Andrew Chang's IAT 320 Blog @explodingseed-blog - Tumblr Blog

Project Bloom making waves

It has only been two days since we uploaded our video to Vimeo, and already someone on FashioningTech.com, which we regularly used as a source for inspiration, has discovered our project and made a blog entry about it -

http://www.fashioningtech.com/profiles/blogs/bloom-the-emotional-side-of

Hard work does pay off!!

It is unfortunate that she forgot to mention Priscilla's name in the credits as Priscilla has put more effort into this project than anyone else. She managed the team gracefully. Without her, there was simply no way we could have completed this project in time.

#IAT 320 #Bloom #Trust #Blooming relationship #body interface #electronic textile #interactive wearable #interactive art #fashionable technology #openness #project bloom #fashioningtech #SIAT #SFU #SFU Surrey #embodiment

Project Bloom - Final Result

After close to one month of hard work, Bloom, our project, has finally been completed. It has been a long, hard, but rewarding journey.

wearable worn by Carol Tu, photo taken by Andrew Chang

The Final Presentation Slides (designed by Priscilla Lee):

http://www.sfu.ca/~pml6/IAT320/bloom_slides_final.pdf

The Research Paper in ACM format (written by Priscilla Lee & Yeieun Jang):

http://www.sfu.ca/~pml6/IAT320/Bloom_ANurturingEmbrace.pdf

The Final Documentation Video (directed and edited by Carol Tu & Andrew Chang):

http://vimeo.com/22598682

#project bloom #IAT 320 #Trust #interactive wearable #electronic textile

Coding

With the Arduino codes, since the methods which detect different positive and violent touches already work, I focus on:

1. developing a method that will successfully move the servo motor without inducing delay time in the system.

2. creating codes which make the servo rotates and thus the flower opens more smoothly

3. constructing codes that will gradually light up the spore LEDs even when large increments of values are passed on to the variables in charge of the LEDs

4. developing codes that closes the flower and dims the spore LEDs after the prolonged absence of positive touches

--1--

Since most of my codes utilize the millis() method and compare the time differences between active and inactive sensors, any delay time in the system would render my codes useless. This turned out to be the major obstacle I encountered during sketch 2 project. After a brief sit-down with our TA, Aaron, the solution was apparently very simple, sending a command to move the motor only when a set time period has passed. All it took was 3 lines of codes.

After my spending hours and hours searching for answers, our TA solved the problem in 5 minutes. That is the difference between the inexperienced and the experienced.

--2--

I accidentally found the way to make the flower open smoothly when conversing with a classmate, Kelvin Wong, on our project progress. He informed me that in order to make the motor rotate smoothly I need to command the motor to move at 1-degree increments. I took his advice and create the following codes.

Now, instead of ordering the servo to move 20 or 30 degrees at once, I always order the servo to move at 1-degree increments, allowing smoother rotation that better represents the gradual blossoming of the flower.

--3--

In order to have the spore lit up and died down gradually instead of in large incremental jumps, I order the LED to increase or decrease its brightness by 1 increment every 10 milliseconds. The creation of this method was inspired by the previous 2 codes (--1-- & --2--).

--4--

Lastly, for the flower to close after a prolonged absence of positive touches, I compared between the time when no sensor is activated to the last time when any sensor was activated. If the time difference is greater than the time I set (in this case, 100 seconds) the variable that controls the degree of the flower opening starts to decrease by 1 every 20 milliseconds.

In the flowerOpen() method, I then order the servo to close the flower gradually by 1-degree increments.

The same technique also applies the died-down of spore LEDs.

Bloom: Mechanics of the Flower

(videographed by Carol Tu; directed, demonstrated, and edited by Andrew Chang)

Spores

Our initial intention was to use fiber optic cables to build the vines that spread out from the flower; however, after some experimentation with optic fiber cables we found that the light provided by LEDs were just too dim to make the vines visible in daylight. We thus went on to explore alternative ways to represent the spreading of positive emotional energy. At last the team decided on using green LEDs under paper-made leaves as spores.

Yeieun, our main wearable designer, was then able to come up with several designs for the spores.

Design Sketches by Yeieun Jang

Finally, after taking visibility, aesthetics, and materials at hand, we decided on one of the design by Yeieun.

photo taken by Alex Akopyan

The image above shows our experimentation with greed LED under leaves made of ornamental paper.

Flower Prototyping

Today the team commenced on flower prototyping. We cut, folded, manipulated, and glued different papers into different shapes and put them on top of the Miura-Ori fold to decide the appearance of the flower. At first Alex and I spent quite an amount of time thinking and sketching the look we want to achieve. But it is Priscilla who reminded us that prototyping is more about hands-on experience rather than mental visualization. We then followed her advice and were able to come up with different prototypes much quicker.

Here are some of the prototypes we came up with:

photo and slide arranged by Priscilla Lee

photo taken by Alex Akopyan

In the end the team chose the prototype that was simple yet elegant.

photos taken and compiled by Priscilla Lee

With the ornamental paper Pricilla purchased from Paper-Ya on Granville Island, we were able to create a delicate and elegant flower that varies in its appearance throughout different stages of blossoming.

Project Idea Finalized

After a few discussions with our instructors and among the team members, taking the time constraint, the team's technical capabilities, and our ideas' degree of embodiment into account, we decided to continue with our Sketch 2 project.

However, our team decided to expand the scope of our last project. As one of the main designer, Yeieun made a suggestion to the team to create a system, in which the flower will be at the center, with vines of fiber optic cables as the peripherals.

The image below shows some of her designs.

Sketch by Yeieun

We also complete assigning each team member's roles in the project.

Final Project - Brianstorm

Final Project Team Members (Team PAACY):

After a few brainstorming sessions, here is a list of our ideas:

1. Continue with our sketch 2 project "Intimate Touch"

Since we were not able to successfully implement a working flower onto the shirt, we have the option to continue with this project.

2. Floating Fabric Canvas

The idea is to suspend a piece of fabric in the air that acts as a free form canvas, shape-shifting according to the user's gesture. The user will interact with the canvas wearing two gloves. The servo motors attached to the fabric (connected with transparent wires) will manipulate the fabric according to the values passed on to them by the accelerometers installed on the gloves. We realized that this is quite an ambitious project and may be too difficult to complete in 3 weeks.

3. Hanging Mobile (with Origami Magic Balls)

Sketch by Yeieun Jang

The Hanging Mobile is an interactive art installation that expands on the concept of a mobile and attempts to explore the idea of curiosity in both children and adults, and their relationships.

Mobile is a everyday decorative toy that people hang on top of a infant bed. It rotates slowly and elicits the curiosity of babies, encouraging them to interact with it.

The Hanging Mobile expands on this idea and infuses the mobile itself with a personality. Instead of targeting babies, the Hanging Mobile will be an art installation that not only draws curious crowd to interact with it but also acts as a curious entity.

In its idle state, the mobile rotates slowly. When someone enters its territory, it will become curious and turn to face the visitor. If the person stays in its territory or slowly approaches the mobile, it will shake back and forth to draw the person's attention. Once the visitor gets close enough and touches one of the origami balls, that ball will puff up. However, if the visitor approaches it too fast, the mobile will enter an alarmed state, freezes itself, and all of its origami balls will puff up.

4. Sword Fighting Game

The players will wear wearable that has embedded soft circuit that will only be activated by the tips of swords we make. The Arduino boards on the wearable will be programmed to calculate the scores and display it through Processing and a projector on a wall.

5. Laser Tag

The players will wear vests that have embedded infrared sensors. The hand-made guns will be equipped with infrared lights that only activate when triggered. The Arduino boards on the wearable will be programmed to calculate the scores and display it through Processing and a projector on a wall.

6. The Observing Box

The Observing Box is a box with Chess-like grids in the front. Inside the box there will be a movable LED light. Once the box detects human presence in front of it. The LED light shall follow the person's movement.

With these ideas in mind, we shall have a discussion with our instructors and decide on one.

#IAT 320 #brainstorm #interactive wearable #body interface #electronic textile

Team Meeting 7 & 8: Meetings Till The Presentations

We pulled two all nighters on Saturday and Sunday.

We had real difficulties coming up with a flower design that enables a servo motor to both open and close the flower. We tried to follow Greg's advice by using the nature of spandex to help the flower open. Sadly, the elasticity of the spandex we bought was not strong enough to help the flower open. At 3 o'clock in the morning, we came up with an alternative design that works mechanically, but we had to compromise on the aesthetics. The flower became less personal and was not a very good representation of the user.

I also ran into serious problems with the codes. It turned out that I made a huge mistake not figuring out how to code for a servo motor first before moving on to the sensors. Because my sensor codes requires the correct recording of negative time (when none of the sensors are touched) and positive time (when a sensor is touched), any delay time in the program would ruin the inner working of my codes. Coincidentally, all servo motors require delay time that allows the motor to move, thus render my codes useless.

In the end, because I could not make the servo motor rotate appropriately, we were not able to successfully implement the mechanics into the wearable. Also, it was difficult to make the flower successfully stand on the user's shoulder.

We put real efforts into this project, had all the individual parts working, but we were not able to put all the parts together successfully.

This will not happen again in our final project.

I hope I will be able to make appropriate changes to the codes in the future to make the servo motor functional.

Team Meeting 4, 5, 6: Programing & Flower Prototyping

In the fourth meeting, we decided to divide the tasks among the team members.

Priscilla is in charge of sewing and flower prototypes.

Carol is in charge of the presentation slides and research.

I am in charge of the circuitry, programming, and force sensors.

I started by dividing the necessary functions of the codes into different methods.

-A method that detects violence against the user

-A method that detects patting

-A method that detects hugging

-A method that detects stroking

-A method that opens the flower

-A method that closes the flower

After talking to Greg on Wednesday, we decided to place four sensors on the back of the wearable.

detection of different friendly gestures:

patting - not differentiated

hugging - differentiated by location and firmness

stroking - differentiated by location

Obstacles I encountered:

-The Arduino board we borrowed from the library (Arduino NG w/ ATmega8) only allowed 7.168 kilobytes of codes. This constrain forced me to decrease the number of gestures the board detects (originally, stroking is differentiated by both location and strength and patting is differentiated by location).

- The sketch size limit of the Arduino board also made me change my codes so that only one person can interact with the user at one time.

How: I have a variable set up that stores the time (in milliseconds) when none of the sensors are activated and compare it with the time when any of the sensors is activated. Thus if there is more than 1 person that interacts with the user, Arduino would not be able to recognize the gestures.

Team Meeting 3: Concept Redefined

Yesterday in the lab we pitched our project concept to Aaron and Greg.

They had concerns regarding the creature. They found our metaphor interesting(user as the environment) but were worried that people would have a hard time understanding it. Also, the creature's lighting up may actually startle the stroking person rather than serve as an effective feedback.

Aaron and Greg suggested us to rethink about our way of providing feedback. They asked us to think about what people, animals or plants do when they relax.

Here are some of the answers we came up with:

Plants: from a tensed state to a relaxed state, stretched tight to not stretched

Animals: cats purr when they are relaxed

Aaron and Greg then encouraged us to approach the feedback in a different way, such as using the opening of the flower to represent how open and loved the user is.

After a short discussion and reflection, our team thought Aaron and Greg had legitimate concerns. Sometimes we like an idea so much that we over-think and try to come up with reasons to justify it, but we should always come back to the users. Think about what they are likely to experience or feel when they approach our project. Was our goal clear enough, message easy to get? If not, then maybe it was time to rethink and go over our concept again.

In the end, we ended up taking Aaron and Greg's advice. All the team members adored the idea of using the blossoming of a flower to represent love, affection, openness, and connection with others. Thus we decided to use a blossoming flower as our visual feedback.

Here are the two flower designs (drawn by Priscilla Lee):

For the first design we shall use materials such as straws and tubes to act as the petals of flowers. We can make small cuts on these tubes and attach strings to the top of them. When the servo motor pulls, the tubes would bend, resembling the closing of a flower.

For the second design, we drew the inspiration from scrunchies (elastic hair bands covered by fabrics). We intend to insert strings or fishing wires into the scrunchy. When the servo motor pulls, a scrunchy like flower is formed.

Team Meeting 2 (over Skype): Further Concept Development

Concept Development:

Today during our talk with our TA, Aaron, regarding our initial concepts of energy sharing, co-dependence, and symbiosis, a term that did not cross our mind came up during the conversation - parasite.

That was what sparked our idea - to construct a creature that feeds on the emotional energy of the host, but instead of taking energy only (like that of a parasite) the creature would give something back to the host as well. Thus a cycle of positive energy transferring back and forth would start.

How it works:

When someone who is close to the host such as a friend, family member, or a loved one has physical contacts with the user(the host of the creature) that expresses affection such as stroking, the creature would light up, indicating that it is content with all the positive energy it receives. The more affection the user receives, the brighter the creature becomes. The brightness serves as visual feedback for the host's closed ones, so they know that the host has become happier. When the level of affection reaches a certain threshold, the creature would vibrate and heat up. This in term would make the user/host more comfortable.

However, if the user receives negative energy which takes the form of violent physical contact (punch, poking, uncomfortable hugs), the creature's light would quickly dim down.

Meta-concept behind it:

When we come up with the idea of a creature that has a symbiotic relationship with the user, the goal is to not just to satisfy this project's criteria, that is, embodiment and wearing nature, but to also create a metaphor that resembles human's relationship with the environment. In this case, the user/host becomes the environment, his/her close ones the humans, and the creature the signs/indicator of the well-being of the environment. When humans care for the environment, the environment becomes healthier. The health of the environment can be observed by paying close attention to the signs/indicators. When the environment is healthy, it in turns provide better living conditions for humans. (If friends care for the host/user, the user becomes emotionally healthier and treat his/her friends better.)

Embodiment:

For a sketch project, we want to just focus on one affectionate gesture and program Arduino well so it detects the gesture and its range.

The gesture we want to focus on is stroking.

Stroking varies in terms of:

speed: slow stroke -----> fast stroke

force: light stroke ------> firm stroke

location: stroke near shoulder - less intimate

stroke on the back - more intimate

If coding goes well, we will be able to make our sensors detect these different variations of stroking and have appropriate feedback.

Technical Aspects:

inputs:

force sensors

outputs:

LEDs

vibrators

portable electrical heating pad

Foreseen Difficulties :

- coding that detects various strokes

- how to incorporate electrical heating pads

- design of the creature, its form and materials

- planning of soft circuits and sewing

Notes:

We will pitch our idea to Greg and Aaron on Monday and get feedbacks. I hope everything goes well. Then we are moving to Lee's Electronics to purchase any additional mechanical components.

Sketch Project 2 Team Meeting 1: Brainstorm

Team Members: Me, Priscilla Lee, and Carol Tu

Our team met up today to brainstorm for ideas. Here are the ideas we came up with:

1. wearable volcano that senses anger and spits smoke and ashes. 2. a temperature-sensing electronic heating pad sewn into clothing 3. self tightening or loosening belt which senses whether someone is sitting or standing 4. a cap that wakes its user up (vibrates, releasing scent?) when it senses that the user is unintentionally drifting off to sleep 5. a creature on the clothing to provide feedback to touch/caress, sensual feedback, inspiration - sea anemone 6. neck warmer which senses the temperature and either becomes tighter or warmer 7. energy sharing, co-dependence the original idea involves the user wearing a textile and other people would attach emotional markers onto the user, and the markers would trigger an output on the user. 8. sound for mood: 3 buttons to press when worn, each one refers to a different emotional level (unpleasant sound when grumpy to joyful sound when happy).....hugging the person more = the more joyful the sound 9. a light-sensing shirt with a spinning windmill which spins faster as more light is sensed, and LEDs that represent the sun which will inform the user that there is enough light After some discussion, the team decided that we like the idea of co-dependence and energy sharing the best, but we need to do more research and come up with a more concrete concept.

The Anger Glove - the end result

Soft Circuit Assignment - Creating a Simple Electronic Textile

For the soft circuit assignment we decided to use a glove as our wearable.

Our output is an LED that is placed at the back of the glove. When the user squeezes his/her hand, the glove changes its blinking pattern.

The Concept :

Uncontrolled Anger

Some people have difficulties controlling their anger, and the anger has the potential to cause harm to those who are close to the person. This device we constructed will be used to remind people of their anger as a clenched fist is often seen as a sign. Hopefully, the blinking LED would serve as a signal to the user that he/she should calm down before their anger gets the best of them.

The Material & Tools:

- turquoise glove x 1

- conductive and non-conductive threads

- needles

- piece of pink fabric (bought in the dollar store) x 1

- solid core wires

- LED x 1

- small sponge x 1

- tin foil

- 1kohm resistor x 2

- Arduino board x 1

- USB cord x 1

Process:

We first sewed the LED, its resistor, and their part of circuit in with conductive threads. We did not have a plier, so we twisted the LED's legs so it would stay in the glove.

Secondly, we used the sponge and tin foil we acquired in the lab to construct a sensor.

We sewed 2 pieces of fabrics on either sides of the sponge so we can just insert the tin foils in. We also sewed conductive threads to the tin foils and devised two diverging paths on the glove so the threads would not touch each other.

We then sewed the sponge and tin foils onto the palm glove and complete its circuit.

Lastly, we sewed a piece of fabric on top the sponge to cover it.

After the sewing is complete, we quickly create the codes for it.

How it works:

With pwm(pulse width modulation) the Arduino sends different signals to the LED depending on the voltage it received from an input pin. The 5v power output from the board sends 5v to the sponge. The sponge and tin foil acts as a switch/sensor. If the user clenches his/her fist tightly, the two layers of tin foils would connect, creating a pathway for the current to go through and into the Arduino input pin, changing the blinking pattern of the LED.

What we have learned:

-Depending on the material and thickness of fabrics, the difficulty of sewing varies. It was difficult to sew threads on the glove because it is knitted with wool. It was difficult to sew on because of its small size.

-Sew the conductive threads with double threads to ensure a better connection in case if one thread breaks.

-Sew the conductive threads with small loops so that it attaches to the fabric well. It will also make the scenario where two threads touch less likely to happen.

-Plan the soft circuit well before starting the sewing. We learned this the hard way.

Lab - Intro to Soft Circuit

Today in the lab we were introduced to soft circuits, that is, conductive and non-conductive textiles that can be used to construct circuits. After a brief review of basic principles of electricity, Arduino board and its software, we were given a chance to play with soft circuits and the Arduino board.

First we were encouraged to build a simple circuit utilizing conductive materials we carried with us. We were also urged to think about the materials we can use for the upcoming sketch project.

We decided to make the circuit with pennies and a multitool slipjoint knife. Although it was interesting to see them conduct, it was difficult to attach the wires to the pennies and the knife. Thus we will probably not use them for our project.

Next we started to test a soft circuit, one consisted of a piece of sponge sandwiched by 2 layers of tin foil. When someone presses the sponge, the 2 layers of tin foil will connect and a circuit will be formed to light up the LED.

Lastly, with the sponges and the tin foils serving as a switch, we built a circuit which incorporates Arduino codes. The circuit takes power from the 5-volt pin on the board and directs it to the soft circuit and a digital input pin. The purpose of the digital input pin is to read a voltage from an outside source. If the voltage is high enough, the codes we wrote would enable the board to send voltages to another output pin, turning on an LED.

However, if the soft circuit is activated and the tin foils touched, the power would go through the soft circuit to the ground, and no voltage would be given to the digital input pin and the LED.

In the lab, we were also informed that we need to construct a soft circuit on a wearable fabric for an in-class assignment. The soft circuit will act as a sensor, the reading of which will be sent to the Arduino to change the behavior of an LED.

Sketch Project 1: Final Coding Session from Sun. to Mon.

It is now 5 in the morning. And I have finished most of the codes, but there is still a glitch I need to figure out. The movement of food becomes really awkward after it comes in contact with the player's hand is really strange. Sometimes it gets stuck in a place, and sometimes it seems to move extremely fast, colliding with the wall in no time. I figured there was something wrong with the way I reposition the food. I hope I can figure it out before the lab.

I spent quite a long time on collision detection yesterday. Since I need to detect collision between multiple objects and I could not figure out a way to simultaneously compare the difference between 3 matrices, I had to compare two, output the result, and compare it with another matrix to get the eventual result.

Too tired to think now, I am going home to catch some shut-eye and come back at it. I hope I can get everything to run smoothly before the lab.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Andrew Chang's IAT 320 Blog