We worked on getting the basic stepper motor the work and thought about how to incorporate it into the poetry display. We also shared with each other some prototypes of a river with a working LED strip using a potentiometer.
May 1 LED strip Prototype
We did a tutorial together that allowed us to get our LED strips working and to start getting animations going on the strip based on a potentiometer.
Also found some possible other animations that could work with the same library used in the earlier tutorial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FXs1arWMrE https://gist.github.com/kriegsman/062e10f7f07ba8518af6
2/24, Corona-based pivot
Because everyone is now remote, it limits us from building thing things together. But given what we have, we can still learn and develop skills that will contribute to the project. This is the list of things we would like to learn or master before we get back.
Physical
|| Learning how to sow ||
– Youtube/Pinterest tutorial/inspiration
– Talking to mother
– Embroidery/ Buttons
Software
||Github||
– branching, merging
-more classes
||Addressable LEDs||
– Adafriut Library for community/accessibility
Group end of Semester goals during Quarantine
1. Figure out the circuit and code for the step motor as well as have an idea/start prototyping the art that goes with it.
2. Prototype the LED strip river and possible add it reacting to a sensor if we have time
Feb. 21 Trees – Detailed Sketches and Discussion
We began with the trees section. The materials we decided to use for this part include layered cardboard, earthy-felt moss-like felt (or other materials that give similar senses), cotton balls, and yarns. We also wanted to let the roots of the trees have a metropolitan feel to contrast with the nature. To make this section interaction, we plan on including buttons/conductive sensors that are in disguise of objects and scattered around the trees.
On the other hand, we put together a speaker/button circuit using Arduino. The next step would be writing codes and putting together a circuit for multiple buttons.
One thing that we need to be aware of – 1. how do we get the audience to interact with the mural 2.
Spring 2020 Semester Plan
We refined and concreted our sketch for the mural (credits to Sarva for the sketch!)
Our semester plan is to dissect the mural into four sections – the trees, the water flow, the rotating part in the middle, and Mr. half face on top. We plan on spending 1-2 weeks for each section.
DanceLog
We’re learning how to use LED strips and sensors properly.
Tested Controlling Colors, Independent Lights, and Sensor Sensitivity.
Everything seems to be in order.
Learning first, can’t put the cart before the horse.
Trees (LEDs and Ultrasonic Sensors) Progress
The prototype is of a tree that might work with the mural, so far I have an ultrasonic sensor connected to 3 LEDs, and they light up based on the proximity to the sensor. I made the tree out of cardboard and bubble wrap, but it might be cool if you could image it (spray) painted green (I’m not completely sure it resembles a tree right now) or even with black light paint so it glows under black light. Working with the Microbit took a little adjusting at first but the block coding made sense once I got a hang of it.
It’d be interesting to now start connecting more ultrasonic sensors so that we can see how it’d look if the lights lit up in a sequence as you move across the mural.
video dem: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11N9frOOeDKQh7SiLj–Vl_Gcy1jPXnv8/view?usp=sharing
Mural Brainstorming & Planning Session
Before going on Thanksgiving break, we were able to narrow down our mural ideas to two (image of both attached), 1) a more chaotic, merging of everything across time, space, nature. In a globe like sphere that’s upside down we would have objects that break out of it, the things could be buildings, trees, towers, lamps etc. The mural would also have an overarching “Time Lord” that determined how chaotic/mixed the two elements will be. 2) A clearer divide between the “nature” and the “metropolitan”, with the two merging only in the middle. On one side will be a lush forest while the other is a bustling city. It would become a spectrum where the edges are the extremes and the two elements slowly intersecting as it gets closer to the middle (smoke from one side drifting into the other, vines growing through sidewalk, etc.).
The two also contain a lot of similar elements (Time Lord, tears/runny water, intertwining of city/building/metro with nature/trees/greens, sensors that adapt to where someone is in relation to the mural).
Ultimately, we decided to go with the first option, and we divided the mural into parts for all of us to experiment with.
Project Pivot
While working on setting up a blueprint layout for our Twine interactive tutorial, we did a lot of research into other websites that provide tutorials for all things Arduino. We realized that even though adding in an element of interactivity would make the guide more interesting, we really weren’t that much different from existing resources. That if the tutorials didn’t feel fun for us to write, it probably won’t be fun to read either. This made us want to pivot into a project that might be more interesting, for students to play with and for us to make.
An idea we had was to create a table top competitive (or cooperative) game that involves each player to hold their “Arduino” accountable and try to connect different inputs and outputs while making sure no other player takes their supplies (wires, etc.) or disconnect their systems. Our challenge would really to be how to scope the project, what to include and how we would go about prototyping the system. While this does seem like a really big project to tackle at the moment, it was an idea on how we can make a system that would make things much more interactive and fun to learn.
Most of all, we just want to make something physical that can hopefully serve as a better means of learning physical computing than words.