Our target audience consists of artists and students, people who want to make interactive works, but do not have a lot of experience with electronics or (low-level) firmware programming.

The typical usage scenarios are:

  • prototyping: see how a sensor works, get a quick sense of what data a sensor produces by feeding the data into a familiar environment for making sound, light, video, or different media. Being able to try out different sensors before deciding which ones will actually be part of the final project.

  • making an instrument: once decisions are made on what sensors or actuators to use in a project, the wireless board needs to be embedded into an instrument: mounted on an acoustic musical instrument, inside an object, or embedded in clothing or other wearables.

  • on stage and on tour: once the instrument is made, it needs to go on stage (or in an exhibition) and tour. It needs to be reliable, quick to setup, and last over time.

Examples of what people have been using the Sense/Stage MiniBee for:

  • interactive dance with body-worn sensors, where the sensors control sound, light and/or video
  • digital musical instruments - where the MiniBee is embedded in some sort of object that becomes the instrument
  • augmented musical instruments - the MiniBee mounted on an acoustical instrument, so that the sensors can be used to process the sound of the acoustic instrument
  • light instruments: using the MiniBee to control lights wireless, customising firmware to enable different kinds of light behaviours
  • outdoor projects: mounting the MiniBee on kites, or bmx bikes
  • in installations: the MiniBees have been used to control robots, embedded in cocktail shakers, mounted on steel cables, in models of plants
  • in workshops with students learning about physical computing and digital media
  • in workshops with students learning about etextiles and embedding sensors in costumes