1. Circuits

• • Fade

 

• • toneMelody

 

• • Speed Game

Here I switched the four-legs switch into a bigger pressing button, so that there would be more space for gamers to press efficiently.

2. Answers to this Week’s Questions

a. Question 1: Reflect how you use technology in your daily life and on the circuits you just built. Use the Introduction Chapter (page xvii-xxix) of Physical Computing and your own observations to define interaction.

Since we now live in a high-tech era, I may say we are surrounded by technology and use it for the most of our time. And most of the technologies we use are expressions of interaction: input, processing, output; a communication between devices and their users.

I use computer to store and edit images, use its keyboard to type letters, connect a printer with bluetooth to print files and also watch movies. These literally break the boundaries within time and space, bringing convenience to my life. Beside these, in our academic building, I use the elevator to go up and down, go through the temperature testing gate, swipe my netID card to get access to the library… In these cases, physical computing plays an important role, “creating a conversation between the physical world and the virtual world” (19), like the pressure sensor measures the pressure of the elevator’s ground, the microphone changes sound preasure waves in the air to a changing electrical voltage… Technology has already infiltrated every part of my life.

For recitation class 3, I link components into circuits and type the code on my computer, to build connections between the Arduino board and other electronic devices. In circuit 1 & 2, the usage of technology is pretty simple. As for circuit 3, my operation lets the relations become complex. Just like the example Tom Igoe gave in his article, I “make the light’s turning on dependent on the number of times the button was pressed”(18). Players’ action are translated as input in this game and LEDs’ lights are outputs to show the result of the competition.

b. Question 2: Why did we use the 10K resistor with the push button?

 

Without the 10k resistor, when we press the button, the current will be too large and the Arduino board will overheat and burn the circuit.

c. Question 3: If you have 100,000 LEDs of any brightness and color at your disposal, what would you make and where would you put it?

I would put these LEDs in an art gallery to make an interactive exhibition (maybe in our ICA). When each audience passes the gallery’s entrance, the camera at the entrance will automatically take a picture of their face and output an image. After computer’s analysis of the image, it presents the audience’s photo with the 100,000 LEDs lighting up partially.