I was discussing the idea of using the Ensemble to allow some children to ‘sign-in’ to class with Doug Briggs from Omnimusic. His idea was to have a virtual register in the soft play room, with the children able to step or roll onto a switch hidden in the soft play. This would trigger an audio clip of their name being said and a projection of their image on the wall.
The map below shows one way of approaching this problem. It uses a ‘Multiplexor’ block, an advanced tool that can be downloaded from the Resources Library.
There are two switches (in my case both connected to an EnsembleConnect) – one is for the student and the other is for the teacher. The pupil switch goes into a Switch Processor block set to Timed Mode. This helps get rid of any false triggering by making the switch ignore any subsequent presses for the number of seconds set on the block.
The Multiplexor block is basically a kind of routing tool. To begin with the pupil switch (connected to the ‘Input’ port) is linked to the first output port on the block. This means that it triggers Audio Clip Pupil 1. When the teacher presses their switch (connected to the ‘Trigger’ port) the routing changes and the pupil switch is linked to the second output port (Audio Clip Pupil 2). Each subsequent press moves the link to the next output port in sequence, until it goes back to the beginning.
One final element on the map. I’ve linked the Image/Video Block to the ‘Playing’ output ports on the Audio Clip blocks. This means that the images will only stay on screen as long as the audio file is playing. It helps to link the cause and effect together in a very strong way.
To carry out the register the teacher would pass the switch to one pupil at a time, in order. Every time they press their switch they will trigger a picture of themselves on screen, together with an audio clip of their name. When the switch is passed to the next pupil, the teacher presses the switch to select the next persons settings.
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