Experience Design/Technology at Hyper Island
History is full of women. Ada Lovelace is one of them. She was born in London on the 10th of December 1815 and is the world's first computer programmer. She believed that intuition and imagination is key in exploring the unseen world around us. And that poetical science was the way to examine how people and society relate to technology as a collaborative tool. In many ways, Ada Lovelace anticipated our digital age, in Victorian times.
A fifteen minutes interactive Escape Game where your mission is to embrace the imagination and the poetical science of Ada Lovelace. Follow in Ada's footsteps and find the missing piece in the algorithm for the very first computer program.
We created a different type of an escape room. A room where you can discover the history of Ada Lovelace while solving tasks.
The steps explained:
Map of the room
We built a dome, where the visitor had to solve three tasks to "escape" the room.
Step 1:
To illustrate the childhood of Ada Lovelace, we decided to hang origami birds from the ceiling. Your mission was to study the anatomy of those birds by touching them. After the right 3 birds have been touched, a box was unlocked and you got access to a few cards and a wire that was leading you to the next step.
How did it work?
Three of the origami birds were folded with foil paper and connected to an Arduino with the capacitive sensor library. The box was also connected to the same Arduino and was using a small servo motor to open the door when all the capacitive sensors had been triggered. Three LEDs were also on that box. They lit up when you touched a bird to let you know you are on the right track and started blinking when the door was open.
Step 2:
To create a link between her childhood (Flyology, analog) and her adult life (Analytical Engine, digital), we decided to make people set up a clock. They had to wire up the clock and set a specific time to it. With that object, people were connecting those life moments of Ada Lovelace. Also, the concept of time introduced by that clock could be considered as both analog and digital. After setting up the clock, a light system turned on and highlighted the top of the dome. The person then had to figure out what to put on that core.
How did it work?
The numbers to set up the clock could be found in the cards from the previous task. The clock had a serial LCD connected to an Arduino with two potentiometers to set the time. Firstly, the clock had to be turned on by using the wire found in the box among the cards. Wiring up the clock and setting it up by the right numbers would send a signal to another Arduino to light up the dome’s core.
Step 3:
A bunch of papers with poems and mathematic notes were on the floor. The person had to find which paper had the missing part of the algorithm and put it in the right place – on the core – to trigger the grand finale, escape and finish the game.
How did it work?
A webcam was hidden on the top of the dome and connected through a machine learning and processing software to Arduino’s core. The webcam was trained to recognize when the right paper got placed. When done it would send a signal to the Arduino and light up the dome.