The construction of the Earth

I was able to create a frame Using Craft wires by bending them into pentagons and with a total of 12 sides. The pentagons are taped and divided into the upper and lower half. I wanted to portrait the earth as a fragile ecosystem so I used limited wires for the frame and to fill the pentagons, I used paper from the first project as a symbol of recycling. The earth is made up of 12 pentagons and 6 are blue tissue paper, 2 for the north and south poles and the remainder are for the land. The earth is made by 70% water therefore the most of the area are blue.

 

For the inside I used another wire frame to support the Arduino and its connections so that it wouldn’t crush the other frame.

Testing

For the final project’s prototype I kept the core idea but had to change several components for the original idea. In my original Idea I planned to used several of soft circuits but I had done some research and using capacitive sensor, because I am able to create a better effect and it is also easier to make with pre existing components. During the testing phase, I initially planned for at least 5 capacitive sensors using the available resistors but after further testing, I realized that only 2 of my 5 resistor worked with it and used the rest for the LEDs. I later found that using a external battery would not supply sufficient power to the capacitive sensors therefore it must be plugged in to the computer

The circuit consists of 2 capacitive sensors, 1 accelerometer 6 coloured LEDs and 3 white Adafruit LEDs. Each capacitive sensor controlled 3 coloured LEDs and the accelerometer controls all the LEDs.

CODE

Video

this week

The idea is how humans impacted the globe and how we should preserve wild life.

A User would interact with a ball, and depending on how they interact with it, the ball would react differently.

The ball inputs would be using an accelerometer and a soft circuit matrix, the output would consist of a LED matrix and a vibration motor.

when the user shake the ball, the accelerometer would trigger and the ball would slowly dim and darken, when the user presses on a point on the ball, the surrounding LEDs would dim. As the ball lights dim, the ball would start vibrating violently and the only way the the ball the light up again is time and for the user not to interact with the ball.

I wanted to create a project that promotes movement so I designed a piece that utilize an accelerometer and Arduino communication with Processing. The initial idea is to use the library’s Arduino Bluetooth so that everything could be done wirelessly. The first thing i worked on was the code for Processing, as I had previous experience with Processing to Arduino communication from 267, it shouldn’t be to hard.

The Design was to have an air hockey table made via Processing and have the player move around that which in turn move the blue paddle.

Processing

My first initial coding, the output looks like this:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3Cb3gk5EtyVcnB6UWtkUWJRN1E/view?usp=sharing 

This version had all the basic features, the collision detection between the paddle and puck was definitely the hardest part and the version has its movement done with arrow keys instead of using the Arduino. In the second version I included the Arduino Communication so that the movement was done via Arduino.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3Cb3gk5EtyVZUtxM01TdHpfUVE/view?usp=sharing

Arduino

 

the initial intent was to mount an accelerometer onto an Arduino BT(Bluetooth) from the library but unfortunately after sewing it on the connection between my computer and the Arduino did not work, it would try to connect but fail despite looking up several tutorials. The next design was to have a regular Arduino UNO with a long wire connected to computer to send the accelerometer data.

The coding for the Arduino was tough as I couldn’t find the correct way for detecting the exact data that i wanted and as a result, the data received seemed inconsistent.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3Cb3gk5EtyVak1aTHJFSVN3eU0/view?usp=sharing

The Circuit is sewed onto the sweater from Assignment 2 and has a basic setup: