Sonic Cross
Gabriel Fontana noticed that not all children feel comfortable when participating in sports due to the often noisy and dominant atmosphere created by shouting. Therefore, he wanted to create a game where being silent and listening carefully would reward the players. The game was designed so that players score points by passing to someone on their own team. Identifying team members was made challenging by not disclosing team assignments. Players had to figure out their teammates by listening to how the music changes when someone has the ball.
Technical design of racket electronics
Rackets with conductive yarn
Game being played
Approach
We decided to use small lacrosse nets to catch and throw the ball. This would make it very clear whether someone has the ball or not. Each racket got its own wireless control board that could communicate with the master control box via a local WIFI network. Ball detection was achieved by weaving conductive yarn into the racket netting. The ball itself was covered in conductive fabric. This way, the ball would short the connections in the netting, functioning like a switch.
My responsibilities
Within the projects, I was responsible for all engineering. This involved designing and programming the electronics for the rackets and the master control box, writing the software to display the score and interactively mixing the audio, and creating the 3D printed pieces to mount the racket electronics in their handles.
Video of the game being played
Photograpy by Filip Vejzović
Video by Sol Archer