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

[Paul Atkinson]

Gray,

Thanks for letting me use your exposure lamp. I might run some more boards this weekend, but let me know if you need it back right away.

They give one flashlight out per group of 4. Bad if you are in the back of the group.
Might ask you for info on frosting the LEDs, not sure what direction we are going yet.
I think we have options on the brightness of the LEDs without painting them, reduce number of LEDs, increase resistor values, etc.
Real good ideas with bright lights between rooms and the emergency flashlight cabinet, but it isn't our haunt to decorate. ;-(
There is a sign that video surveillance is being used, might cover the photo use.

Paul

Gray Mack <gray_mack at yahoo.com> wrote: Some ideas:
Unfortunately I havent seen these in action but here
are my thoughts:

A tight beam can look really nice, especially in a
foggy room and also make it more directional. Seems
like a diffused beam would be less likely to indicate
a dark region? I have a lot of experience frosting
LEDs with a grinding wheel if you need to. Works best
with uninstalled LED's.

One thing I learned from caving is that once your eyes
adjust a lot of dim lights can really illuminate a
cave well. That might not be good in a haunted house,
but that depends on how hastily it was built, how much
the walls reflect and how big it is.

I wonder if these work better in big rooms/outdoors or
better in a small close quarters situation? Does
everyone get a light or is it random selection?

You could paint the LEDs instead of the lenses to make
it darker and not interfeer with the sensor. Better
yet, use a bigger resistor.

If you make them walk through a brightly lit corridor
between areas then you kill their night vision making
the flashlights more important.

You could try to incorporate the lights into the
middle of the trip from an "emergency supply cabinet"
so that they don't get to use them in all the areas.

You could have whole rooms flooded with the dark
signal so the lights all flicker, strobe, or go out
completely. Experimenting with different effects from
the lights could provide some alternative usages.

p.s.
I thought it might be fun to give the people a photo
of the group taken at the instant that they were
really scared by something. Would that work in a
haunted house? The photo could be an inexpensive ink
jet with an advertisement banner on it to come back
next year. Of course that means someone has to man the
camera/computer/printer/paper cutter. Would you need a
posted "cameras in use" disclamer?

--- Vern Graner  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 
=== message truncated ===


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