Installation size research

How much distance could we effectively use our tech in? 

Finding a balance between comfort for a group of users to experience our interactive floor with others, realistic size of fabricating the project and number of participants is a tough task. We want to let as many people as possible experience and play together, but we have to be mindful of how much room people need to stand around and be able to move their bodies. On the other hand, we also want people to feel like they are having fun together and don't want to give too much cushion between bodies. Finally, we have to realize that what we are building has to conform with the size of our lab and our budget so we can not build a studio with a stage.

Imagination can do so much, let's really see it!

As researched in our previous blog post Floor Size and Negative Space Research we have a good point of reference thanks to Dance Deck of Signature Systems Group, LLC. They are the world's largest center for renting dance floors and recommend a minimum of 4.5 square feet per person to have enough room on a dance floor. Considering this figure per person and combining it with the maximum effective distance of a X-Box Kinect which we will be using in our project we can make a good decision on the size of our floor plan.

These constraints have led us to choose a 100x100 foot square for the time being. Ideally this could populate 20 people. Unlike a traditional dance floor, our project will include display walls and a place for our performer (at this point, a DJ) to set up their materials. We have reserved a space for this which we have deemed 10 square feet, leaving 90 square feet for the participants which still equates to 20. For testing purposes we are choosing not to work in the ideal scope as we tread new waters. We are setting our maximum at 10 users until further notice and aiming for a minimum of 5 users for ideal conditions.

We want to be able to let users really go wild in our environment. Furthermore, we understand that there are limitations to the technologies we will be using during this project due to our budget restraints. All hope isn't lost friends so don't fret. Hopefully after user testing encountering the many unforeseen variables of this project we can involve more participants within this floor space, or expand our floor. Stay tuned fans! There are no instruction manuals here, just discoveries being made! #FBA!

Seeing is believing. It was crucial for us to see our floor plan in person before moving forward.