Hampi Museum Installation @hampi-inspiration - Tumblr Blog

Trash. Disappointment. Waste of time. The 10x10 matrix didn't work out. It also ended up overheating my arduino board. Disappointed, but not disheartened, I tried again with a 5x5 matrix. Still didn't work - the board refused to cooperate. By then, I was out of time and resources to try anything new or different. Besides, I was so sure it would work...and that I had understood the wiring, the multiplexing, the pulse width modulation, the bit math.. I had tested it out on a small matrix and looked at examples of bigger matrices... I also followed the unit testing method of software engineering - testing the smallest units. So where and how could it go wrong? But it did go wrong. I've always sucked at accepting failure. I'm one of those nerds who likes to show off their cool projects. I sobbed/cried a lot.. That's how I deal with failure. A friend mentioned that this failure is a good thing for me...that school is the best place to face these failures. Anyhow. Post the Monday of exhibitions, I borrowed an arduino board and tried again. Turns out that I really did not understand some concepts - e.g. resistor math, bit math that involves more than 8 bits...and so on. I also failed to conduct multiple levels of unit tests.. It isn't meant to be like the base case of induction in math - if the first case works, all else will. No, the first, second, third and many many smaller examples need to be tested before trying to bite off a huge chunk of the project. During a phase of the project, I wondered if this project was too hard for me. But I had a goal - for India, for myself, and I was determined. I asked for help, I scoured the web, and I spent hours conversing with people to understand concepts. Beyond all that, it was an exciting challenge during which I learned something new everyday. I enjoyed the process and I guess sometimes that matters more than the final product. If the India project was not a motivator, I would probably have tried to work with sensors, balloons and regular LEDs - something fun and playful. The India project required something large scale and impressive - I designed the mini version to have hot spots (controlled by FSR s) that will set off color patterns when people touch them. Its not the end. I have the whole summer to figure it out - if not this idea, then something else. This class has been valuable in helping me think abstractly, giving me the vocabulary in interaction, responsiveness and electronics. Onwards and here's to a successful responsive surfaces project in India. The discussion by our guests at the Monday demo session about the importance of 'failures' helps me feel slightly better about the whole ordeal, yet not in a place where I can feel relieved. I will learn more from this failure than the ones before. Thanks for a great class. I'll continue posting updates about this project as soon as finals are done!

#respnsive surfaces #final project #failure #monday demo

A fun and painful wiring process. 10x10 RGB LED wiring. I chose to go with wire wrapping over soldering because it is reversible and I didn't want to risk burning any LEDs with soldering. Wire wrapping is manually intensive but works very well. The last image is of the laser cut wooden grid which will hold the LED matrix.

Controlling a 2x2 RGB led matrix with a FSR. .... Ready to move on to bigger matrices.

Controlling a multiplexed LED matrix with a FSR.

Achievements unlocked: 1. Moved away from the breadboard. I hate soldering but wire wrapping worked really well for me. 2. Mastered bit math with shift registers. Oh boy... Spent a few hours truly understanding how to manipulate single LEDs in a matrix. Tried it first with a single color LED and then with RGB LED. I am truly learning so much because of this class.

First look at how the lights will look beneath a translucent layer.

Controlling lights with FSR.

Soldering misadventures over at All Hands Active (AHA)

Thanks to all the wonderful people at AHA for teaching me how to solder, and patiently working through my mistakes.

To begin with, I connected 4 RGB LEDs on a cardboard panel and tried to solder the prongs behind in an anode-row cathode-columns fashion. After all, I had spent hours and hours (for all practical purposes, days) processing the circuitry and wiring, also realizing in the process that I needed more shift registers and transistors (note to self: research is good, but talking to experts might be the route when dabbling in an entirely unrelated/new field) (setback #1, especially with RadioShack being useless and delivery taking so long!)

Soon though, I ended up burning the cardboard and getting my LED prongs stuck together… which ultimately led to overheating and the destruction of an LED. I cut off the wires and removed the cardboard panel, and started soldering from scratch. (setback #2)

After a total of three hours of soldering, all I have to show is a lame half done 2x2 matrix and the realization that I was soldering with an insulated wire… ugh. Next time, I'll need to strip the wire, probably get perforated prototyping boards, and stop my shaking hand. I've asked members at AHA to allow me to spend a few hours every evening there...

7 days. I'll catch up, somehow.

#soldering #failures #project #led matrix #rgb led

4 RGB LEDs with two shift registers -- spread across two breadboards. Slowly getting the hang of this.

RGB LEDs with shift registers. Big thanks to John @ All Hands Active for explaining shift registers to me. :)

Understanding how shift registers work with the example of regular LEDs. Now I need to learn to use shift registers with RGB LEDs.

Final Project dimensions The whole platform is 40x40 cm. Each tile will be 8x8 cm. The minimally viable design involves 1 LED per tile => 25 LEDs. 2 LEDs per tile => 50 LEDs. We've decided to use bass wood for the construction of the platform and the laser cut perforated layer, and arylic sheet for the transparent layer above the LEDs.

#final project #construction #material #dimensions