I chose to pursue the jewelry prototype for this week's project, and set to work finding a way to integrate the circuits into the structure of the rings better, eliminating as much wire as possible and hopefully finding a ring that would allow a more diffused and interesting light effect. As luck would have it, I found a ring with clear plastic "crystals" laid out like a flower, which gave me the perfect opportunity for some pretty refracted light and a place to hide the LEDs themselves (of the smaller 3mm variety in order to fit). The crystals and flower motif, while a bit tacky in my eyes, actually fits well with my original role for the product as a fun jewelry item for young girls in elementary and middle school.
I had also bought another bracelet to coordinate with the new ring, but decided that no matter what you did to minimize wire and obtrusiveness, there would always have to be wires connecting the person's rings to their bracelet, so I decided to try to keep the entire system contained in the rings. In order to do this I needed a smaller battery, so I tried a 3V coin battery; unfortunately the voltage was not powerful enough to power all three super-bright LEDs that I had in position, (and it didn't really fit anywhere without sticking out noticeably) so I had to go back to the drawing board. I bought a second coin battery to up the power, but also decided to try hearing aid batteries after sleuthing out their voltage (1.4V, conspicuously missing form the packaging). By strapping 6 of these little guys together, I was able to power the string of LEDs through two or three rings with adequate brightness.
Additional photos and video documentation are below.
Twitballoon is controlled by an Arduino, permanently performing Twitter searches for a predefined keyword. If it finds a tweet the balloon is released a bit and lifts up. Over time it is pulled down again. So the height of the balloon reflects the activity of that keyword on Twitter. It is much easier to understand if you watch the video:
John McKerrell built this fun project integrating hardware hacking with talking to "the Cloud" in order to make his own personal version of the Weasely family geo-clock from Harry Potter. The Arduino makes an HTTP request to a mapme.at which returns John's location in JSON; the code he wrote parses this JSON and translates it into movements of the clock's hands.
Nimbits is a free, social data logging service. It provides web services to feed and store time series data (such as a changing temperature) into "Data Points" online. As your data it fed up into Nimbits you'll be able to use its many online data processing services, perform calculations, and receive alerts. You can also pull your data down into any connected system. Today, as values are recorded into Nimbits users see their changes in Spreadsheets, Visio Diagrams, on Facebook, Instant Messages, or using our free windows desktop interface. Software developers also use our free and open source SDK to write their own interfaces to the Nimbits Engine.
This particular article describes how you can now feed data up into the Nimbits Data Logger cloud, complete with diagrams of the circuit and the Arduino code! This other article also discusses the implementation with a fair amount of code.
In order to create the first of two "curious light" projects, I decided to relate it to one of my personal vices—wearing entirely too many rings. By connecting a circuit from my bracelet to multiple rings, I was able to make a "curious light" that lights up an LED on my pointer finger's ring when all the fingers are touching each other. When they separate, the circuit is broken and the light turns off.
The three prototypes—role, look and feel, and implementation—are shown below.
Role.
Magic Rings is an interconnected set of interactive jewelry with an LED that lights up when you complete the circuit by closing your fingers (and thus the metal rings on them) together. The bracelet-ring set is a fun accessory for teen girls that want to wear fun chunky jewelry and also enjoy flashy pieces of technology. The bracelet and rings could be worn as she would wear any other accessories in her daily life.
Look and Feel.
The look and feel of the Magic Rings bracelet-ring set is that of a wrist and hand full of normal jewelry. While more rings than most people would wear, from the top of the hand it is unnoticeable that there is any circuitry in play. The weight of the bracelet and rings is no different than they would normally be due to the small size of the LED and minimal watch battery.
Implementation.
In order to implement the technology, it was impossible to completely separate the look and feel and implementation prototypes and still have them be valuable, so the implementation prototype simply builds upon the former. I hooked up the leftmost ring (on the ring finger) to the bracelet, connecting the metal bracelet to ground, and connected the LED-laden pointer-finger ring to the positive voltage from a 9V battery, creating an open circuit while the fingers are still open. The pointer-finger's ring is non-conductive in most of its body, but has two strips of metal opposite each other that don't touch—it is to the right-most of these two strips that I connected the positive voltage, while connected the two strips with the LED that is hidden in the ring's beads. The metal strip on the other side is position such that it easily comes into contact with the metal ring on the user's middle finger when the fingers are closed, closing the circuit.
For this prototype I used a 9V battery due to material constraints, but for further iterations I will change this out to use a watch battery in order to make the jewelry set wearable on a more practical scale.
Curious Light #2: Interconnected Photoresistors
For my second curious light, I wanted to recreate the feeling of dominos, where one item falls after another, except with LEDs lighting up in sequence. This also reminded me of those old Frankenstein-esque movies with the giant switches that would slowly power up the entire system, leading me to have the set of LEDs switched on by a smaller yet still comically large/over-dramatic knife switch.
The three prototypes—role, look and feel, and implementation, are shown below.
Role.
This product is a simple toy playing with the interaction if a sequence of lights. It has no higher purpose than to be visually stimulating and entertaining to the user, and would generally be used in the user's free time or as an outlet for procrastination or fidgeting.
Look and Feel.
The look and feel of this toy would be similar in dimension to a standard ArtBin pencil box, however not as tall. The real toy would be shallower in order to remain portable and to allow for the user to wall mount the device if it were being used as a procrastination toy at the user's desk.
Implementation.
In order to implement the idea, I created a series of lights connected to photoresistors, where each light is dependent on the light below it illuminate its own photoresistor. I attempted using timers to create a domino-like effect where each light lit up in sequence, ultimately lighting up the large green orb at the top, but was unable to make it work to fit my needs by trying to teach it to myself. Instead, I focused on making the lights' positions to the photoresistors that they illuminate flexible so that the user can play with the placement of the LEDs, and thus with the strength of the light on the other LEDs.
For further iterations I would like to experiment some more with the timers to try to achieve the original goal, and to make the interaction between the user and the device more interesting. (For example, they could turn on with delays in sequence, but then still allow the user to play with their placement and the strength of the different lights.)
For the second iteration of my rubber ducky themed children's toy and nightlight, I wanted to take it to a much more polished final place, and increase the amount of elements in play. I increased the number of ducks (lit by LEDs) to five, and largely in order to practice my skills at building out circuits and wire wrapping, I reconstructed the entire project using wire wrapping wires and header pins. (In reality, the enclosure is so large that it would most likely have been much more organized on the inside had I kept a breadboard, but I wanted to try to get my circuits off the breadboard as practice for future projects.)
For the enclosure, I decide to make the entire box the "water" instead of just a small disc like in the last iteration, and found a translucent blue acrylic box at the Container Store that fit my needs perfectly. (If they had had a large round one, that would have been most ideal, but I was still happy with the find.) In order to cover the wiring from the outside, I used white tissue paper to simultaneously hide the wires and create a sort of wave/water effect beneath the blue plastic. I played with several concepts for duck number and placement (at one point with a plan for 12 ducks in a grid) but ultimately decided that while it could be a very cool art project in an ironic social commentary kind of way, it took it too far from a children's toy—so I reduced the number of ducks back down to a number that seemed friendlier to a child.
After having some friends look at the toy/nightlight and test it, I got a few suggestions that proved to be very helpful. Several were in fact opinions on the placement of the ducks themselves, which helped me settle on the final arrangement. The most noticeable one to me was the suggestion to fasten something larger to the tiny knob that was controlling the frequency of the blinking in order to make it easier to grip for both adults and children. This hadn't occurred to me previously (I think I was still scared of gluing things to pieces of electronic equipment) but I really liked the idea so took the cap off a bottle of milk and glued it to the knob/dial to give it a more children's toy aesthetic. Finally, once I decided where the different effects would take place on the spectrum of that knob, I added labels to instruct the user about which way to turn the knob for the desired effects.
As far as features, I made a couple "upgrades": the blinking function of the toy is now driven by a random function, and executed using arrays. The first sequence, however, is always the same whenever the lights go back out—somewhat like an intro to the randomized blinking ahead. Also, in addition to the night light mode, I added a "full light" mode for those times when a child might need to get up and get a glass of water and want more than just a faint glow. The addition of this feature also allowed me to turn down the intensity on the glowing nightlight mode as well since it's purpose could now focus a little more on the ambient/decorative side of things.
Additional images and a video of the project working through its various functions can be found below.
Maker Faire was nothing like what I expected and was incredible to see. The amount of geek power out in the world today (and I mean that in a positive and aspiring way) is truly mind-blowing. My friend/classmate Lara and I were talking about this relatively recent explosion in technology education for children and couldn't help wondering where we might be if these types of opportunities had been as much a part of our lives as it clearly is for many children today.
While there were countless ridiculously cool projects, I narrowed it down to three to discuss here: 4MP, Electric Chaircut by Nelson, and Twitchy (et al at the NYCResistor booth).
4MP.
Michael Chladil's Project named 4MP—an interactive music machine that requires you to tug on pulleys with up to three other people to make music—was awesome to play around with. I have very little experience in sound, so seeing what can be done with MAX/MSP was eye-opening for me. Also, the "machine" is just really fun to use in the way that it combines a fun physical motion with crazy soundtracks that are linked to exactly what you're doing. As you can see in the video, it clearly appeals to users of all ages.
Electric Chaircut by Nelson.
This project was pretty solidly crazy, but very cool to see and hear. Nelson Loskamp constructed a machine that takes an ordinary activity—a haircut—and turns it into a performance piece. By amplifying the scissors and attaching sound effect pedals to the various haircutting instruments, he was able to create a soundscape to accompany the haircuts he was giving to the unsuspecting volunteers. The combination of creative vision and technical adeptness was great and made me want to continue working toward integrating these types of realms.
Also, for reasons unknown, YouTube isn't acknowledging the fact that I had rotated it into the proper orientation outside of their system and appears to be showing it sideways. My apologies.
Twitchy [and friends].
While some may think some of NYCResistor's toys were creepy—(because let's face it, some of them were...there was a twitching "baby" doll with only a few limbs and no head. seriously)—I was thoroughly entertained and inspired by the quirky edge that NYCResistor puts into their toys, many of which featuring some type of vintage throwback element. The most eye-catching was a small blue monster they call "Twitchy" that, well, twitches. The motion is very comical and jerky, especially given that for reasons untold there is a similarly twitching cutlery set just to the side of the toy. But the vision to create such unique and interesting toys and games is a good reminder of what you can accomplish with good design, ideas, and technical ability.
For our second physical computing assignment, we were tasked with creating some type of ambient lighting device that reacts to light via a photoresistor (with the option of additional user input). To satisfy the parameters of the assignment, I created a children's interactive toy out of some rubber duckies and LED lights that also doubles as a nightlight depending on user settings. You can see the toy in action in the video below, with a more detailed description of what exactly is going on underneath.
When the lights are on, the toy is inactive. But when the lights are dimmed or turned off completely, the toy becomes an interactive light show for the child to play with. The child can change the frequency of the alternating light pattern using the dial on the front of the enclosure, and whenever they've had enough (or their parents tell them its time to go to bed!) turning the dial all the way "up" or clockwise changes the mode of the toy to a subtle light that fades in and out with just enough power to give a nightlight-level of glow. The fading action is based on the hypnotizing MacBook "breathing" sleep light, which is at once mesmerizing and incredibly soothing.
Below are a series of photos throughout the construction of the toy at various stages along the way. It was a much less frustrating experience than the first week's assignment, which is an encouraging sign that I may be getting over that initial learning curve/hump that I was struggling with at first. Plus let's be serious. Who doesn't love rubber duckies?
Background. I'm a first-year MFADT student, freshly back on the east coast after
several years in San Francisco. I majored in Economics (with a
certificate in finance) at Princeton Class of 2006, but have been moving
steadily away from that ever since I graduated—I worked for/with my
dad's economics consulting [family] business over the last 3 years,
originally for data analysis and research but increasingly for print
design, web design, and web development and maintenance. My strongest
background relating to DT is probably in web design, but I've also got a
lot of random stuff in the wings from fine arts to a handful of
programming/coding classes.
Why I'm taking this Class. I actually wasn't even in the class when we pre-registered for classes
in late July/early August, but the more I talked with second year
students that absolutely loved their PComp experiences (several of which
totally changed their DT trajectory after taking it), the more I
realized how cool it could be to learn this type of stuff early on in
the program. It's totally outside of my current comfort zone, but I've
always been equally visually and math/science-oriented and am eager to
get reconnected with the physical sciences side of my personality. I
love the idea of translating interaction into physical space, and this
seemed like a great place to start.
Favorite Childhood Toy. It's a tie between Teddy Ruxpin and Super Nintendo (specifically with respect to Donkey Kong Country). And while a picture of those bad boys would be fun, I thought some videos would be even better.
Recent Comments