Little Boxes is our new and improved idea, based off our original Idea of the “Facebook House”. Little boxes will be an interactive digital time capsule, allowing users to not only contribute and become a part of the content but also chose what type of content they wish to see. Various wooden boxes of different sizes, shapes and designs will be scattered around the space, each with their own type of device stored inside. Upon entering the space viewers will be prompted to do two things, log into their Facebook account and chose a month and year they would wish to view.
In doing so all the content in the boxes will change to things relevant to that date, whether it is a picture of you from that month, a newspaper article or even a popular song from that month. This however won’t just show your Facebook pictures, status’s and activities but everyone that is still connected to the Facebook application, allowing you as a user to not only interact with society’s past and your own personal history but also that of the other people viewing the work.
The experience we wanted to create
We want to create an experience that is very physically interactive. This is why we are planning on creating many different boxes of different sizes, we want the viewer to interact with these dynamically, whether it is picking it up and putting it against your ear to hear music of bending over to peer into one of them.
We want to create something that is an interesting way to view this information.
The choice of wood was a simple one as it marries the old and the new, which is what we are essentially trying to do.
We also want it to be a kind of personal experience, which is why we wanted to implement the small individual boxes that can be held up to the face. Each box will be physically different, and will have varying ways in which you can interact with it. Many will have different "peep holes", which is how the user will view what is inside the box.
What themes does this explore?
Multiplicities
Henri Bergson's original definition of the philosophical term Quantitative Multiplicity he explores the concept of how a quantitative Multiplicity is always homogeneous, but also at the same time we can enumerate the individual parts of the whole. Meaning it is the accumulation of different things that can individually be defined, but together also make one whole.
This applies to our project in a few different ways. The first and most obvious connection is the physical attribute of using multiple screens and having multiple boxes to make up one complete artwork.
On a more interesting level, we are using the separate parts i.e. people's individual online history's and mixing this with the history of the world. Combining many separate parts to make one conclusive representation of history from that time.
Nodes and Networks
Our piece explores the ideas of nodes and networks in a few ways also. Again with the obvious physical connection of each box being a node of a larger network, each connecting to the larger database, but as well as this exploring the individual's personal nodes and networks. By implementing the use of Facebook we are able to explore people's networks within how they communicate with others. Creating something that marries the personal history of users with other personal histories this makes a network or history's of those who have viewed the artwork. Making each individual person a node within a bigger network of information.
Privacy
Privacy in technology is another theme we wanted to explore with our piece, as it is an interesting topic of conversation when it comes to new technology. Using Facebook as one of our main sources of data for the piece it of course brings up a lot of issues. Mainly about who see's our online history? It becomes a very personal collection of pictures and information about you, and how easily can other access it? We want to push forward this idea with the design of the boxes. Showing how our information is both safe and enclosed, but essentially any one can view it. This is why we designed the boxes to have "peep holes", and locks. To explore the idea that yes on the outside our information seems secure, but do you really know who's looking at it?
Capacitive Sensing: 3rd attempt was successful!
For the touch sensing, a 10k resistor was much more stable than the 1M resistor. I also managed to debug the fading of the LEDs.
For some reason when the pin is LOW the leds turn on, and when the pin is HIGH the leds turn off! I had to recode my whole led on/fade off part.
Servo programming complete! Because we haven't programmed our mat yet, currently I'm using the computer keyboard to send commands.
Press '1' to activate sequence
Sequence:
Drop - 3 sec
Up and Down - until user presses '2' to stop the system
Concept: The Assertive Room
A plain piece of black cloth is hung beneath the ceiling of a room. The cloth hangs from an array of pulleys, which controls which areas of the cloth will be pulled up and which areas will drop down. There are 1-3 hotspots in the room. When the viewer steps on one of these hotspots, pulleys will manipulate the fabric so that it will fall around them until almost touching their skin. Fabric around the hotspots will have LEDs and conductive threads sewn into them, so when the user touches the fabric to try and get out, the LEDs will light up.
Research Tasks:
(Michelle)
- Concept refinement and central themes
- Buy samples of fabric and pulleys
(Susan)
- Motors and pulleys:
How many motors and pulleys we need
How much they cost (check ebay and stuff like that, there's some cheap stuff on there from asia!)
How to connect them all together to arduino and how many arduinos we need
Sketches of how the pulleys might fit together with the cloth
(Ava)
- Pressure senors and hot spots
Sketch of how we'd use a pressure sensor with arduino
Sketch of hot spot design
How much pressure sensors cost
What other materials we might need for a hotspot
(Emila)
- LED lights and lilypads
How to wire up multiple LED lights to arduino
How the lilypad works and how many LEDs we can connect to it
Conductive threads
- General Arduino learning: how to put things together and code
Concept and Theme:
The walls and ceilings in a room have a passive presence in our lives. They are plain, still, unresponsive and unobtrusive, providing us with a predictable space in which we can focus on other things.
Our concept challenges the idea of a passive space and forces the viewer to suddenly be sharply aware of the presence of the room by bringing an element of the room (ceiling) into the viewer’s personal space.
Technical Implementation: Lights in the fabric
LEDs and resisters can be sewn onto the fabric using conductive threads. The following video illustrates how it can be done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YpmBh-jlkm4#!
We can use several types of conductive threads. We can use silver plated nylon 117/12 x 2ply thread, which is a fine, lightweight thread with a moderate resistance of 75-85ohm/foot depending on whether it’s stretched or loose. It is easier to work with on a sewing machine.
The silver plated nylon 234/34 x 4ply thread is thicker and has a lower resistance of 14ohms/foot, however it frays more easily. Frays may cause problems such as short-circuiting so it’s best to be avoided.
Aside from the plated threads, there are also stainless steel threads, which is harder to work with but has much lower resistance. For example a thin stainless steel conductive thread on Sparkfun Electronics has a resistance of 9ohms/foot while the thick thread has only 4ohms/foot. With the stainless steel thread, we may have to just lay it out on the fabric and hold it in place with an over-stitch of non-conductive material, or use materials such as glue.
To control LEDs individually, we could use shift registers such as the 74HC595, LED drivers such as Maxim MAX7219 or the Texas Instruments TLC5940 LED driver, or we could use the Charlieplexing method.
If we are not controlling LEDs individually, it is possible to power a large number of LEDs by connecting to an external power source. (http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16469)
The Arduino Uno with 14 pins can use shift registers such as the 74HC595 to increase the number of LEDs it can run (http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ShiftOut). Multiple registers can be linked together to run more LEDs. Shift registers do not support fading of LEDs. The ShiftPWM library (http://www.elcojacobs.com/shiftpwm/) can be used to help program the LEDs.
The LED drivers MAX7219 and MAX7221 are integrated circuits used to drive up to 64 individual LEDs using only 3 pins.
A method called Charlieplexing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlieplexing) can be used to drive more LEDs. We will need to look into this a bit more after gaining more basic electronics knowledge.
We can consider using Arduino Lilypad 328 Main Board (digital I/O: 14, analog inputs: 6, PWM: 6) to run the LEDs so it can move with the fabric. The Lilypad can be sewn onto fabric using conductive thread to establish electrical as well as physical connections
COSTS:
Lilypad Arduino 328 Main Board costs $21.95
65m of conductive thread with 14Ohm resistence costs $34.95
8-Bit Shift Register 74HC595 costs $1.50
LEDs costs from $0.35 - $1.50, but can be much cheaper on sites like eBay, where we can get 20 pieces for $3.70
Maxim MAX72xx can cost around $5 - 11 each
