Listen to your Heart

Arduino

Collaborated with Sophia Huseby

“Listen to your Heart” is a data-driven sculpture that translates the rhythms of a couple's heartbeats into a visual and connective experience. Personalized bowls showcase each individual’s heartbeat, while a central bowl harmonizes their combined pulses through water vibrations. This experience is designed for bonded pairs of people who seek to deepen/visualize their connection.

This project is based on the study “Coregulation of respiratory sinus arrhythmia in adult romantic partners” conducted by Jonathan L Helm, David A Sbarra and Emilio Ferrer. This study discovers that there is evidence that as two people bond throughout their lifetime, their heartbeats can start to sync together.

Thank you to our mentors, Ondine Geary and Perry Owens, for their continued support throughout this process. We could not have done it without their guidance and expertise.

Process

Research question

How can we utilize both water and sculpture to create a transformative experience that fosters a sense of empathy and unity within relationships?

Source

Helm JL, Sbarra DA, Ferrer E. Coregulation of respiratory sinus arrhythmia in adult romantic partners. Emotion. 2014 Jun;14(3):522-31. doi: 10.1037/a0035960. Epub 2014 Apr 7. PMID: 24708502.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24708502/ 

Influential projects

And the Winds Kept Roaring

By Nathalie Miebach

This is a data-driven sculpture that utilizes wind data during a storm. From this piece, we were inspired by the use of data to create a powerful abstract piece. This motivated us to use real-time heartbeat data in our piece.

Phenomena: Waves

By Josef Gatti

This piece utilizes sound waves to create interesting vibrational patterns using water and salt. We were inspired by the use of natural elements which pushed us to incorporate water vibrations in our piece.

How it works

Both users place their finger on their corresponding heartbeat sensor 

User interaction

Water vibrates and creates vibrational patterns to corresponding user’s BPM

Individual bowl function

Water vibrates and creates vibrational patterns that combine both users’ BPMs in the middle bowl

Combined bowl function

Iterative process

1

Our original design included one Arduino controlling all parts which include, both heartbeat sensors, all neopixels, and all woofer speakers.

2

When testing we found that you cannot use the tone function on multiple pins at the same time, so we switched to daisy-chaining 3 Arduinos and have them communicate with one another using I2C.

3

Having 3 Arduinos talking to each other was very complex in the time constraints we had, so we connected 3 woofers per user in a series so it uses only 1 pin. We removed the aspect of the Arduinos talking to one another and instead placed a speaker from each user in the middle bowl to get the combined heartbeat effect.

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