Creative Code Final Project | Capacitive Touch Painting
In an effort to combine traditional media as well as interactive technology I created a painting that could play sounds when touched. To do so I utilized conductive paint by Bare Conductive, an Arduino and Processing. The painting was done on a wooden panel.
I created my painting by drawing out and marking where I wanted areas to be conductive. I painted these areas with the conductive paint and everywhere else with acrylic paint. In order to be able to wire these areas to a capacitive touch board and Arduino, I hammered small nails in to the conductive spaces and painted the tops with more conductive paint to ensure a proper connection. I used alligator clips to connect the nail and the capacitive touch board attached to the Arduino. The data sent from the Arduino when each spot was touched triggered a different sound to be played via Processing using the sound library.
My sounds were clips from music that reminded me of my cats, with two conductive spots corresponding to each cat in the painting. Together, the painting and sounds became an interactive "Meow Mix Tape."
Physical Tools used:
Arduino
Adafruit Capacitive Touch Shield (can be found here.)
Bare Conductive electric paint
Wooden panel (mine had a cradle already built for ease of hanging)
Small nails
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Programs used:
Arduino
Processing
Garageband and Audacity for editing song length.
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Libraries used:
Arduino Library used and a tutorial for downloading the library and wiring a capacitive touch shield can be found here.
Processing.org sound library, specifically SoundFile found here.
I do not own any of these songs, but the full length Meow Mix Tape playlist can be found on Spotify.
