IMA Documentation

Overview

The first recitation basically had two sections: soldering and building simple circuits. I completed the whole assignment with the help of my partner, Leah. 

Material 

• Breadboard
• 1 * LM7805 Voltage Regulator
• 1 * Buzzer
• 1 * Push-Button Switch
• 1 * Arcade Button
• 1 * 220 ohm Resistor
• 1 * 10K ohm Resistor
• 1 * 10K ohm Variable Resistor (Potentiometer)
• 1 * LED
• 1 * 100 nF (0.1uF) Capacitor
• 1 * 12 volt power supply
• 1 * Barrel Jack
• 1 * Multimeter
• Several Jumper Cables (Hook-up Wires)

Soldering: 

We were asked to connect two wires to the button with a soldering iron and solder. In this section, I learned how to use a soldering iron properly. For example, the appropriate temperature for a  normal soldering iron is about 300℃ and we should first heat up the connecting parts with the soldering iron and then then use the solder. During the soldering process, my soldering iron just couldn’t heat up to that temperature for some reasons.  Then I borrowed my partner’s iron and completed the assignment.

Building circuits:

In this section, the assignments were building three circuits. 

1. Door bell

My partner and I actually had no idea about what to do with the first diagram and all the material provided.  One of the factors that caused our confusion was that we didn’t know how the electric current flow inside the breadboard. The other reason was that we didn’t clearly understand the diagram.So we asked the kind learning assistant, Eszter to help us. She explained everything through practice and explicit explanation patiently. We figured out everything and completed the circuit correctly. Yet the speaker failed to make any sound. After examining the circuit, we suspected that the speaker itself was broken and we replaced it with a new one. 

2. Lamp

When completing the circuit correctly, the lamp wasn’t on. We found out that it was the poor connection that caused it. So we reconnect the wire more solidly and it worked.

3.Dimmable Lamp

The process of building the third circuit was smooth and nothing went wrong. 

Reflection

In this recitation, I’ve learned the proper processor soldering, understood how the breadboard and the diagram worked. More importantly, I memorized the symbol of some of the electronic components. 

Question 1:

In the book “The Art Of Interactive Design”, the author’s definition of interaction is”a cyclic process in which two actors alternately listen, think, and speak.” and listen, think and speak could be replaced with input, process, output. (5). In this sense, the two actors in the three circuits would be the button and the speaker, the button and the lamp and the variable resistor and the lamp. Each thing in every pair of them would react to the other. It is in the process of these reactions that contain the three steps, which were input , process and output. 

Question 2:

Art is the symbol of humanity, and physical computing would serve as a carrier of the human’s mind. Physical computing alone could not present Interactive art, it needs something to transform people’s gesture to digital information. So there comes the interactive design. Therefore, interactive design should be the combination of interactive design and physical computing.

In the first recitation of the interaction lab, my partner and I were given two tasks. The first one is to solder long wires to an arcade button, and the second one is to build three electronic circuits based on the diagrams given online.

The materials given are listed below.

• Breadboard
• 1 * LM7805 Voltage Regulator
• 1 * Buzzer
• 1 * Push-Button Switch
• 1 * Arcade Button
• 1 * 220 ohm Resistor
• 1 * 10K ohm Resistor
• 1 * 10K ohm Variable Resistor (Potentiometer)
• 1 * LED
• 1 * 100 nF (0.1uF) Capacitor
• 1 * 12 volt power supply
• 1 * Barrel Jack
• 1 * Multimeter
• Several Jumper Cables (Hook-up Wires)

The solder section is not that difficult for my partner and me, because we both have tried soldering in our high school. Under the guidance of the IMA assistant, we defined the specific tasks to be done, and the do’s and dont’s in the soldering section. We had to be really cautious during the work since the temperature of the electronic soldering iron is extremely high. I finished my part first, and my partner met some problems that the temperature of his soldering iron is not high enough, which took him long to find out what was wrong. I gave him mine, and we finally soldered the wires to an arcade button successfully.

After we finished the solder section, we started to build the three circuits. The first task was to build a door bell on the breadboard, and it was actually the most difficult one, because neither my partner nor I had ever used bread boards to build circuits. We didn’t know where to start, so we decided to consult the IMA assistant. With her detailed explanation, we had a general understanding of the principle of breadboard and began to build the circuit step by step according to the diagram. After the completion of the circuit, we found that the sound of the speaker was faint. Therefore, we changed the speaker and finally completed our first task successfully.

After completing the first circuit, my partner and I became more proficient. The second and the third task were to build two circuits with lamp and dimmable lamp respectively. We used a multimeter to measure the resistance values of the two resistors, and selected the resistor of 220 ohms according to the diagram, and connected it to the circuit. We made adjustments on the basis of the original circuit and completed these two tasks smoothly.

Answer to question 1:

The author of The Art of Interactive Design define interactivity in terms of a conversation: a cyclic process in which two actors alternately listen, think, and speak. To apply this idea to our work, I consider my partner and I as a group, and all the components of the circuit work as the other group. The two groups are similar to the concept of “actors”. We used our fingers as a signal to the circuit, and after a series of processes through different components, the circuit gave its response, such as ringing, lighting, and so on. In my opinion, that’s what interactivity is about in this case.

Answer to question 2:

Interaction design requires imagination and creativity, while physical computing serves as a tool to realize people’s conception. These two combine romantic humanistic feelings and rational science, thus interactive art will be born.