Sonic Heartbeat

Using data generated by actual flight tests conducted at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center and data collected from NASA noise laboratories, app developers should construct a visualization of low boom as it compares to normal sonic boom. Currently noise data is either illustrated with ‘contours’ around airport runways and surrounding areas or presented numerically in decibels. Can an app be developed that allows people to ‘see’ the difference between low boom and normal sonic boom over their geographical area? Such an app would help visual learners to grasp the difference more rapidly than traditional data displays.

Our team was made up of Idilia and myself. Neither of us are developers, so we would like to share with you, our conceptual suggestions for a mobile application that meets the challenge description.

We placed our main focus on finding creative ways for the app to use visual illustrations of sound. The challenge called for an application showing a US map with a flight route between San Fransisco and New York, where the new supersonic flights with a low boom would pass overhead. In our solution the app would have a map in which the user could tap on to indicate their position and receive a visual illustration of the sound level from the plane going past in their stated location. It was also important to come up with a visualisation that could be widely understood, since the target audience for the app were the affected communities.

We thought of different views to show the difference between the standard sonic boom and the new low boom that differed from the traditional way of illustrating sound using waves. Below are the ideas we came up with during the challenge:

• Compare the noise level of the sonic boom to the low boom using everyday objects that produce noise. In this solution, after the user enters their location, they will be presented with a sound producing object that makes a sound at the same decibel level as the sound from the planes will be heard at that location. E.g. if you are close to the flight path, you may hear the low boom produce a sound that is as loud as the hum of a table fan, or a person snapping their fingers.
• Have an animated heart with three colours (illustration). The outer ring is the sonic boom, the middle ring is the acceptable noise level, and the inner ring 'beats' within the decibel ranges that will be heard in the users area.
• Use an animated glass of water to indicate how much the low boom will be felt.
• Use the vibrating function on the phone to indicate how much the low boom will be felt, sort of like how the Nintendo Wii controller lets you feel objects in games.
• Deaf people read the reaction of people around them to find out if people are yelling, talking in low voices, running because the train is coming, etc. The app could also have an animated person reacting to the noise level that they hear. If it is unacceptably loud, the animated person would cover his ears, if it is a little loud he might look annoyed, etc.
• A navigation option that would show app users the take off and landing times for the planes.
• Illustrate the comparison of the decibel levels using bar charts. Bar charts give an easy comparison between objects. In our solution we compared the sonic boom to both acceptable decibel level (of about 70dB), and the low boom.
• After flights become active: Use the app to collect sound data from supersonic flights in the background in order to provide NASA with proof that the planes do not exceed the noise restrictions (idea given to the team based on their presentation of it on Sunday)

One of our main research areas for these solutions was to try and understand how deaf people perceive sound.

We hope that some of these ideas sound useful to you, or may spark new innovative ways of illustrating sound in the people reading it.
Mahalo NASA for having this amazing event! DevLeague did a great job at hosting it here in Honolulu!

Google Drive Presentation, whiteboard, intended: mobile app (e.g. Swift in Xcode)