Using any sensor you like (a switch is okay) and any actuators you like (LEDs are okay) build something that counts events as detected by the sensor. For example, you could build a mat that counts the number of times you jump on it, and lights an LED brighter as you jump on it more. Or, you could use several LEDs to indicate the count – the more LEDs that are lit, the higher the count. Choose any sensors and actuators you like – and feel free to build this into a first exploration toward a future project. Bring to class on Tuesday to demonstrate.
The pulsing LEDs started giving me a headache while I was learning the tutorials. I then started thinking about how I could write something smoother and thus be gentler on my nogin. After looking around and finding something on MAKE (always do), I was able to see how they created gradual increases/decreases in light. Moreover, I spent much more time than I had expected to finding stuff and fixing code, which I guess was the point of the tutorials and getting to know the Arduino. Here’s a video of it in action:
int count = 0; // Sets up a counter for loops
int intredPin = 11; // Red LED connected to digital pin 11
int greenPin = 10; // Green LED connected to digital pin 10
int bluePin = 9; // Blue LED connected to digital pin 9
void setup()
{
pinMode(redPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(greenPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(bluePin, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
for (count = 0 ; count <= 255 ; count -= 5) // Count up by 5 to gradually increase steps
I forget when or where I saw the video for this but I still think it’s an interesting idea. It’s an automatic door that opens just enough for you to get through. In words that sounds somewhat terrible but the pic does a better job at promoting itself. Sorry the site’s all in Japanese: it says that by not allowing for any excess open space, this allows for better insulation and security of the building as well as help to keep bugs out.
I think this makes the building feel more alive. Similarly, what if lights turned on and off depending on where you were? What if the elevator knew where you were going, or knew that you were coming and came to get you? What if my house made coffee for me since it’s 2AM but I’m still working on figuring out my project so I’m probably going to be up and need to be productive for a few more hours?
For my very preliminary final project idea, I was thinking about embedding LEDs and pressure sensors under each fret of each string. The lights could indicate the proper fingering for a note or chord or maybe entire song tabs in memory. The sensors would pick up the chord being played and save those in memory for review or analysis via computer. I’m wondering if it would be possible to indicate the actual fingering (as in which finger) instead of just the fret? And the lights would be color-coded by string. The strings would also have LEDs & sensors to indicate/detect when played. Maybe it could even indicate if it’s to be played as an up- or down-note or muted or by which finger (if no pick).
Jet pointed out that it would be helpful for instruments like fiddles where positions aren’t defined by frets, and in dealing with infinite scale it may be possible to use [finger] skin conductivity on a sensor surface that ran the length of each string to detect position.
I like this idea (and will probably use it if successful) except for the fact that it’s a guitar just with lights and sensors. I’d really like to make something that’s either very entertaining or very interesting, maybe both. What would really be fantastic is if I could make a hollow mechanical robot hand that I could wear like a glove that would interface with a guitar and position my hand appropriately. But mimicking the human hand to that degree would be incredibly difficult, I think.
I’d still like to make something physical/mechanical.
ps. please forgive me for any incorrect guitar jargon or music terminology. i just don’t know them.
Color is made by wavelength and frequency, just like sound. It is not audible because it’s frequency is beyond human’s audibility, for instance red is 480–430 THz and violet is 750–670 THz. But what if we scope it down to the range where people can hear it, 20Hz~20KHz? Can it be simply translating color to sound? I know it won’t be easy as its sound because there are numbers of different element in sound which can not be changed to color, or vice versa. As I researched, many people had similar ideas and tried to make it happen, but unfortunately not many of them seems to be suceeded. I am thinking that what if we take some more common elements from color and sound, and try to find the way of transferring each other, such as tone or timbre. If just translating color to audio doesn’t sound interesting enough, we can slightly put entertainment factor into this idea, like color to rhythm or musical instrument sound. I guess we never know how it will be turned out unless we try it.
Here is a photo of my little barebones board with the light on, mid-blink.
I don’t have three different colored LEDs of similar intensity, so I’ll point to a project from last semester of the same approximate coding difficulty, which involved timing on a simple loop: anemone sculpture. The step that I hadn’t done before with Arduino was Tutorial 4: using the serial monitor.
It took me a while to get the arduino program up and running… it seemed to be some problem with the current software so I used an older version (Arduino 0009).
Here’s my code for the blinking lights, it blinks three different LEDs in succession:
int redPin = 13;
int greenPin = 11;
int bluePin = 12;
I’m interested in organizational systems and my first idea is to design ‘intelligent pushpins.’ It would have some knowledge of the thing it was holding and would help organize thoughts/data on a wall. If you wanted to find a document on a busy wall, the pushpin holding it up would light up or something would move, drawing your attention to it. The pushpins would change (through light or actuation) in order to group similar things or find patterns in the data. By rearranging the pushpins, you would be rearranging data.
Other ideas would be a book that responds to your senses or a bookshelf or a faucet.
My term project idea, as of now, is to create something like a photobooth but with sensors to detect things like shirt color to set ambient lighting or induce effects that would then translate to much more creative and meaningful prints for the user to take with them. This isn’t a new interest of mine as I built a photobooth two years ago for a undergraduate research grant. Here’s an Instructable I created to talk about the process of building it and how it worked. However, this booth was as simple as it got. The user just sat in, pressed a button, four pics would be taken, and (if it worked that day) it would print out the strip on 4″ x 6″ photo paper. Except for storage purposes, the booth didn’t take advantage of the digital media it collected. My term project for the course would hopefully take the idea of self photography and all the benefits/fun of photobooths and implement a smarter system that would not only enhance the experience but expand on the idea of photostrips as an artifact.
