Month: September 2022

Circuit 1: Fade

 

The circuit for this one is relatively simple, especially with the diagram for us to follow. I didn’t encounter any problem with this circuit. I basically connect the red wire to the 5v and the black wire to the ground. After that, I linked one of the resister’s legs to the red wire and the other to the positive LED leg. I then connect the negative LED leg to the black wire.

Circuit 2: toneMelody

 

The circuit for this one is also relatively simple. I also didn’t encounter any problem with this circuit. I connected the red wire to one of the buzzer’s legs and then connect the black wire to the other leg.

Circuit 3: Speed Game

I took my time with this circuit because it looks intricate, and that’s why I didn’t make any mistakes. I essentially followed what the tinkercad diagram showed, and it worked out correctly. I knew that if I messed up even with 1 part, it would ruin the whole build. In the end, I was able to finish it without any errors.

Question 1:

Instead of using just 1 button, we could utilize 5  buttons for all 5 fingers in a hand. This way, there will be more interaction between the person and the circuit board. The person will need to use all 5 fingers to interact and win the game instead of using 1 finger before.

Question 2:

This is because the 10 kOhm resistor acts as a pulldown resistor. This means that it still controls the voltage even when the button is on. Without it, the voltage with overflow through the button and would therefore ruin the circuit.

Question 3:

A project that I find interesting is a project that converts an old phone into a remote controller. I find this project interesting because in the book “Getting Started with Arduino”, the second chapter of the “Arduino Way” mentions how hacking toys are a fantastic source of cheap technology to reuse. This means that instead of throwing junk away, we could reuse it and turn it into something that can actually keep being useful to us.

“Convert Your Old Phone to a Remote Switch.” Arduino Project Hub, https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/vishwasnavada/convert-your-old-phone-to-a-remote-switch-e526f4?ref=tag&ref_id=recycling&offset=8.

Story 1: The Veldt – Ray Bradbury

The imaginary interactive artifact that I came up with for story 1 is a machine that can print out biological entities based on my drawing. For example, if I draw a dragon, the machine will print out a living dragon. There’s 3D printing technology in modern days, but It is not advanced to the point where it can create living things. There are various potential problems that could come from this machine, such as cloning, biological weapons, and food chain disruption. Humans could use this machine to clone themselves until we’re all overpopulated. Humans could also develop a hazardous virus that could lead to a pandemic. Humans can also introduce a new creature into the outside world, thus creating an imbalance in the food chain.

 

Story 2: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas – Ursula K. Le Guin

The imaginary interactive artifact that I came up with for story 2 is a brain helmet. This helmet will allow you to adjust your logical thinking and your emotional thinking by adjusting a knob. For example, you could allow your brain to think 100% logically or 100% emotionally, or 50% logically and 50% emotionally. There are A.I.s and machine learning today which can facilitate logical thinking, but humans still make the final choice. This machine allows humans to adjust between the level of logic and the level of emotions they want based on their circumstances. There are many problems with this creation. First, if every single human uses logical thinking all the time, we would live in a dystopia. Human creations are beautiful because they have meanings behind them, and being perfectly logical means that you have to be perfectly emotionless. Humans would also lose the ability to think critically by themselves. Using this machine all the time will result in humans not experiencing their own trial and error for mistakes, thus making them `faultless with them.

 

Story 3: The Plague by Yan Leisheng

The imaginary interactive artifact that I came up with for story 3 is a capsule that allows humans to transform into their fullest potential form. Humans will lie down on the tube and undergo evolution until they’ve reached the apex stage for mankind. There have been a lot of genetic mutations for animals and even human babies in the modern era, but it is not to the point where technology can transform them into a new species like in the story. This invention can lead to heavy inequality between those who have evolved and those who haven’t. This can also create a dystopia where the rich are the newly evolved species while the poor are humans.

My definition of interaction is the action when 2 or more objects/persons “play” with each other back and forth. The work “Feeding” by Chang Hsin Yu perfectly describes my definition of interaction. In this work, the microphone and the speaker “play” with each other to achieve a single goal: to find the perfect balance of sound. When the speaker gets too loud or too soft, the microphone will adjust its height to find the optimal position to balance the sound. This shows the repetitive interaction between 2 objects. However, the work of “United Visual Artists” contradicts my definition of interaction. This work only shows 1 sided interaction; a person looking at the artwork. It’s true that some artwork has a changing atmosphere to it, but it doesn’t change because of the human but rather because of other factors. This shows that there’s no interaction between 2 entities, the person and the artwork.

(“Feeding” by Chang Hsin Yu)

(“United Visual Artists”)

Citations:

Published by Eric Forman View all posts by Eric Forman, et al. “‘Feeding’ by Chang Hsin Yu.” HelloCircuits!, 2 Sept. 2022, https://hellocircuits.com/2022/05/02/feeding-by-chang-hsin-yu/#more-13510.

Published by Eric Forman View all posts by Eric Forman, et al. “United Visual Artists.” HelloCircuits!, 12 Sept. 2015, https://hellocircuits.com/2013/10/10/united-visual-artists/#more-11804.

Task 1:

The purpose of this circuit is to make the buzzer ring upon clicking the button. Me and my partner Kenneth started off by studying the circuit diagram and understanding each component.

(Step 1) We initially encountered some difficulties with the button due to the fact that we didn’t know how the button was wired internally. The buzzer was constantly ringing when the wires are all connected, and the button wasn’t sending any outputs. Because of that, we decided to ask one of the learning assistants about how the button is wired, and we realize that we had to rotate the button in another direction for the button to send its output through. 

(Initial circuit)

(Fixed circuit)

(Step 2) After completing step 1, we started to have a general idea of how the breadboard and circuits work. Although we didn’t encounter any difficulties, our breadboard was starting to look like a mess based on the way we wired each component. We’re starting to run out of space to place each component.

(Step 3) Me and my partner Kenneth were confused about the third circuit diagram, so we decided to ask the learning assistants for help again. We were then able to understand how the circuit is supposed to work with the new components. We were running out of space on the breadboard, so we had to rearrange our circuits. We found that some of the wires were unnecessary, so we started by removing those unnecessary wires and connecting the new circuit in a more efficient method.

Task 2:

The purpose of task 2 is the create a DIY button using cardboard, wires, and copper tapes. We started by taping the copper over the top of a piece of cardboard so that it covers both sides of the cardboard. We tape a wire on the cardboard in a way that the tip of the wire is touching the copper tape. After that, we burnt one of the wires onto the copper tape and the taped wire so that it acts as a “glue” to both items. I learned that electric signals can be sent through the circuit by just allowing 2 good conductors of electricity to touch each other.

Task 3:

In task 3, me and my partner removed the button and replaced it with the DIY cardboard button instead. We put each end of the DIY button wire into the slot previously occupied by the button. We didn’t encounter any difficulties here since replacing a button with another button is relatively easy. Me and my partner used the word “Hello” as our morse code, and we paired up with another group for them to decipher our code. After some time, they were able to decode our morse code.

 

Additional Required Questions:

Question 1: The R1 resistor is placed so that the LED1 won’t receive an overflow of energy that could damage it.  R1 resistor will only allow a certain amount of current to flow through to LED1. This way, LED1 won’t receive an exceeded amount of current flowing through it.

Question 2:

Question 3: 

The circuits we built include interactivity because it measures our input from the button, which is listening to interactivity. Then it determines what our input means, which is thinking interactivity. After that, it flashes lights on the LED and rings the buzzer based on our input, which acts as speaking interactivity.

Question 4:

Interaction Design and Physical Computing can be a gateway to various new forms of art. Instead of the traditional art of drawing and painting, new technologies can be implemented so that humans can use other parts of the body to express craftsmanship. For example, a famous YouTuber called Mark Rober engineered a glitter bomb machine that’ll detonate glitter over a certain area once it’s removed from the box. This machine is created to take “revenge” on thieves who steal delivery packages in front of people’s homes.