Author: Steeeve

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Recitation 4: Drawing Machines by Steve Sun

for this week’s recition we created a drawing machine by using an H-bridge to control stepper motors attached to mechanical arms. 

H-bridge circuit diagram

firstly we assembled the circuit according to this diagram. one trick i learned is that when a voltage/ground line should be connected to multiple pins on the devices or arduino, it’s better to firstly connect it to the voltage/ground line on the breadboard and then connect to the pins reapectively.

when adding the 12 V DC power supply, we should keep it as far from the circuit of the motor as possible (i.e. as few wire connections as poeeible) in order to avoid any potential damage to the USB port on our computer or to ourselves.

the power supply directly connected to the groung line on the bread board.

also, the direction of the h-bridge is very important. 

after assembling the circuit, we added the potentiometer to the circuit. we could have organized the wires better so that it is easy for people to reach and control it. poorly positioned potentialmeter

and then we added the motor and connected the arduino to the computer and uploaded the program. to my suprise nothing worked…… after round and round of checking, it turned out to be that i forgot to connect the ground on the arduino.

then we finalized out circuit, built our mechanical arms and modified the sample code in arduino, and the drawer is done.

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Group Project 1 reflection by Steve Sun

My definition of interaction involves human recreation aside from the common sense of interaction. For example, I wouldn’t see pushing the button to turn on/off the LED as interactive, however the form of the “button” would be, however the process of LED goes on/off (i.e. the output) may vary, as long as the users themself don’t have recreations using the output (for example re-align the leds to form some pictures that according to the user, has aethestic value), I would not identify it as interactive. I did not form this idea based on any in-course reading. It is merely how I feel after looking at many of the projects’ documentations provided online.

The two projects that triggered my thinking are click canvas by KIMBABSTUDIO (https://www.creativeapplications.net/member-submissions/click-canvas/) and Vivienne La – 21st Century Ghost (https://www.creativeapplications.net/maxmsp/sfpc-spring-2019-student-showcase/). The former one aligns with my definition because the users, by clicking on the buttons of the canvas, can creat certain picture(s) according to their will; and that, to me is user’s envolvement being high and the creativity appearing. However in the second project, as much as the aethestic value being high as a whole project, the intercative part of the supposedly “interactive” part of the project doesn’t align with my definition. in this project, when you put a certain number of sticks in a certain way in the vases, different imsges will be shown on the screen accordingly. This to me is simply like using a knife to cut a piece of wood, with the input-output process taking more coding rules that were implanted by human than phisics rules that were implanted by nature. An input, an output, everybody knows how the output would be on a single move like this if informed enough by the rules implanted. However, if the human using the knife startes making wood carving out of the wood, the process become interactive. Like wise, if, in the clicking  canvas there were only one button which changes color according to the number is was clicked, it wouldn’t be considered as interactive by me either. 

In our group project, the definition of interaction is rather different than my own. The definition based on which we decided to act, was  that interaction doesn’t really need a visual output, as long as the input and the process are informative/educative/entertaining (not visual output), it is interaction. In this case we are focusing on the impact that whatever device creates on our brain, which is the reverse of the common sense of interaction which is human controlling matchines. So, our Knowledge Transmitter 2.0 which achieves the purpose of educating people directly with knowledge (input) so that people can learn (process) things that they have never done before (output: new things learned–educative). And our three scenes which are learning Chinese, learning to make grilled cheese and reading Harry Potter respectively aligns with our possible output: educative, informative and entertaining. The definition of our project, despite from having great difference from my own, does focus more on the users’ side more just as mine does. The former one emphasizes the impact on humans’ minds, while the latter aims at its function of creating, both of them requires high user envolvement and that’s probably why I would agree to using the groups’ definiiton.

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Recitation week3 11:15-12:30: Sensors by Steve Sun

for this session of recitation we made a circuit which consists of a Infrared Distance Sensor which takes the distance from an object as an input and output the distance as integers, and an LED whose brightness indicates the distance. in this case, we used map() funciton to match the max value of the distance of the sensor and the brightness of the LED.

for the code we didn’t go through too much of a problem, but somehow my pratener changed it so that it could appear in one single line…

Question 1:

What did you intend to assemble in the recitation exercise? If your sensor/actuator combination were to be used for pragmatic purposes, who would use it, why would they use it, and how could it be used?

i just think of how motion sensor could be used in real life and i felt like any form of output which align with the distance input would be at least informative.

Question 2:

Code is often compared to following a recipe or tutorial.  Why do you think that is?

im not sure if it is the process of coding or the code itself. but honestly i don’t feel that either of them is similiar to following a recipe or tutorial… maybe people feel like the computer is following the code as if it was a recipe? 

Question 3:

In Language of New Media, Manovich describes the influence of computers on new media. In what ways do you believe the computer influences our human behaviors?

computers definetely had dramatic changes to human behaviors. in fact, most of the things that we could do today with  computers couldn’t even be imagined to be done in the past.

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Recitation 11:15-12:30: Arduino Basics by Steve Sun

for this week’s recitation we built several basic arduino circuits; and the codes we used were the examples in arduino.

for the record, all the positive ploes are connected by red cables, and the negative ones are connected by blace cables.

circuit 1: fade

circuit2: tone melody

circuit3: speed game faliure 

at first we assembled the circuit with the bread board upside down, which means the positive and negative poles are the opposite, but iw was still supposed to work if we did not realize it before we finished assembling the circuit, but unfortunately we did…… so after some useless attempts of correcting the circuit we decided to start over.

this time it works, but we didn’t even open the monitior to look at the instructions.

perfectly worked on one button. but there seemed to be some sort of damage on the other button so it won’t work. if we had a little more time we would try to change the button and see if it works.

Question 1:

Reflect how you use technology in your daily life and on the circuits you just built. Use the text Physical Computing and your own observations to define interaction.

In people’s common sense, interaction is something that reacts to an input. in Physical Computing , the writers defines interaction as a process of input, processing, and output. however i think there don’t have to be an output as long as the input and the processing exists. for example, the “cliche” version of interaction might be a person playing an video game, and his/her movement on the joystick is the input for the computer, and the programs in the game processes the input, and, say, the movement of the character is the out put of the game. however, if we think about this problem in a reverse direction, which is where the game content is the input to out minds, and our brain processes them, and we get entertained, which is the out put of our minds. while this kind of output is not necessarily visible, we might smile when we get entertained but  we might not. while this invisible kind of output is not included in our common difinition of output, i would rather put it as “no output” just not to get confused. 

Question 2:

Why did we use the 10K resistor with the push button?

it may damage the button if the current is too high.

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?

well it depends on what kind of thing i want to make. for example, for it to have one certain use i can make a LED board and give it some codes so that it can show words and i will place it according to what words it shows, or if i want to make some art i can make a mirror which reflects things by glowing different color of light or maybe the three-primary colors and form whatever is in front of them. obviously i am going to need a camera and some acdvanced coding skills. 

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Week 1: The Art of Interactive Design: recitations & readings

For the very first recitation of this semester we learned some basic techniques like soldering and assembleling simple circuits. 

For the soldering unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures but the main problem I had was the soldering pen was not hot enough when it was all rusty and could not melt the metal. I tried to rub the tip on the steel wool to try to remove the rust but the tip just got rusty again when I started to solder again. So in the end I had to change to another workstation to use another pen. I was wondering if simply rising the temperature of the pen could do the job but I was afraid that it may damage and rust the pen even more.

For the simple circuits I managed to build up two circuits which are door bell and the lamp. The first problem we met was reading the diagram. It was very different than what I was used to in highschool, but once I understood the logic of drawing it, it became easier to read.

tests:

1.door bell blooper 

this was because the direction of the button was vertical rather than horizontal, which made it short-outed itself, and that’s why once the circuit was connected, the speaker started to buzz.

2. light blooper

this was simply because the wire dropped because we didn’t insert it stably enough… things like this do happen sometimes…

3. 4. both circuits work

about the reading:

I think what I built today is essentially the same with the “Nintendo refrigerator” thing mentioned in The Art of Interactive Design, in which there are simply just one kind of interaction that involves very few (if not only one) circuit’s status, for example: on/off, strong current/weak current etc. So according to the article, the circuits I built were interactive.

In my opinion the article did not quite touch on the difinition of “interactive” deeply yet, instead it pointed out the mass usage of the word which resulted in its meaning diluted and misunderstood, which is a problem that already occured to me before. So this article, despite the fact that it did open a new way of thinking zbout the word “interactive”, it did not add many new ideas on top it. 

about the video:

to me “how can” deems to be too big of a question. I mean, just have a look at how many movements you can do with your body (which is one side of the two “actors”), how many parts od them can move in a specific pattern: eyes, head, fingers, limbs, tongue… and just imagine how many mediums (which is another side of the two “actors”) we can put these mvement on to make interactives on. What i’m trying to say is that there are infinite numbers of possibilities to make interactions, but what matters is that whether it has an importance or not.