Where Footsteps Play

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Moment of fun during a stressful week of finals

5 week team project with Zeqe Golomb

Context

Where Footsteps Play is an interactive path of colorful shapes that encourage a sense of play and belonging. The more people that step on the path, the more it glows and builds up notes and melodies into a complete song.

This installation was built with students, for students on our campus to get a small moment of joy during finals week.

Year
2025

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Toolbox
Arduino, circuiting, laser cut

Scope

Braintstorming how to narrow down our scope

To help us decide what the interaction would look like, we narrowed down our scope. We focused on how to bring a sense of...

Play

Belonging

To tackle the play aspect, we designed the installation around an LED-triggered floor path to create a step-based interaction. In explore belonging, we incorporated audio inspired by the link between music and community. As more people participate, more layers of a song are revealed, so the experience becomes more complete through collective interaction.

Codesign

To get more insight from our audience group, we hosted workshops with students across various disciplines.

Workshop 01

Goal

Understanding what people visually associate with the feeling of belonging, and translate those ideas into the design of our path.

Activity

Participants represented moments of belonging through an abstract collage of shapes, colors, and textures, followed by a brief explanation of their decisions.

Insights

Many participants referenced moments with friends. The prompt felt too abstract to generate actionable results, but warm colors consistently appeared in associations with belonging.

Workshop 02

Goal

Explore preferred shapes and path layouts that motivate people to move through the space.

Activity

Participants arranged sets of shapes into playful compositions, then experienced projected paths and discussed what they enjoyed.

Insights

Participants gravitated toward the funkier, curvier shapes. Clusters seemed to encourage the most movement, and people preferred stepping onto shapes they felt confident they could fit on.

01) Making a simple pressure plate with foil to control the LED

02) Seeing if we can make it out of a a thinner material (balsa wood)

03) Connecting the thinner switch with LEDs

04) Trying full-size shapes with acrylic and foam

05) Trying switch with acrylic and chipboard

06) Testing out size of funky shapes

07) Seeing if a sturdier material would still bend enough to create a connection

08) The final materials coming together to make a pressure plate that lights up

09) Using batteries as a battery source instead of a laptop

10) Powering multiple switches, and having them work as a system

Taking a moment to reflect...

This project was so rewarding and fun. I loved thinking about accessibility and was excited to see the installation fully functional for students on campus. I didn’t expect I could make something beyond a prototype that actually worked. For next steps, I would want to figure out how to reduce the wiring.