SVA IXD Physical Computing @svaixdphysicalcomputing - Tumblr Blog

Ashley - Final Project - Summary

I am so glad I can accomplish 80% of what I set out to do before the final presentation. Even though there are some problems I need to improve.

1. Title: “Cobra Moving”

2. Primary Parts:

- 4 Arduino Uno

- 4 Distance sensor

- 4 Leds

- 4 Speakers

3. What I learn from:

- The first important thing what I learn is "Try your best, you can make it!"

- Make me become more interested in making things : )

- Use arduino to make some sounds.

- Using different library! That is so helpful and amazing!

- Find a way play the mp3 what you want only use the arduino:

PMC Library

- Totally know how to drill and solder!

- When you have some problems, ask for help! Everyone will help you : )

4. What I want to improve next step:

- Keep trying to change sounds. (Maybe Midi things, just know a little about before)

- Try another led or led strip...

5. Final Presentation Pictures:

Anyway, I am so happy I can finish it.

Thank you all the people who borrowed my staff and helped me! : )

#final project

Ashley - Final Project Week 5

This week was my presentation week, but there were still some problems...

After that I still want to improve my project. Make the sounds can work all at the same time. And I want to try to change sounds to different kind of sounds like piano or guitar not only the easy speaker tone.

Then I keep doing my project, not only the code but also the appearance. I want to improve that more pretty, so I think about that maybe like this:

Because it can not work using 4 speaker and 4 sensors only with one arduino, so I think about that maybe I can separate them, only a sensor, a led and a speaker using one arduino, like this:

Then I start to make the ball which I want to put sensor, led and speaker all in. I bought four balls in Michaels. And Because the speakers I used before were too big to put in the ball, I bought four smaller speakers.

I drilled the balls to make the sensor and wires can pass through:

Put the sensor, led and speaker in the ball:

Then I worked on my code, tried to find some ways can make different sounds... I found using PCM Library can only use arduino make any mp3 sounds you want, so I tried it. But it only can load 1 mp3 music because the memoryof arduino is too small. Then I tried to use the mp3 shield to make different sounds. Because of the distance sensor was so sensitive, the sounds changed so fast and frequent. So I give up to use the mp3 shield.

Finally, I only use the tone function to let four speakers make different notes sounds...

Here is my final code (1 of 4):

#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>

int pwPin10 = 3; long pulse, inches, cm; int ledPin2 = 7; int speakerPin28 = 11; int notes[]={ 262,294,330,349,392,440,494}; Adafruit_NeoPixel strip2 = Adafruit_NeoPixel(1, ledPin2, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);

void setup() { strip2.begin(); strip2.show(); // Initialize all pixels to ‘off’ Serial.begin(9600); pinMode(pwPin10, INPUT); pinMode(ledPin2, OUTPUT); pinMode(speakerPin28,OUTPUT); }

void loop() { pinMode(pwPin10, INPUT); //Used to read in the pulse that is being sent by the MaxSonar device. //Pulse Width representation with a scale factor of 147 uS per Inch.

pulse = pulseIn(pwPin10, HIGH); inches = pulse/147; cm = inches * 2.54; Serial.print(inches); Serial.print(“in, “); Serial.print(cm); Serial.print(“cm”); Serial.println(); delay(100); int color2 = int(map(cm, 12, 236, 0, 255)); strip2.setPixelColor(0, strip2.Color(127, color2*2, 255)); strip2.show();

if(cm >= 10 && cm <= 30) { tone(11, notes[0]); } if(cm >=31 && cm <= 50) { tone(11, notes[1]); } if(cm >=51 && cm <= 70) { tone(11, notes[2]); } if(cm >=71 && cm <= 90) { tone(11, notes[3]); } if(cm >=91 && cm <= 110) { tone(11, notes[4]); } if(cm >=111 && cm <= 130) { tone(11, notes[5]); } if(cm >=131 && cm <= 150) { tone(11, notes[6]); } if(cm >=151 && cm <= 10) { noTone(11); }

}

#final project

Ashley - Final Project Week 4

First, I tested the single one can work using the distance sensor change the led color and make different sounds.

Then put 4 speakers and 4 Leds together, but maybe something wrong with my code, the speakers can not work all at the same time... Only 1 or 2 can work...

#final project

Ashley - Final Project Week 3

This week I tested the distance sensor to record the data and tried some code use the "NeoPixel" library.

Here is the code:

#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>

int pwPin = 3; long pulse, inches, cm; int speakerPin = 5; int ledPin = 4;

Adafruit_NeoPixel strip = Adafruit_NeoPixel(1, ledPin, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);

void setup() { strip.begin(); strip.show(); // Initialize all pixels to 'off' Serial.begin(9600); pinMode(pwPin, INPUT); pinMode(speakerPin,OUTPUT); pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); }

void loop() { pinMode(pwPin, INPUT);

//Used to read in the pulse that is being sent by the MaxSonar device. //Pulse Width representation with a scale factor of 147 uS per Inch.

pulse = pulseIn(pwPin, HIGH); inches = pulse/147; cm = inches * 2.54; Serial.print(inches); Serial.print("in, "); Serial.print(cm); Serial.print("cm"); Serial.println(); delay(100); int color = int(map(cm, 12, 236, 0, 255)); strip.setPixelColor(0, strip.Color(color, color+127, color*2)); strip.show(); }

#final project

Marcelo Mejía Cobo ([email protected])

SVA | MFA Interaction Design Fundamentals of Physical Computing Fall 2014 (14/FA IXG-5380-A)

Course by Matthew Epler ([email protected])

1. Title: “Serendipity of Two Mobiles” (2 mobiles in conversation affected by participants)

2. Summary:

Interactive Art Installation System consisting of two mobiles. The first mobile (with sensors) detects distance, light and contact (button), emits sounds and displays a number related to the distance of a person to the system.

The second (panel) displays graphics affected by the interaction occurring with the object and will influence back to the first mobile (with sensors) completing a "circle".

The third object is an influencer for demonstration. The light sensor is affected by the green LED controlled manually.

By manipulating the sensors you can display different patterns. If there is a touch (push of the button) the system will trigger a sound and special graphics to acknowledge contact with the system.

3. Parts:

First Mobile:

- Arduino Uno V3

- EZ-Link Bluetooth Serial

- 5 Light Sensors (1 Inside the box)

- Distance sensor

- Speaker

- Button

- 7 segment display

Second Mobile:

- FadeCandy

- 2 NeoMatrix 8x8 Panels

- WIFI Router

- AA battery pack

4. Code:

// December 2, 2014

// Marcelo Mejia Cobo

// SVA|NYC|MFA Interaction Design

// Arduino/Processing Led Installation

import cc.arduino.*;

import processing.serial.*;

import ddf.minim.*;

Minim minim;AudioPlayer player;AudioInput input;

int currentFrame = 0;int numFrames=69;float h,m,s;

PImage[] images = new PImage[numFrames];

PImage background,clock,hours,minutes,seconds;

Arduino arduino;

byte punto=0;

byte[][]digitos = {{ 1,1,1,1,1,1,0 },{ 0,1,1,0,0,0,0 },

{ 1,1,0,1,1,0,1 },{ 1,1,1,1,0,0,1 },{ 0,1,1,0,0,1,1 },{ 1,0,1,1,0,1,1 },

{ 1,0,1,1,1,1,1 },{ 1,1,1,0,0,0,0 },{ 1,1,1,1,1,1,1 },{ 1,1,1,0,0,1,1 }};

int redLed = 12;int buttonPin = 13;

OPC opc;PImage dot;

void escribirPunto() {arduino.digitalWrite(11, Arduino.HIGH);}

void escribirDigito(byte digit) {byte pin = 4;

for (byte i = 0; i < 7; ++i) {arduino.digitalWrite(pin, digitos[digit][i]);++pin;}}

void apagarDigitos(){arduino.digitalWrite(4, Arduino.LOW);arduino.digitalWrite(5, Arduino.LOW);

arduino.digitalWrite(6, Arduino.LOW);arduino.digitalWrite(7, Arduino.LOW);arduino.digitalWrite(8, Arduino.LOW);

arduino.digitalWrite(9, Arduino.LOW);arduino.digitalWrite(10, Arduino.LOW);arduino.digitalWrite(11, Arduino.LOW);}

void counter() {for (byte j = 0; j < 10; j++) {escribirDigito(j);escribirPunto();

if (j==10){j=0;}delay(300);}apagarDigitos();}void birdON(){

player.play();image(images[currentFrame], width/2, height/2);

if (currentFrame==numFrames-1){ currentFrame=0;}else{currentFrame++;}}

void birdOFF(){player.close();player = minim.loadFile("cuckoo.mp3");}

void setup(){

minim = new Minim(this);player = minim.loadFile("cuckoo.mp3");input = minim.getLineIn();

frameRate(20);imageMode(CENTER);clock = loadImage("clock.png");hours = loadImage("hours.png");

minutes = loadImage("minutes.png");seconds = loadImage("seconds.png");

for (int i = 0; i < numFrames; i++) {String imageName = "BIRD_" + nf(i, 4) + ".png";

images[i] = loadImage(imageName);}

println(Arduino.list());

arduino = new Arduino(this, "/dev/tty.usbmodemfd131", 57600);

arduino.pinMode(0, Arduino.INPUT);

arduino.pinMode(1, Arduino.INPUT);

arduino.pinMode(2, Arduino.INPUT);

arduino.pinMode(3, Arduino.INPUT);

arduino.pinMode(buttonPin, Arduino.INPUT);

arduino.pinMode(redLed, Arduino.OUTPUT);

arduino.pinMode(4, Arduino.OUTPUT);

arduino.pinMode(5, Arduino.OUTPUT);

arduino.pinMode(6, Arduino.OUTPUT);

arduino.pinMode(7, Arduino.OUTPUT);

arduino.pinMode(8, Arduino.OUTPUT);

arduino.pinMode(9, Arduino.OUTPUT);

arduino.pinMode(10, Arduino.OUTPUT);

arduino.pinMode(11, Arduino.OUTPUT);

size(720, 360);

dot = loadImage("image.png");

opc = new OPC(this, "127.0.0.1", 7890);

float spacing = height / 16.0;

opc.ledGrid8x8(0, width/2-spacing * 4, height/2, spacing, 0, true);

opc.ledGrid8x8(64, width/2 + spacing * 4, height/2, spacing, 0, true);

}

void draw(){

background(0);

float dotSize = height * 0.6 * (1.0 + 0.2 * sin(millis() * 0.01));

float dotSize = height * .7;

int distance_Value = arduino.analogRead(0);

int light_Value = arduino.analogRead(1);

int button_Value = arduino.digitalRead(buttonPin);

int potentiometerLeft_Value = arduino.analogRead(2);

int potentiometerRight_Value = arduino.analogRead(3);

println("DISTANCE VALUE:");

println(distance_Value/2);

float new_distance_Value = map (distance_Value, 20, 400, 20 ,150);

println("NEW DISTANCE VALUE:");

println(new_distance_Value);

float new_digit = map (distance_Value, 30, 400, 0 ,10);

if (new_digit>0&&new_digit<2){byte j = 0; escribirDigito(j);}

else if (new_digit>1&&new_digit<3){byte j = 1;escribirDigito(j);}

else if (new_digit>2&&new_digit<4){byte j = 2;escribirDigito(j);}

else if (new_digit>3&&new_digit<5){byte j = 3;escribirDigito(j);}

else if (new_digit>4&&new_digit<6){byte j = 4;escribirDigito(j);}

else if (new_digit>5&&new_digit<7){byte j = 5;escribirDigito(j);}

else if (new_digit>6&&new_digit<8){byte j = 6;escribirDigito(j);}

else if (new_digit>7&&new_digit<9){byte j = 7;escribirDigito(j);}

else if (new_digit>8&&new_digit<10){byte j = 8;escribirDigito(j);}

println("LIGHT VALUE:");

println(light_Value);

float new_light_Value = map (light_Value, 0, 900, 0 ,255);

println("NEW LIGHT VALUE:");

println(new_light_Value);

println("potentiometerLeft_Value");

println(potentiometerLeft_Value);

float new_potentiometerLeft_Value = map (potentiometerLeft_Value, 0, 200, 0 ,100);

println("new_potentiometerLeft_Value:");

println(new_potentiometerLeft_Value);

println("potentiometerRight_Value");

println(potentiometerRight_Value);

float new_potentiometerRight_Value = map (potentiometerRight_Value, 0, 200, 0 ,100);

println("new_potentiometerRight_Value:");

println(new_potentiometerRight_Value);

if(button_Value==1){

println("BUUTON PRESSED!");

birdON();

}else{birdOFF();

image(dot, width/2 + new_potentiometerLeft_Value-100, width/2 + new_potentiometerRight_Value-200,

400-new_distance_Value,400-new_distance_Value);}arduino.analogWrite(12, int(new_light_Value));

if(new_light_Value<5){image(dot, width/2 , height/2, height*1.5, height*1.5);}

}

// Credits:

// http://www.adafruit.com/

Rachel Hsiung // Final Project // Summary

I'm so glad that I was able to accomplish 95% of what I set out to do with this night light! (That remaining 5% being the rest of the night light container that I have yet to laser cut and build....)

It was definitely hard at times, but I'm also super happy with the amount of things that I learned along the way, AND I have a functional product that I actually like and can use in my house. :)

Some things that surprised me:

Wiring is no longer scary to me. Imagine that! I actually feel very comfortable with setting up circuits and wiring them correctly now -- as well as knowing how to troubleshoot.

Soldering is no longer scary either. I had to solder, de-solder, and re-solder a million things throughout the process of making this project. I think that this is one of the most valuable things that I've taken away. :)

I now know what an "interrupt" is. Using Interrupts has been a bit of a doozy, but I'm glad I went through the pain of getting it to work, because, well, it's really useful.

I now know how to use a multimeter. Basic skills FTW.

I (kind of) learned how to use Adobe Illustrator. This one is only a tiny bit embarrassing as a designer, but hey! My excuse it that I came into UX design just as Sketch was really considered to be "the" software to use. So there. :)

My vocabulary has doubled. For example: "shield," "breakout," "screw terminal." "solder sucker," "desoldering braid," the list goes on...

Some things that didn't surprise me:

Coding is hard. Really hard. There are so many intricacies of coding, whether it's because every component has its own nuances, or just because computer-logic isn't exactly intuitive to those of us who are only accustomed to using human-logic.

Plan, plan, and plan some more. I did a pretty decent amount of planning before I started doing anything, and I think I still could've planned ahead MORE. It's the best way to prevent wasting your own time and money. However, I will admit that sometimes I probably OVERplan when trying to make sure I fully understand all my options before making a decision. Still, I gotta say... I really think it has saved me assloads of time. Or maybe I'm just anal like that.

Getting help from real, live people (instead of just the internet) is the best ever. This requires no explanation.

In sum: Thank you thank you thank to Leif and Boris and Max and Matt and everyone else who was so helpful and patient and generous with their time. It made all the difference. :)

#rachel hsiung #final project #summary

Rachel Hsiung // Final Project // Week 05: Building the Container

This week I focused on building the container for my night light. I had a couple of decisions to make, like:

What kind of material should I use? I decided on semi-transparent acrylic, to diffuse the light and also look classy and weigh very little.

What kind of machine should I use to cut the material? At first I was thinking I could just use a saw, since I would mostly be cutting rectangles for box-like containers.. but then when I realized I'd have to have little holes cut out of the rectangular pieces for wiring and screw eyelets, I went with a laser cutter.

To start off, I decided to just focus on building the simplest part of the container: the mini-box for the microcontroller. Since I've never done any laser cutting or physical assembling of this nature before, I figured it would be best to start off this way before moving on to the more complicated part of the container -- the interlocking containers for the LED strip.

1. PLANNING AND MEASURING. LOTS OF MEASURING.

First I measured my Arduino:

Then I sketched out several drafts of what pieces I would need, how big they would be, how they would fit together, etc:

2. RENDERING THE PIECES IN ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR:

3. LASER CUTTING!!!

Firstly, laser cutters are. Ah. Mazing.

Secondly, did I mention they're amazing? I BURN YOU WITH MY LASER!! LAZRBURN.

(Yeah that's my finger.)

The final laser cut pieces:

Yay! Let's glue it together! Wait, first I better make sure my Arduino actually fits....

Oh shit. It totally doesn't fit:

Goddamnit... back to the laser cutting board.

Okay, now it fits. Time to get gluing!:

Glue glue glue... and now wait for it to dry:

Look, it fits!

And the final product:

YAYYYYYY. :)

----------------------------------------

NEXT STEPS:

...Make the rest of the container. -_-;

#rachel hsiung #final project #arduino #laser cutting #physical computing #sva #ixd #interaction design #acrylic #acrylic glue

Rachel Hsiung // Final Project // Week 04: Finishing the Circuit + Final Wiring and Assembly

For week 4 of working on my final project, I accomplished the following:

Added the second PIR motion sensor to complete my circuit

Assembled the final circuit (replacing the breadboard with a homemade shield)

-----------------------------------

1. ADDING THE SECOND PIR SENSOR

This ended up being quite hard actually. The effect I wanted was to have the first PIR sensor trigger the lights turning on in one direction, and to have the second PIR sensor trigger the light turning on in the opposite direction. This way, depending on which direction you approached the night light, it would light up ahead of you -- kind of like the walkway in an airplane.

The trickiest part was getting the code right in terms of turning on the lights in the opposite direction. For some reason, simply making the "for loop" go backwards didn't work.

Here's the original "turn on lights one by one" neopixel animation code from Adafruit:

void colorWipe(uint32_t c, uint8_t wait) { for(uint16_t i=0; i<strip.numPixels(); i++) { strip.setPixelColor(i, c); strip.show(); delay(wait); } }

So to make it run backwards I simply made my for loop start at the other end of the pixel strip and count backwards:

void colorWipeBackwards(uint32_t c, uint8_t wait) { for(uint16_t i=strip.numPixels()-1; i>=0; i--) { Serial.print(i); Serial.println("...is the current pixel"); strip.setPixelColor(i, c); strip.show(); delay(wait); } }

And of course this didn't work.

After much scratching of the head, Matt Epler, brilliant man that he is, suggested that the problem might be my use of "uint16_t". Prior to this I had never paid any attention to this particular part of the code. It didn't make any sense to me, I didn't know what it was, so I just ignored it and hoped it didn't mean much of anything. Ha!

Anyway, turns out, this was indeed the problem. In “uint” the “u” means “unsigned”, which means there is no negative or positive. This was causing my pixels to go from 5 down to 0... and then start all over at 65535. Strange. Thanks Adafruit.. -__-;;

So, instead of using uint16_t, I replaced that with int. So here's the code that DOES work:

void colorWipeBackwards(uint32_t c, uint8_t wait) { for(int i=strip.numPixels()-1; i>=0; i--) { Serial.print(i); Serial.println("...is the current pixel"); strip.setPixelColor(i, c); strip.show(); delay(wait); } }

After this, the animation worked fine. But of course I ran into another problem: The PIR sensors ceased to respond quickly and there was a great deal of lag. The lag was so intense that at first it seemed like there was no rhyme or reason to when they would light up. Eventually I figured out that it was because I hadn't used an interrupt pin as the pin for my second PIR sensor. Once I did this, all was fixed. :)

Here's my final final final code! :)

// Smart Hallway Night Light // Version 006 // Changes since last version: Made the LEDs brighter. // Last Updated: Saturday, December 6, 2014 // Notes: IT WORKS!! //NEOPIXEL VARIABLES--------------------------------------------------- #include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h> #define PIN 6 Adafruit_NeoPixel strip = Adafruit_NeoPixel(6, PIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800); int animateDelay = 1000; // milliseconds between each LED lighting up int keepLightsOn = 3000; // milliseconds that the lights stay on for after detecting motion int c = 0; // color of light (used for R, G, and B to make white); starts at 0 so lights are off //PIRSENSOR VARIABLES--------------------------------------------------- int pirSensorPin1 = 2; // the pin for first PIR sensor (this is interrupt pin 0) int pirSensorPin2 = 3; // the pin for the second PIR sensor (this is interrupt pin 1) volatile int pirSensorValue1; // first PIR sensor value volatile int pirSensorValue2; // second PIR sensor value //PHOTOCELL VARIABLES--------------------------------------------------- int photocellPin = A0; // the pin where the photocell is connected volatile int photocellSensorValue; // photocell value (analog value, so somewhere between 0 and 1023, lower is darker) void setup() { //NEOPIXEL SETUP------------------------------------------------------ strip.begin(); strip.setBrightness(255); strip.show(); // Initialize all pixels to 'off' //PIRSENSORs SETUP----------------------------------------------------- pinMode(pirSensorPin1, INPUT); // declare PIR sensor as input pinMode(pirSensorPin2, INPUT); // declare PIR sensor as input //PHOTOCELL SETUP----------------------------------------------------- pinMode(photocellPin, INPUT); // declare photocell as input (technically unnecessary for analog inputs) //ATTACHING INTERRUPT. This allows us to interrupt the laggy Neopixel code to detect motion instantly.. rather than waiting for the Neopixel code to finish running. attachInterrupt(0, checkpirSensorPin1, CHANGE); attachInterrupt(1, checkpirSensorPin2, CHANGE); Serial.begin(9600); } void loop(){ // IF MOTION DETECTED FROM FIRST PIR SENSOR------------------------------- if (pirSensorValue1 == HIGH) { //...AND it's dark out... if (photocellSensorValue <= 400){ turnOffMotionSensors(); // Turn on neopixels one at a time in the first direction c = 255; // set color to white colorWipe(strip.Color(c,c,c), animateDelay); // animate lights delay(keepLightsOn); //keep the lights on turnOnMotionSensors(); } } // IF MOTION DETECTED FROM SECOND PIR SENSOR------------------------------ else if (pirSensorValue2 == HIGH) { //...AND it's dark out... if (photocellSensorValue <= 400){ turnOffMotionSensors(); // Turn on neopixels one at a time in the OPPOSITE direction c = 255; // set color to white colorWipeBackwards(strip.Color(c,c,c), animateDelay); // animate lights delay(keepLightsOn); //keep the lights on turnOnMotionSensors(); } } // NO MOTION IS DETECTED-------------------------------------------------- else if (pirSensorValue1 == LOW && pirSensorValue2 == LOW) { // fade neopixels off fadeFromWhite(); } } // INTERRUPT METHOD - PIN 1: This function checks the value of the first PIR sensor, no matter where the machine is in the loop(). void checkpirSensorPin1(){ pirSensorValue1 = digitalRead(pirSensorPin1); // read first PIR sensor pin // If motion is detected from either sensor... if (pirSensorValue1 == HIGH) { photocellSensorValue = analogRead(photocellPin); // read photocell pin } } // INTERRUPT METHOD - PIN 2: This function checks the value of the second PIR sensor, no matter where the machine is in the loop(). void checkpirSensorPin2(){ pirSensorValue2 = digitalRead(pirSensorPin2); // read second PIR sensor pin // If motion is detected from either sensor... if (pirSensorValue2 == HIGH) { photocellSensorValue = analogRead(photocellPin); // read photocell pin } } // NEOPIXEL METHOD: fill the dots one after the other with a color in the first direction void colorWipe(uint32_t c, uint8_t wait) { for(uint16_t i=0; i<strip.numPixels(); i++) { strip.setPixelColor(i, c); strip.show(); delay(wait); } } // NEOPIXEL METHOD: same as above, but IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION void colorWipeBackwards(uint32_t c, uint8_t wait) { for(int i=strip.numPixels()-1; i>=0; i--) { strip.setPixelColor(i, c); strip.show(); delay(wait); } } // NEOPIXEL METHOD: fades the LEDs off (from the color white) void fadeFromWhite() { for(c; c>-1 ; c--) { for(int j=0; j<strip.numPixels(); j++) { strip.setPixelColor(j, strip.Color(c,c,c)); strip.show(); delay(0); } delay(10); } } // PIR SENSOR METHOD: turn off motion sensors so they stop sensing motion, but make them think there is still motion.. void turnOffMotionSensors(){ pinMode(pirSensorPin1, OUTPUT); pinMode(pirSensorPin2, OUTPUT); digitalWrite(pirSensorPin1, HIGH); digitalWrite(pirSensorPin2, HIGH); } //PIR SENSOR METHOD: turn motion sensors back on so they start sensing for real again void turnOnMotionSensors(){ pinMode(pirSensorPin1, INPUT); pinMode(pirSensorPin2, INPUT); }

Moving on...

-----------------------------------

2. ASSEMBLING THE FINAL CIRCUIT

Though time-consuming, this actually wasn't particular difficult. Maybe this just means I'm starting to get more comfortable with wiring! :)

// A. PLANNING

Anyway, first I made sure that I knew exactly how long my wires needed to be by measuring my hallway and the distance between where the LED strip would be placed and the power outlet. My hallway looks like this:

The distance between each end of the hallway was a little over 5 feet. And even though there's a power socket in the middle of that hallway, my girlfriend and I decided it would look really ugly to have the strip plugged in there, so instead the microcontroller would be placed around the edge of the hallway wall, and the power plug would be plugged into a socket on the other side of the wall, behind our TV stand. This is the "edge of the hallway wall" that I'm referring to (plus the TV stand):

And to help myself keep all the wires straight, I drew a little diagram of all of them and where they needed to go:

//B. SOLDERING AND WIRING

Then I spent a few hours measuring, cutting, and soldering jumper wires to other jumper wires and components to make sure that everything fit the measurements of my hallway and that it was all wired up nicely and minimally.

Essentially, I created breakouts for each individual component.

The soldered photocell breakout:

One of the soldered PIR sensor breakouts:

Checking all my connections with a multimeter to make sure I did a good soldering job:

Twisting all the loonnnnng long jumper wires to make them easier to manage using an electric drill (a trick Matt showed me!):

All done! A look at all the twisted wires... Labeling is very helpful:

//C. BUILDING A SHIELD

Now that I had all my components soldered into little breakouts and attached to wires of the appropriate length, I needed a way to plug all the wires into my Arduino semi-permanently. So I decided to make a homemade shield out of some PCB (printed circuit board)... Because that was all I had. At first I wasn't sure if this would work, because I wasn't sure all the holes in the PCB would line up just right with the pin holes on the Arduino Uno. However, lucky me, they did! :)

Lining up the holes in the PCB to the Arduino pin holes that I would need:

Then I soldered wires to the exact PCB holes that lined up with the Arduino pin holes and added screw terminals to make it easy to attach/detach my component breakouts:

Along the way I had some soldering fails:

But in the end it was fine. Shield completed!:

And now to attach the shield to my Arduino:

And here's the whole circuit, all wired up! (First the messy version...):

And now the cleaned up version:

And of course I was plugging it in and testing it along the way to make sure it worked between each change I made.... I've learned to have a healthy amount of paranoia when it comes to making ANY changes to a circuit...

-----------------------------------

NEXT STEPS

Now that my circuit is all done and ready to be put into its container, all that remains now is build my container! :)

Laser cutting will commence..... soon.

#rachel hsiung #prototype #arduino #coding #final project #PIR sensor #photocell #shield #night light #adafruit #neopixels #physical computing

emily | musical domes

goal to teach kids the basic music (do re mi) scale

challenges the biggest challenge to this project was to figure out if it was possible for all 8 fsrs to communicate with 8 neopixels and then play a sound through the processing minim library. i tested the code out one fsr + neopixel + set of sound code at a time, and with each success i would add another set until i got to 8 sets of code. at first, using the serial call response gave me a bit of difficulty but after some help from Matt the code worked and my arduino was able to establish a good contact with processing.

there were still some problems after all the code was properly added. some of the neopixel rings were not turning on and some of the sounds wouldn't come on. by taking off the neopixels and running the arduino on standard firmata and then editing the processing code, i also did another visual feedback on my laptop of the note on a musical scale. this time, all the fsr's responded back with the computer playing all the notes.

my code can be found on my github: https://gist.github.com/emilychan

cheers!

Final Presentation : DJing Machine

Team member : Jung-Joon, Matt

Our DJing machine consists of a display part and physical input part. If someone press physical buttons, it makes some sounds and displays animations on PC. We had finished a display part first, and then we started to make a physical input part with fancy components. We assembled all components and tested it. However it made some sounds without any input. We were eager to figure out why it did, but we couldn’t. We guess that soldered wires might conflict each other. This is because we soldered so many wires and they were all tangled up. Because we were out of time and scheduled to present our final piece, we should change it correctly. So, we switched components to basic ones. Though it didn’t look refined, it worked well. For the next time, we think that we need to spend more time on physical part, because, in this project, we were not confident to program, which caused us to focus more on programming. However, due to this experience, we realized that there are many variables in physical part and it is more difficult to find out causes for problems than we think. Despite difficulties, we were able to learn several know-hows about wiring and soldering. We believe that it will be helpful for us.

For my dinosaur business card holder, Frank Thelonious Rex, I decided to model the product in Rhino. This was challenging, since I had only 3D modeled something once before about seven years ago. But, after a pretty terrible first draft, I received some advice from John, who work’s in SVA’s Visible Futures Lab. With his guidance, I went back and was able to create exactly the form I had in mind. Once the model was complete, we transferred it to the 3D printer.

3D printing works by putting down very fine layers of plastic over and over again until you build a shape. If you have empty areas in your shape, the printer fills those in with a second plastic material. In order to then get rid of the excess material, the product is then placed in an acid bath. It’s quite a long process. My dino, which was aprx. 5″ x 5″ x 4″ took over nine hours, plus another three for the bath. I probably should have kept it in the acid bath even longer, as I ended up scraping some remnants away by hand, but was lacking on time.

Some other things I would look out for in the future is making sure pieces that are meant to fit into other pieces, like the board the closes off the bottom of the stand on my project, need to have ample room to account for error and excess plastic. I also had a very small hook in the mouth I was going to use to grasp the wire that opens and closes the jaw, but I pulled too hard and broke it off. So try not to have very small, fragile pieces. I would actually change the whole jaw contraption completely on the next round so that you don’t have to awkwardly finagle a wire into the small jaw space. This was my first time 3D printing EVER, so it was a bit of a learning curve, but overall I would say it was a success.

For more info, including pics and code, please see http://www.hllrn.com/3d-printing-frank-t-rex/

Merry Twee IxD by Datrianna & Karen

Merry Twee IxD - Datrianna & Karen

After many attempts at getting Temboo and the Twitter API to work, we decided to move on to something a bit simpler.

Goal: Our initial goal was to change the interaction people have with Christmas trees. Most often, people buy tree lights that are programmed with 1 color and they don't have much control over how the tree lights, beyond picking the color in the store. We set out to create something that put the control in the users' hands.

Findings: We tried to use the Wifi shield to get the Twitter/Temboo combo working, but soon realized it wasn't the optimal setup for what we were trying to do. If given the opportunity to do it over, we would use the Arduino Yun for the Twitter/Temboo combo. We also realized that based on our desire to put control in the users' hands, we didn't necessarily need to use Twitter in order to accomplish our goal.

End Result: Ultimately, we ended up using P

rocessing, serial call/response, and Arduino to give the user control. When we first started tinkering with Neopixels, we used a ColorMap image in processing to control the color of the lights. After changing directions and moving on from the Twitter/Temboo idea, we realized we could use the serial call/response to have Arduino and Processing work together to give the user control of the color of the tree lights (Neopixel strip).

After making this decision, we tested Neopixel strip with the processing ColorMap and got that to work. From there, we needed a tree and a longer Neopixel strip and this is what we came up with:

#arduino #neopixels #arduinouno #christmas #twee #merrytweeixd

lifethinkt-blog

drinkMe – It’s been a while

lifethinkt-blog

I’m late with this posting this progress :(, I had this in word doc for over a week now!

This week my primary goal was get the code working, which I thought (before I began) was a fairly simple task considering I was pretty familiar using an FSR sensor and the neo pixel tutorial helped me guide...

emily | project updates

So presentation day is near and I think I have all of my pieces ready to go. Some changes since the last posting:

instead of wiring 9 speakers, I will be playing the sounds from 1 speaker (my laptop)

instead of using an mp3 shield, I am using the minim library in processing

By testing each fsr sensor with each neopixel and sound and by adding each set of code for the corresponding fsr, I wanted to make sure that nothing goes wrong and that each sensor works with the outputs.

I also started on the fabrication part of the project.

This is going to be the base of the small music maker I am creating. Each circle will be a container for the domes and under every dome will be one neopixel ring. On the bottom will be the fsrs which will be covered by the letters of each note ( C D E F G A B C ).

Only a couple days left to assemble this!

Cheers!

PSL modem

For our "stupid pet trick" midterm assignment, I built a smartgourd that applauds (or boos) every time someone tweets about pumpkin spice lattes. For the uninitiated, the pumpkin spice latte (PSL) is a seasonal beverage offered by Starbucks each fall. The tweets seem to be divided between earnest proclamations of love towards PSLs and misogynistic commentary about people who love PSLs.

The PSL modem uses an Arduino Yún, an MP3 breakout board, an amplifier and a 1w speaker, all from Adafruit. It works in conjunction with helper scripts operating on a nearby PC, which do the heavy lifting of authenticating with Twitter, grabbing the latest tweet, and sending the tweet ID wirelessly to the Yún.

Here's the hardware. This sealed baggie gets stuffed into the bottom of a pumpkin — et voilà, smartgourd!

A full write-up is available here, or you can watch it live via the video below:

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