This is a piece created by Osamu Sato. I choose this picture Face because it skillfully combines simple circles into a fun image. With a flexible use of circles of different shapes and smart arrangement of their locations, it creates a vivid cartoon-like girl image with a confused face. This image sheds lights that one simple element can also have lots of potential powers in creating arts.
To imitate the image, I want to use the “ellipse” code to create several circles and use my draft to locate their coordinates.
During my drafting work, I find that it is crucial to decide the coordinates of the eyes and nose, otherwise the face will be weird. And even subtle dislocation will change the girl’s facial expression.
With exactly locating every single circle and changing the color of it, I successfully modify the image. I think my work is quite similar to the original version with only a little difference.
I think processing is quite a useful tool when creating my design because all the elements I want is basic vectorgraph. Using processing can not only realize the image itself, but also gives me a clear acknowledge of how the image is structured with the help of the specific data.
The most meaningful thing I learn during the recitation is that you have to make a clear plan before you work on your project. At first I don’t use a draft, and I find it confusing when writing the code. But after I draw something on the paper, everything becomes easy. A good plan tells you what you should do and reminds you what you are doing during the process of making.
For our midterm project, my partner Cindy and I have researched several projects to find more information about interaction. In my group project, we come up with an idea of “Skype 2.0”. We want to develop the app “Skype” into a sort of wearable VR device that can let the users feel like they are sitting in a real chatroom and enable them to chat with their friends which are far away face to face. We learn from the project that “interaction” include these elements โโ two actors or more, input , process, output and a cyclic procedure of the three steps. My previous project doesn’t only help us understand the meaning of interaction, but also shed light on how interactive new devices help improve some products that already exist โโ let the users more interested and engaged in the using of the product.
Our project is called “Library Noise Sensor”, which is a little cute figure that can react differently according the different noise level. We can put this figure into the library to remind people of the importance of being quiet in the common study space. Based on the fact that there are already some sound sensors in our school’s group study room, I interviewed one of our library staff Edward Lim about whether the sound sensors really improve the situation. He told me that although sensors will beep if voice was too loud, but most students ignored the beep and keep making noise. What’s more, it is ridiculous that the beep even makes it louder. Lim offered me a case that a kid library make the” book return” look like a cute monster to draw children’s attention.
Thus, we come up with an idea that we can make the sound sensor much more adorable to draw students’ awareness of the significance of being quiet instead of only showing some boring and “cold” numbers on the screen. Then, we work on finding ways to improve the sound sensor. We find “interaction” can be the best solution, which means that if the students are involved in a conversation, they will get more chance to realize the fact that they are making disturbing noise. There are similar cases that the hospital uses a device looks like a traffic light to show the sound level. We also find some cute interactive toys on youtube which we get inspiration from on the appearance of our sound sensor.
We make our library noise sensor into a figure that looks like a card box man. If the figure hear something that is a little bit noisy, it will put its book down and stare at you as a sign of dissatisfaction. If it is noisier, the card box man will put up a sign of โsilenceโ, and if it is super noisy, it will keep putting the sign up and down to show its anger. The figure makes the situation looks like the man is listening to the students’ sounds and asking them to be quiet. The students then will receive the message and be quieter with reaction to it. There is always interaction because whether it is quiet or not, the figure is always reacting to the sound level ( keeping still is also a reaction to the quiet sound), and the students are always receiving and responding to the message delivered by the figure that they know whether they are quiet or not by seeing the posture of the figure.
To make our project work, we decide to use the “digital write” to let our sensors make outputs of 0 and 1. If the voice level is higher than the standard noise, the output will be 1, and we use different analog sound sensors to define different noise levels by adjusting their sensitivity. We choose digital write instead of analog write because it is too complicated for our purposes — digital is enough. Then, we decide to use the “if” sentence to make the figure change its postures according to the output by making the motor move in different angles. The motors will be connected to the figures’ arms. The body will be made by our 3D printer because it is also too complicated for us to make a figure by wood or something else by our hand.
When we are making our project, we face several difficulties, but we successfully overcome them. First, we face the problem that our analog sound sensors are not sensitive enough that they can only tell the super quiet sound and the super loud sound apart. So we buy several new advanced sensors to solve it. However, although the new sensors manage to detect some noise that is not loud in real life but noisy in the library, it sill fail to detect three sound levels instead of two. So we change our code that we define the third noisy level as “being noisy for a long time” instead of “being super noisy”. We use a method of accumulation to make it work. If the sensor detect”noisy”, it will add a number to “s”, and “s” is added up to 4, it will be understood as “being noisy for a long time.” We face our second difficulty in our user testing session, we find that our motor will keep moving from the condition of “quiet” and “noisy” although people are keep on talking. It is because that the sensor just detect the pause time of a conversation. Our fellows tell us maybe we should use a new method that sets a precise time schedule of every movement instead of using the “delay” code. However, we fail to use this kind of complex code. But we come up with an idea that is quite similar to the accumulation method. That is, if there is one “quiet”, the code will minus 1 to “s” and add 1 to “t” which is originally 0, only when the “t” becomes 10, the motor will react as “being quiet”. Minus here works for avoiding the situation that if there is two noisy times which happen between a long break, the figure still act as “being noisy for a long time” when s becomes 4.
Finally, our project works like this.
Our code looks like this.
In conclusion, our project aims at making a much more useful sound sensor that can be used in the library to ask the students to be quiet. We use a kind of interactive cute figure to draw the audience’s attention and make the warning more persuasive than only showing the boring numbers to student. Our project aligns with our definition of interaction because there is a procedure of “input, process and output” between the figure and the students when there is something noisy . However, there is one problem that it maybe hard to find something interactive when the students are quiet. Ultimately, my audience interact with our project by sending voice to it, receiving the feedback made by it, and change their voice volume as reaction. If we have more time, we will take the advice given by fellows and change our code into a more precise way to detect the sound volume of a conversation, which ignores the pause. From the setbacks, we learn that maybe sometimes we can find some way that maybe not so perfect, but can still fulfill our goals with replacing the complicated method and make the creating process easier. From the accomplishment we also learn something that sketches and plans are necessary before we are making a project, which helps us save a lot of time and remind us of what we are going to do next when we are confused. I wish maybe our project could be applied to our school library one day that really makes our library quieter and funnier.
This week, my partner Fay and I worked on the circuit of the Drawing Machine. We are asked to build a circuit that can control the movement of the laser-cut long arms to make it as a Drawing machine. During the process of this session, I come to understand how the H-bridge works. However, we run into a lot of problems during the recitation and we even stay for an extra 15 minutes to complete our circuit.
Materials:
For Steps 1 and 2
1 * 42STH33-0404AC stepper motor
1 * L293D ic chip
1 * power jack
1 * 12 VDC power supply
1 * Arduino kit and its contents
For Step 3
2 * Laser-cut short arms
2 * Laser-cut long arms
1* Laser-cut motor holder
2 * 3D printed motor coupling
5 * Paper Fasteners
1 * Pen that fits the laser-cut mechanismsPaper
The first is to build a circuit that makes the motor rotate. This step is the most challenging to us because the schematic is the most complicated one I have met so far. I have made many mistakes like forgetting to separate 5V and 12V power, putting the H-bride into wrong direction and forgetting to connect to the right port. Fortunately, after asking for help from the fellows, we successfully makes the motor rotate smoothly.
Then we work on how to control the motor. First, we add a potentiometer in the circuit. After that, we write a code about “MotorKnob”. So by combining these two parts, we can use the potentiometer to control the rotation of the party.
The last step is to build a drawing machine. We assemble the laser-cut arms, the motors, the pen and other items together. We can switch the knob to control the route of then pen, then, as a result, the pen draw the pattern we want on the paper.
I am a animation fan and a figure collector, so the machine that I am interested in is a kind of interactive animation figure. There are phone games that when you touch an animation character, he or she will make reaction differently based on which part of his or her body is touched. So my plan is that when we touch this kind of interactive figure, the joints of the figure body will make movements and makes it looks like the character is reacting to your touch. And maybe we can add more reaction to it, like making the figure “speaks” the famous lines of the characters and making easy conversation with the users . There are actuators like motors and servos used in this machine to realize the movement. This is a kind of way that make the art form “sculpture” more interesting to us.
Question 2:
I am really fascinated by the Feral Robot Dogs, by Natalie Jeremijinko in 2006. The robot dogs can detect the pollutions by using a sort of pollution sensor. Once the dog sense the pollutants, it will display dog-like behaviors like barking and jumping up and down to show a kind of “anger” towards the pollution phenomenon. The dogs are used to help create a community focused more on environmental issues and make the robots more vivid. He use actuators like servos and stepper motors to imitate this sort of dog-like movements with reaction to the pollution sensors.
Interaction is a dynamic conversation between two actors or more. Not similar to a common performance that the audience just simply receive information from the performer, interaction requires the participation of both sides. According to The Art of Interactive Design by Crawford, the procedure of the conversation can be divided into three parts: input, process and outputโone actor speaks something, then the other listens, thinks and speaks something as a response cyclically.
During my process of learning, I find the first project I research on is not so fit with the concept of “interaction”. It is Artists Show Us How to Make Outrageous Costumes for $100 By Kara Weisenstein. In the project, artists make various Halloween costumes for only 100 dollars. Although the artworks are magnificent, I think this project is an exhibition instead of interaction. The viewer can get a chance to admire the beautiful costumes, but they cannot do anything with it. There doesn’t exist the three necessary factors of “input, process and output”, and viewers are unable to establish a certain sort of conversation.
The second project that aligns with my definition is called Click Canvas. Click Canvas is a smart led that the audience can inject something meaningful to the art pieces by clicking the buttons to change their colors and leave a piece of their creativity at the gallery before they leave. “Interactionโ is embodied that people give out instructions by clicking the different buttons, and after a series of data processing, the canvas give out the output in the way of color changing. The meaningful painting created by the audience can be then shown to other audiences, and they can go on creating something on the canvas. Thus, there established a conversation between different audiences and the canvas, bringing about fantastic collision of inspirations and creativity. That’s the reason why I think this project aligns better to that definition.
Group Project
Our group’s idea of Skype 2.0 is inspired by the popular VR technology. Skype 2.0 is a communication software connected with a VR headband. After people put on the headband and hook it up to the computer, their body will fall asleep in the real world and their minds will be guided into a virtual chatroom where users can have a nice chat as if they were really close even though they are truly far away from each other. The chatroom includes various functions. Users’ personal images and settings of the chatroom can be freely changed, smells from reality can be felt, and even someone can be muted as other users wish.
We say Skype 2.0 is interactive because it involves at least two actors with a procedure of input, process and output. For the conversation between users and the device, users put on their headbands and transmit their minds into the machine as an input. Then, the device process these data and carry out the instructions into the virtual chatroom, showing lifelike images and sounds to the users as an output, which makes it possible for users to have a feeling that they are really talking to each other. For the conversation between users themselves, it is obvious that there exists a conversation in the chatroom where people listen, think and speak cyclically. That’s why we think Skype 2.0 fit in with the criteria of “interaction”.
During this recitation, we focus on the use of sensors. My partner Fay and I decide to work on the moisture sensor. This time we have to write the codes by ourselves, which is what I find challenging during this section. But luckily we successfully write the right code at last through our efforts.
It takes me a long time to understand what the “(sensorValue, 0, 1023, 0, 255)”means. After listening to my partner’s detailed explanation, I understand that it means “(sensorValue, fromLow, fromHigh, toLow, toHigh)”, we have to do this because the component have limits on the sensorValue, so we have to map the value into another range.
When I put my hand on the moisture sensor, it shows the moisture value on the screen by the serial monitor. We write a code that when the value is over 100, the led light will turn light. Luckily, it successfully works.
It is important to connect the right pins on the moisture sensor.
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?
A: I intend to assemble the moisture sensor. I think this circuit can be applied into agriculture for farmers. The sensor can detect the moisture level in the dirt. Once the moisture level is higher or lower than the plants’ preference temperature, it can send messages to the farmers to remind him of adjustment, which makes the farming more effective and helps farmers get more harvest.
Question 2:
Code is often compared to following a recipe or tutorial. Why do you think that is?
Because every component in the circuit will work just precisely as what is written in the code. The code here act as an instruction and an order, which is similar to what recipe functions in the process of cooking. What’s more, code differs. Good code makes the circuit work effectively, just like a good recipe makes the food more tasty. However, bad code can make a circuit much more complicated or even lead to failure, and similarly a bad recipe makes dishes bad.
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 are greatly changing our ways of living and thinking. Most of us are sticking to their phones (a tiny version of computer) and we think we cannot live without it. However, people actually live very well independent of phones ten years ago. We become more used to text talking instead of real-life face-to-face conversations. What’s more, we tend to think less because Google or Baidu can help us solve almost every problem.
Headbands of Skype 2.0
