The last two weeks have been spent thinking about and prototyping solutions for our final project. We’ve both arrived at the conclusion that the most interesting aspect of our project is the large balloon that “holds” sound and alters it as the viewer physically interacts with the air inside by pushing and prodding it.

So far we’ve been focused on identifying the best ways to construct balloons of a custom shape. It turns out that the best method to do so is to use heat to melt together edges and the outlines of balloon structures. We’ve found that “heat sealing” machines work great, but for our purposes, small irons are ideal. We even found online documentation stating that the same could be done with soldering irons.

Once we perfected the balloon building technique, we then added a barometer board specifically designed for high-pressure applications. The result was fantastic - the sensor was not noisy at all (stayed at a nice 1005 hPa), and was extremely sensitive to touching the balloon, giving us a great range throughout. We’re now working on routing the cables out of the balloon alongside the air, in the hopes of making a reproducible system that is easy to use.

BOM & SCHEDULE:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M4LJBf3DvEedDQtQ3Tcuhke1ty0gg370A9zrQk5-DyE/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M4LJBf3DvEedDQtQ3Tcuhke1ty0gg370A9zrQk5-DyE/preview?usp=sharing)