2.00b Toy Product Design

PLAYsentation Audio

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The 2.00b PLAYsentations supports two kinds of audio: sound effects and toy audio. Sound effects are audio elements that are played during portions of your PLAYsentation. Toy audio would be the audio that comes from your toy's speaker.

Sound Effects

File preparation

If you will want to play audio during your presentation, it must be in a Keynote or Powerpoint presentation file. One team member will be given a remote to trigger slides in your presentation file, which will trigger the audio. This Keynote or Powerpoint file must be ready before the dress rehearsal so that the staff can balance the audio file for the stage setup before the dress rehearsal. If you need help setting up this file, please ask a TA.

Audio File Tips

Please check the following in your sound files:

• Levelize the sounds within your file. They should all be the same relative volume to each other because we won't be able to modulate the sound in the middle of the presentation. How to do this in Keynote (click "Adjust playback volume") and Powerpoint.
• If you started in Google slides, please make a new PowerPoint or Keynote presentation, and embed the sound files there. It doesn't work if you simply export Google Slides.
• Do not include very long sound files (like an entire song). Please cut those sound files to the exact length you plan to use. That will make sure you don't cut a song off abruptly, and it can give your team an auditory queue that scene is wrapping up.
• Similarly, certain sound files sound better if you fade them out (compared to an abrupt stop). Examples include background tracks like underwater bubbling or woodland sounds. A crash or a bang should have that abrupt stop. If your audio files don't do this already, you can use Garageband or similar software to do this.
• Check to make sure your first sound effect does not automatically play when the slideshow starts. It should start "on click."
• Practice the queueing! For example, it depends on how you set up your file if you need one or two clicks between sound effects.

File Submission

By noon, Saturday, May 13: Upload your file to this Dropbox. This should be your final audio file.

Please name the file as follows (with appropriate file extension at the end):

File testing

At dress rehearsal, in 1-134: Check that the audio file was received successfully. Be sure to bring a computer with the file on it in case there are any problems and a re-transfer is necessary.

Your team will test the audio file and practice using the remote to trigger the sound effects during your dress rehearsal on Sunday.

Edits

If your audio file needs editing, it must be re-submitted to the Dropbox above by 9AM Monday, May 15, and your team should sign up for an audio testing session on Monday (details below).

Toy Audio

The dress rehearsal is focused on position of the performers and the script. We will need additional time to set up the microphone for each toy. This is done during the Monday audio testing session.

Monday Audio Testing

All teams whose toys will be mic'd need to sign up for a time.

Please sign up (refresh page if there is an error) for a 15-minute time slot to test the audio of your prototype (if applicable). Audio testing sessions are between approximately 2:30-5PM on Monday.

The first 5 minutes will be spent mic'ing the prototype. The final 10 minutes will be on-stage testing of the prototype audio.

At least 1 team member should be present, and it should be a team member that knows what the audio should sound like.

After the audio testing, the prototype will stay mic'd in the tent behind the stage until your PLAYsentation, so all modifications to the prototype must be made before your audio testing session.

The current audio testing schedule is below:
(refresh page if there is an error)