“This is a Jouney into Sound” is a demo of the RHIFID speaker control system developed for the Physical Computing class. Using a combination of RFID technology, Processing and Arduino, the speakers work as location aware controllers, allowing the user to interact with music and the environment by moving the speakers around.
“This is a Journey into Sound” is an educational trip into the history of electronica, rock and hip hop from the past 50 years. A grid is mapped out using RFID tags, allowing each user of the two speakers to listen to a song individually, within a specific genre and decade by placing it on the RFID tag. Each RFID is mapped to a song iconic of that decade in the appropriate genre.
Putting the two speakers together triggers the speakers into playing one common song, creating a social listening experience. The RHIFID speakers can also be modified into musical creators rather than just controllers, allowing location and rotation to control such things as pitch, samples and effects.
Providing more than two speakers in this setup can spark an entire set of creative events during which collaboration and interaction can bring people to a completely new level of experiencing music.