Designed to be part of group of electronic instruments, what I propose to build is a wearable controller focusing on leg 
movements of the performer. This specific design would be oriented towards allowing the performer to use elements of 
breakdancing, rave style dancing, or as simple as just resting at tapping a heel. The sound the instument makes would be 
specialized so that the performer could focus on dance, and how it relates to the music and vice versa, and not have to worry 
about controlling all aspects of the music, which would impede the ability to breakdance or to have as rich a composite sound. 

-Motivation: The driving idea behind it all is to create an electronic music band. Music and light would be performed live for 
audiences. None of the performers would be allowed to do use non-visually dynamic instruments, such as a laptop computer that 
the audience cannot relate to. Large gestural motions are good, as are instruments that allow the performers to move about the 
stage in an improvised manner. Each instrument would be different, and have a different element in the music, with perhaps one 
instrument being a controller applied to all the other instrument's outputs. 

Of these instruments, one would be very focused on dancing. The sound most commonly associated with a driving beat that moves 
your feet is the bassline, so that instrument would be focused in that sonic area. This would not only include some sort of 
drum-like sound, but also probably another layer woven in with the drums, automatically relating itself in the software that 
runs the two. 

The ideal situation would be to have the dancer unencumbered or limited in moves, and have the software and hardware customized 
to the dancer, so that their best and least used moves would produce the most spectatuclar sounds and patterns. 

-Physical: The most basic version of this suit would have an accellerometer on each calf, on the inside of the leg, strapped to 
the leg and protected in some sort of set of greaves. The accelerometers would have wires that connect to a wireless data 
transmitter (radio?), and a capacitor. The system needs to be wireless, because it is not possible to breakdance well or even 
move around the other performers when teathered to a machine. There would need to be a receiver, which would be connected to a 
computer, or alternatively a midi controller and then to some sort of device. A computer, however, would probably still be 
better if an external device were to ultimately generate the sound, which will be coved in "software". 

A more advanced hardware system can incorperate the following: 

*Bracers on the forarms (2 different good uses for this): 1- to mount some sort of button system to send data to the computer 
to change what kind of processing is done with the accellerometers 2 - to attach bend sensors on the wrists, and possibly the 
elbows. This control would not be as distinct or prominent as the effects from the accelerometers on the legs, however. Likely, 
they'd control the secondary rythm. 

*more leg sensors. 3 possible additions: -An accellerometer in the foot aligned forwards and backwards in the plane that people 
walk in, as oppossed to the near verticle alignment of the regular accelerometers. This would catch a lot more of the kick and 
flair leg movements, though I do not know how this would impact the sound, thus I am leaving it as an extension of the base 
system. -A mass parallel to the verticle calf accelerometers. Again, the direct impact on sound is not so clear. However, it 
would allow the computer to easily understand the dynamics of fancy upside down moves, such as L-kicks, wherein the dancer 
momentairly supports all weight through one hand, and the legs are both up in the air and still. Still legs mean no 
acceleration. -A knee bend sensor. Once more, the direct use is not clear, but it is a possible direction to explore. 

*physically extended controllers: accelerometers or moving bearing in baggy clothing has potential. It isn't an immediately 
responding style of control to a sharp movement, so if used, these would have to play a secondary control function. 

-Hardware philosophy: "Less is More". I could stick plenty of sensors on, but it would likely not be on par with the complex 
movements of the dancer, unless each sensor and its purpose and its affect/effect is well planned, well implemented, and well 
understood by the dancer and designer (likely just me, but still...). 

-Computer Interface: The software end is dependent on the hardware end in my approach to this design. Regardless of what I add 
on, I know the first priority will be developping a strong relation between the accelerometers and the sound. 

Acceleration is greatest and going upwards during the force impulse when a person steps or stomps. This is very significant and 
useful. The simplest design would ignore acceleration less than a certain magnitude, and when it surpasses the magnitude, 
anticipate a peak, and then trigger a sound. Obviously this knowledge has more that can be done with it (I'll elaborate later, 
and mention more concepts about the accelerometers now). 

A constant or extended slope on the graph of acceleration over time for a significant amount of time will be from some sort of 
slicing or spinning movement with the calf perpendicular to the tangent of the the arc of the spinning movement. These 
movements are interesting to see, and should be taken advantage of for sound generation. Spin moves made where the calf is 
perpendicular to the plane of the spin arc will generate almost no change in accelleration, which is why I am tempted to put 
another accelerometer on the top of the foot pointing away from the collumn of the body. 

Kick movements with the legs in the air will generate accelleration, but will not be as much as a stomp, and will have are more 
gradute, albiet sharp, curve in their graph over time. 

Jumping into the air and really quick stepping movements will create a high amount of accelleration not unlike step, though 
somewhat less sudden. I believe it will probably be best to get the software to distinguish between these two graphs. 

MAX is a strong candidate for the sortware environment, though I feel it is not really necessary in many ways. Also, I run 
Windows and Linux, and although MAX now runs on windows, most of MAX's development has been oriented towards macintosh, which 
may or may not be an issue later on (i.e. stability during a performance). 

Resources: Currently I have a windows/linux computer, and not MAX on said computer. I'm not sure which brand of electronics I 
should go for, though definitely being small/thin and durable are priorities. 

Schedule:
-Instrument finished ~2 weeks before concert -Hardware/software decisions and purchasing made by next week, with a simple, non-
wireless, not very dancable version a week later (2 weeks from now) for proof on concept. No later than 4 weeks from now, I 
want to be able to dance in the suit (wireless, durable design, some force-sound optimizations close to ready), with time to 
then tune it into something great, and add more parts if needed. If everything is compeltely finished early on, I'll look into 
adding redunancy, to avoid catastrophy during performance. 

-website on work with updates to be up soon 

-Dylan