teknisk Museum our concept was a cooperaative light controlling game that would require 3 kids to play. Each kid would have control of the value of one color (red, green or blue). In order to complete a game the kids would have to communicate and together figure out which one of them shoul “add” or “take away color to make the target-color.

The overall learning goal was “how colors are made and colors in light”.

The concept would have ceiling mounted projector and camera for displaying and camera- tracking the amount of colors. On the floor there would be heavy duty analog light pads.

The feedback from Teknisk Museum was fairly good, and we finally got the feelig we needed for working on this project. They also liked that all the expensive stuff was in the ceiling and impossible for the kids to trash. They would also rather see a competetive game.

After the presentation, combining the feedback with some new ideas, we finally felt that we had reached the area where learning and fun could be combined in a way that was satisfactory for us according to the brief.

So, our goal=a 2 player competetive colormixing game!

RGB – finding our concept

After presenting our “Power station” concept we understood that we should do something else. We started thinking about the field of lights and physics. During the “research” we came across this web game where you could mix the colors red, green and blue by either turning them on or off. A very simple game that wasn’t very fun to “play” but it was very educational for someone who didn’t know anything about colors.

This led us to the idea of an installation where you could mix colors and just be in the beautiful environment of these colors.

Keeping in mind where this installation was supposed to be, and who would be the main users of the systems, we changed the path and decided to go for an educational cooperative game that would teach kids how colors are made and how colors in light work.

Anthony helped us getting a code together that let us control the rgb colors and mixing them to a color.