Project Information
Type: Coding, interactive
Year: Fall 2024
Flight of the Bumble B is an interactive installation developed entirely in p5. The project required that we make an interactive space incorporating typography. A swarm of bees, stylized as the letter “B”, follow the viewer’s face, only flying away once being relentlessly swatted at by the viewer’s arms. This was used by incorporating a set of animated particles attracted to a point that then tracks the viewer’s nose by using an ml5.js face mesh. A similar effect was achieved for the arm using ml5.js’ hand trackers, though rather than particles being attracted to these points, they are repelled. This was my first venture into proper interactive spaces, and it was creatively fulfilling for me.
I love just watching fish swim around or bugs meandering around, and simulations and games where the user can interact with a large amount of "individuals" in a similar way have always been super interesting to me. SImulations and games like these were my biggest inspirations. One of the most prominent examples of this is the game Pikmin, but while researching I found some more basic examples that could be more easily experimented with, such as a game where you can feed a colony of flies meat and they would reproduce.
