[Robotgroup] Hauntlites- Review, thoughts, Lessons learned, and improvements...

[Paul Atkinson]

Looks like you captured most of the things I saw or mentioned other than making things more robust & less subject to handling. I'm thinking we should remove the keying nubs inside the lense retainer and mount the LEDs on much shorter leads. I may try a very different mounting approach if time permits - call it a learning experience.

Paul

Vern Graner <vern at txis.com> wrote: Ok, so I've had a chance to think on the Hauntlites for a bit and 
thought I'd share the observations with the other interested folks. :)

First, and foremost, the Hauntlites worked as designed! Huzzah! For a 
first test of a proof of concept, I feel we had a tremendous success. 
Not a SINGLE Hauntlite failed during testing last night. I think mega 
Kudos are in order for Paul as his design was solid and mega Kudos to 
our assembly team in a 100% success rate! :)

So, on to the review and postmortem! (heh..) Some key issues discovered 
through experience and observation:

1) Patrons are too busy waving the light from place to place to notice 
*what* is generating the "darkness".

Even if they point the light toward a prop or actor that is the "source" 
of the darkness, when the light goes out, its *after* they have "swept" 
past the source (and the light has come back on). The beam from the 
flashlight is flicking from place to place so quickly that the bearer 
does not make the mental connection that- "Hey! The light goes out when 
pointed at that!". There's just too much chaos and "stuff" happening to 
make that connection in their head. Also, any patron *not* holding the 
light doesn't see the connection at all.

2) It needs to be PITCH BLACK in order for the effect to really work.

If ambient light levels allow the patrons to see their surroundings w/o 
benefit of the flashlight, then its turning off is irrelevant. Only when 
the light going out causes complete, instant blindness will this effect 
really work.

3) Certain rooms are more conducive to the effect working properly.

One of the rooms (shown here:)

http://www.notepad.org/mot/images/img_0629.jpg

was ideal as the patrons were in areas where the Hauntlite is easily 
targeted from multiple points by the actors. Other good areas include 
the hallways with the "slats" for walls that allow the actors to observe 
the patrons and target through the cracks in the wall. The coffin room 
(sorry, I didn't get a picture of that one somehow) would be another 
good room as the patron has to walk down a row of vertically-standing 
coffins and each one has to be investigated to see if a monster is 
inside. This would be much more difficult with an intermittent Hauntlite. :)

--Problems encountered with our current implementation--

Issue 1: The lights, as delivered, were judged too bright and 
subsequently some green spray paint was applied by the MOT staff to the 
Hauntlight lenses to darken and diffuse the light. This paint attenuated 
the IR light from reaching the detector, making the Hauntlights more 
resistant to being turned off (contributing to "Issue 3" below)

Resolution: To address the brightness concern, remove one (or two) of 
the LEDs. This will have numerous benefits, including a) reducing parts 
cost, b) increasing battery life and c) decreasing assembly complexity. 
It was also suggested that the water-clear LED case be "roughed" with 
sandpaper to make the light more diffuse.

Issue 2: The IR remotes (as delivered) have a red LED that illuminates 
when the remote is transmitting IR signals. This red flickering LED 
would give away the actors positions in the haunt as it was clearly 
visible when they were "firing" at the patrons.

Resolution: We can simply open these remotes and cut the red LED out of 
the circuit. As these LEDs appear to be in parallel with the IR 
transmitting LED, this may have the added effect of increasing the IR 
level making the transmitter more effective in being able to turn off 
the flashlight no matter the orientation of the light or the 
transmitter. (Note: we might want to remove the pads for buttons that do 
not produce IR, i.e. "program" or "mode switch", in order to make it 
easier for the actors to trigger the remotes).

Issue 3: Actors seemed to be distracted by having to "aim" the remotes. 
Though our original design was structured around having the ability to 
direct the "dark generator" toward a flashlight to "kill" it, the 
reality is that the flashlight/patron is moving so fast that aiming is 
very difficult or impossible. This seems to be a distraction for the 
actors as they become distracted in trying to "hit" the flashlight with 
the IR transmitter in an attempt to get a result, instead of focusing 
their energies on giving a good acting performance.

Resolution: To address the lack of responsiveness to the IR 
transmitters, the cardboard baffle could have a hole created/enlarged to 
allow the IR light easier access to the receiver. The LED leads could be 
shortened to bring the sensor closer to the front of the light to allow 
it a wider view of the area. During testing we had discovered that the 
IR light from the transmitter would extinguish the Hauntlite even when 
activated from under the test table. We felt this was a detriment and 
subsequently made changes in design to try and limit the view of the IR 
receiver to allow for directional control. It appears that now we should 
consider redesigning the board to be as sensitive as possible to any 
trigger light so as to make it possible for the actors to simply press a 
button to make the light go out.


Additional notes and observations:

One of the original scenarios envisioned would be to have "dark 
generators" that would be permanently transmitting and set in specific 
places in the haunt to create a feeling that that particular area is 
scarier than another area. As the holder of the flashlight appears to 
not have any perception that a particular source was responsible for the 
failure of the light, the idea of a static dark generator seems less 
attractive or useful.

Summary:

All in all I would say this was a great success and with a little work, 
the Hauntlites could be made into a major contributor to the patrons end 
experience. When we delivered the first set of Hauntlites, the actors 
were actually fighting over who would get to have a remote control. I 
think this is a good sign. :)

Vern

-- 
Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE    | "If the network is down, then you're
Senior Systems Engineer    | obviously incompetent so why are we
Texas Information Services | paying you? Of course, if the network
http://www.txis.com        | is up, then we obviously don't need
Austin Office 512 328-8947 | you, so why are we paying you?" ©VLG
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