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Recitation 1 Post

Recitation1 Report

Sharon Xu

Instruction:

For your documentation, create a blog post and that includes the following information based on your experience in this recitation. For each component in the circuits, write down what it does and why it is included in this circuit. In addition, please include pictures and or videos of the completed circuit working, as well as a diagram of how the components are connected. Describe the process of building the circuit: Did the circuit work? Were there any moments where something failed? How did you solve the problem? Write down what worked and what didn’t. Take time to reflect on this week’s readings and the recitation exercise. Publish your answers to the following questions along with your documentation.

Question 1:

After reading The Art of Interactive Design, in what way do you think that the circuits you built today include interactivity? Please explain your answer.

Question 2:

How can Interaction Design and Physical Computing be used to create Interactive Art? You can reference Zack Lieberman’s video or any other artist that you know .

Partner: Isaac

Circuit 1: Door Bell

Components:

  • 1 * 12 volt power supply
  • 1 * LM7805 Voltage Regulator
  • Jumper Cables (Hook-up Wires)
  • 1 * Buzzer
  • 1 * Push-Button Switch
  • 1 * 100 nF (0.1uF) Capacitor
  • 1 * Barrel Jack

Circuit 2: Lamp

Components:

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

Circuit3：Dimmable Lamp

Components:

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

Function of the components(what they do & why they are in the circuit):

  • Breadboard: provide the base for making electronic connections
  • LM7805 Voltage Regulator: control the amount of voltage in a circuit,to stable the voltage in a circuit
  • Buzzer: act as a speaker, make sound
  • Push-Button Switch: control the connection,or the current flow of the circuit, to control the work or stop of the circuit
  • Arcade Button: control the connection,or the current flow of the circuit,to control the work or stop of the circuit
  • 220 ohm Resistor: to resist the flow of electricity, control the current from being too intense
  • LED: serve as a light source
  • 100 nF (0.1uF) Capacitor: wave filtering
  • 10K ohm Variable Resistor (Potentiometer): resist the flow of electricity and can be controlled how strong is the resistance, so to control the current size of the circuit, so to control the brightness of the LED
  • 12 volt power supply: supply power, giving a 12 volt voltage to form the current and run the circuit.
  • Barrel Jack: to connect the circuit to the power
  • Jumper Cables (Hook-up Wires): to carry electricity in the circuit from on point to another, to connect the electronic components in the circuit
  • Multimeter: An instrument that can measures voltage, current, and resistance

Process of building the circuit:

Circuit 1: Door Bell

What I learned from building the circuit & moments where something failed:

  • First, we analysed the circuit diagram carefully and put all the components depending on where the current goes from + to -. At first, we connect the wire to the negative pole to do earthing. But soon we realized and corrected it. After building and checking the circuit, we connected power supply. But nothing happened. So we checked the circuit again and again and seeked help from instructors. We changed the components in case that one of them is broken. But we failed to find the problem. Finally, it turned out that our two voltage regulators are both broken and there are only two regulators in the case that couldn’t work. We are so LUCKY 🙂 After changing the third voltage regulator, I finally heard the most wonderful buzz I have ever heard.

. We learnt that it’s better for us to reduce the amount of wires because too many wires will make the circuit to look confusing. For me, I think next time we can put all the important components on the breadboard and then connect them with wires so that it would be more clear to know the structure of the circuit. And when facing failure, don’t be anxious and discouraged. Using the multimeter to do tests is a good way to find the problem.

Result: The circuit runs successfully.

Circuit 2: Lamp

What I learned from building the circuit & moments where something failed:

  • The LED light is dim at first and we asked the professor, and realized that we used the wrong resistor. And then we changed it and had another try, but we still failed. Making lots of efforts, we couldn’t find the problem, which made us confused. Finally, with the help of Eric, we found that we put a wire in the wrong hole which is not in the horizontal line so the circuit was  disconnected.

Result: The circuit runs successfully

Circuit3：Dimmable Lamp

What I learned from building the circuit & moments where something failed:

  • We built the circuit based on the circuit 2, just adding the variable resistor. It went smoothly.

Result: The circuit runs successfully.

Question 1:

First, according to the author, here’s a the a point about the interactive process: there are two “actor”s(The Art of Interactive Design, 5)– the circuit and I. I push the switch, or I told the circuit to be connected and run; then the circuit gets fully connected as a closed loop, or it processed; after that, the speaker buzzed or the LED lighted, as a respond to my pushing the button telling it to work. The circuit I built includes steps of a conversation, and the process cycles back and forth as I loose the button or push it again. So according to the definition the author gave in the text, interaction is “a cyclic process in which two actors alternately listen, think, and speak.”( The Art of Interactive Design,5), the circuit I built includes interactivity.

Question 2:

Zack Lieberman introduced three artistic projects: Drawn, IQ Font, and the EyeWriter. On the base of Physical Computing, people can make their artworks move by touching, make a drawing by a car driving, or even paint with a pair of glasses that can catch the movement of one’s pupil.

As is mentioned in the video, artistic practice is a form of research and development for humanity. People can use interaction design to think of a way an art piece be designed, and realize the design by physical computing.

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Week 2 Response to “Long Live the Web” and “The Strange Geopolitics of the International Cloud”–Vivian Zhu

Please see my INDEX website here:
sftp://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/home/www/week1/index.html
The website is designed to introduce myself. I’m not intended to build the About Page a long one with lots of information. Instead, you can get most of the information about me in a few sentences with links. I hope you will like it. 
More decorations and polishing will be done. Keep tuned.
 
The two articles I read: “Long Live the Web” and “The Strange Geopolitics of the International Cloud” both talk about to some extent of how does the Web reflects the real world and shapes it.
 
The Web, by metaphor, is one of the applications that run on the electronic network, i.e. Internet, to transmit information according to some open protocols like TCP/IP. Five principles apply in order to get rid of the threats towards the Web development. They are universality, open standards, separation from the Internet, net neutrality and no snooping (which is a result of mixing with the Internet). Some future capabilities of the Web are provided such as HTML5 language, linked data. 
 
From an institutionalist view, communication is power and the Web is an instrument (equivalent to instant messages and email) to make that happens. Because of some innate characters the Web owns such as liberty, freedom, and equality, the Web is entitled to some political sense. Those in power (like totalitarian government) regards the Web as a useful tool to control people, interpret the human rights and distinct groups, thus resulting in the fragmentation of the Web, causing isolation and power separation around the globe. For example, the dispute on “data sovereignty” is a product resulting from the allocation of the Cloud (international data storage). Because of the surging of the amount of data, they can no longer be stored in their own network or server, but be subcontracted towards outside managers, who build warehouse specifically for data storage. The Cloud is hence built. The geographic positions is depending upon factors like weather, tax and sovereignty etc. Nevertheless, governmental policy affects the accessibility of these data, given different positions they have been stored in, like Russia’s data sovereignty that forces data storage to switch to Germany. Though the article “The Strange Geopolitics of the International Cloud” didn’t propose any suggestions on this geopolitical impact, combining “Long Live the Web”, I recognized three advice which would be helpful in mitigating this issue:
  •  Build up a universal consensus on the data storage instead of negotiating with only one side or partial side. Consensus is the key to universality. A robust consensus equip all the participators inside the network with the same goal, mission, tasks etc., hence building a strong and efficient web management. 
  • Develop an international communicating mechanism. After all, most the conflicts is caused by the disconnections between two parties. When figuring out the consensus mentioned above, it is significant that all the parties have a clear package of appeals, sit together to work out an agreement. Compromises and conflicts happen during that time, but no more conflicts should happen after the consensus is built. In this way, potential risks and delays would be avoided in advance when the data warehouse (the Cloud) is working. International organization like WTO can be a proper platform to set up the conversations.
  • A committee representative to the nation’s regarding the Web should be built. The Internet is a virtual world that reflects the real world. Similar approaches like those in the real world should be adopted to regulate problems happening in this virtual world. In this sense, I recommend each nation collaborate and set up a committee individually in addressing all the problems that come up. 
The Internet is a transmitting machine that transfer the information created in each Web. In order to make this machine work smoothly, not only the communication in the virtual world is necessary, the exchange of information and negotiation should also happens virtually, in order to maintain worldwide data openness, safety and stability under today’s cosmopolitan context.
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Week 1: Response to “Long Live the Web” and “A Network of Fragments” – Hanna Rinderknecht-Mahaffy

Response to “Long Live the Web”: 

In his section, “Universality is the Foundation,” Berners-Lee states, “A related danger is that one social-networking site—or one search engine or one browser—gets so big that it becomes a monopoly, which tends to limit innovation” (Berners-Lee 82). While reading this, I was struck by the many web-based monopolies that exist today. In social media, Facebook has become a monopoly, not only in its status as a social media platform, but also in the fact that is one of the first/only places users get their news and information about the world around them. This can be problematic, since unlike more mainstream news sources, Facebook algorithms limit the information and news users see based on their preferences and personal views. This can sometimes lead to biased intake of information, which can have consequences, as shown by Facebook’s role in the U.S’s 2016 election. 

“Free speech should be protected, too. The Web should be like
a white sheet of paper: ready to be written on, with no control over what is written. Earlier this year Google accused the Chinese government of hacking into its databases to retrieve the e-mails of dissidents. The alleged break-ins occurred after Google resisted the government’s demand that the company censor certain documents on its Chinese-language search engine” (Berners-Lee 85). Not only is freedom of speech limited in the internet in China, but access to many web-sites/key-words is also highly censored. As a foreigner living in China, I run into this censorship any time I attempt to use Google, Facebook, or certain websites outside of NYU Shanghai’s VPN. I appreciate having unlimited access to the internet, but at the same time find it strange that some Chinese citizens around me without VPNs may not have access to the same information as I do. As Berners-Lee points out, “universality is the foundation” of the internet and in my opinion, such a limiting of freedom of information/speech in China violates this fundamental principle that all people have a basic human right to freedom of information and expression. 

Response to “A Network of Fragments”: 

Burrington ends her article by saying, “I have spent the last few years trying to glimpse the totality of the network in the fragments of network infrastructure, and while it is a far more coherent landscape today than it appeared to me a few years ago, at the end of the day these fragments remain the only forms I trust.” I found her reflections interesting that, in todays focus on data centers and wireless internet connection, we tend to forget the physic, tangible fragments of internet infrastructure.  Fragments such as cable lines and cell towers are often passed by unseen, and often seem less important/impressive than data centers. However, these components are still essential to a functioning internet. While we tend to rely and trust wifi and the more intangible aspects of the internet on a daily basis, these physical fragments perhaps are more trustworthy because they cannot be hacked or altered in the same ways. 

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Week 1 – HTML Portfolio Page – Daisy Chen

http://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~qc532/week01/hw1.html

Reflection: I wrote this portfolio page with the basic html tags I learned this week. The first welcome page contains two links to my self-introduction and contact info. In the “about me” page I use the summary tag to hide the details like photo and comments to make the page look more organized. And in the “contact” page I use the list tag to showcase my social media account and contact information. Since I haven’t learned CSS yet, the style remains quite simple but I can improve them in the future.