Refrigerator Door is an interactive installation that features movable magnetic letters attached to an acrylic panel. Viewers can move around letters on the board, and when letters come into a certain distance with another, letters are projected onto the panel that complete the word. Attempting to recreate the nostalgia of playing with letters on a refrigerator door as a child while also creating an engaging experience for today’s children, the piece combines a physical interface through the alphabet magnets along with a digital interface through the projected letters.

This installation was developed entirely using OpenFrameworks, and uses the addon ofxAruco for consistent marker tracking. The markers are tracked using a PS3Eye Camera, taking advantage of its infrared camera.

This project was developed as a midterm for the class Sensors, Body and Motion

Markers behind the letters

Ideation and User Experience

The installation was intended to be one that augmented the experience of moving computer-tracked objects around a tabletop through light, shadows, and sound, however, motion tracking on a table top proved to be somewhat difficult. I was also using color tracking at this point and it did not seem to be effective. Below is a prototype that I made using the initial concept using color tracking.

I aimed to create an experience that would cater to both adults and children and took inspiration from how I would move refrigerator magenets around on a fridge when I was a kid to spell different words. At the same time, I wanted something that would be enjoyable for today's children that are using iPads and smartphones to learn. I merged these two ideas into this installation using the sleek, white background as a reminder to adults that this is supposed to be a refrigerator door, but at the same time incorporating the rendered letters and the moving flowers for the piece to resemble something like an iPad application

This project was featured at the NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center from October 8th until November 11th. It was also displayed at the university's annual Open Studios

User Testing

I conducted user testing one week prior to the submission of this project and its permanent installation. The way people interacted with the project was very interesting, and gave me insight into how I could improve the project as well as interactions that I overlooked. I was able to fix some of the problems and refined aspects of the user experience based on their feedback

One observation that I found the most interesting and that I overlooked was that people would move the physical foam magnets to try to spell words on their own, being confused when seemingly random letters appeared between the foam magnets. People's ideas ran wild when they were discussing how the project could be improved upon in the future. Ideas ranged from voices that would read newly created words on a speaker to a board that could turn the rendered letters into poetry which could be projected onto the board.

One other issue that occurred was that letters would sometimes fall when users would move the letters around. I was able to solve this by replacing them with stronger magnets. The problem would still persist if someone really wanted to remove them, but after a few weeks of the project running for anyone to use, I have only observed fallen foam magnets once.

Lastly, people commented on the appearance of the letters rendered on the screen, commenting that it was hard to see, both because of the small size and the colors used. I simply made the colors darker and made the size of the letters rendered bigger.