This week’s recitation is mainly about building circuits that can produce sounds and run them using example codes.
We first build a circuit that can control the luminance of the LED. But the resistor we chose was broken, and it results in 30 minutes wasted on figuring out the error. The lesson we learn that the quickest way to debug is using the voltmeter.
Then we made the buzzer playing the melody. It changes according to the pause and duration which is quite interesting.
Finally, we are able to build an interactive game that two players participate in races to click a button more than their opponent. They key point of the project lies in building a correct circuit that distinguish the output and input clearly. We took the first step to draw a graph of the circuit and put all the input on one side of the breadboard and the output on the other. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough time to build a four-players game.
Question 1: Propose another kind of creative button you could use in Circuit 3 to make the game more interactive.
The circuit 2 inspired me to make a game about pressing buttons with lyric. For example, we need to first set a code that made the speaker buzz play with a regular set of beats and pitches. Then, using the DIY paddles we soldered in the first week as the new button. Players can listen one time and try to press the paddle with the same beat. If they succeed, the LED light and the speaker will work to celebrate. If not, the speaker makes high-frequency noise to kind of mock and annoy the players. According to the Physical Computing, computers better depict the changing and manifold relationships between ideas in human thought, and they can be more egalitarian in giving voice to multiple versions of those relationships. In other words, with a computer, we make the relationship between the button and the light more complex. When we press the buttons in correct order using our intelligence, the computer recognize it and become its faithful recorder. The computer even become the judge which decides the relationship is successfully established or not. People receive feedbacks, which may spark their motivation to contribute more to the human-computer conversation.
Question 2: Why did we use a 10K resistor with each push button?
Because a 10K resistor is small enough to “pull-up” the voltage to HIGH when the switch is open but large enough to not “waste” power due to too much current through the resistor when the switch is closed. In other words, we need to add a pull-down resistor to decrease the voltage and ensure safety on condition that the electricity isn’t wasted on the resistor.