randaya – F15 60-223: Intro to Physical Computing

Final Project: Journey Experience

Thu, 17 Dec 2015 16:42:22 +0000

By: Roberto Andaya

The Journey Experience is a extension of the Journey Car in a previous project. Its an attempt at trying to get more meaning behind the game and increase player cooperation compared to its previous iteration.

To reach the goal of creating cooperation I needed to create two 3pi controlled systems that are controlled by wixel chips that would allow for remote control of the 3pi movements. There would also need to be a camera system so that each player could see one another

Above is a picture of the main course. Constructed into three sections: Meeting, Puzzle, Conclusion. In the meeting section the 3pi robots would meet one another and enter the second section together. Once the door opens they would be able to complete a puzzle of creating a ramp. When the ramp is assembled they would climb it to reach the next area. The final area is the conclusion of the “journey” they have commenced and a message would be stated.

The door system of the first area is powered by an arduino system that is activated by a photoresistor and moved by a motor system.

Arduino Code

Here is the schematic of the arduino set up

This is the what the puzzle ramp structure would generally be composed of. The robots would have to work together to move these structures to the correct position. All these pieces were laser cut and specifically made such that they can move up the ramp without getting stuck from any inconsistencies

This is the end structure ramp that the 3pi robots would go down on completion of their experience and have a message at the end.

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One-in-one-out: “A Sensory So-Long”

Wed, 30 Sep 2015 04:08:08 +0000

Teaching children to say goodbye is frequent topic of discussion in parenting literature. One Harvard Medical School Professor, Susan Linn, says that, “[kids should know that] although no one can stop transitions, everyone has a chance to discover what you can do to contribute to the experience, to acknowledge, mark and take ownership of saying goodbye”. But really, what do we know about what children think about when they say goodbye? What would “taking ownership” of saying goodbye mean to them? When we first created our piece we wanted to provide an answer to this question. With the presentation of our piece, whether that’s the drawings, the handwriting, or even the children singing the songs, we wanted to convey how children use different senses as coping mechanisms to make saying goodbye a little easier. Though, once people started to interact with it they created their own meaning for it by making their own songs from the notes or even attempting to play the song backward. We realized that our experiences only highlighted how little adults understand about how children part ways. Children are all about the what; to them, the why and how really don’t matter. Our piece, “A Sensory So Long” (SSL), has become a commentary on how little is understood about how children part ways.

The main function of SSL lies within the two half circles of conductive tubing surrounding the octagonal case. The tubing has a linear resistance, which allows the user to create different resistances by grounding the tube at different locations. The Arduino reads the resistance and calculates the position of the ring along the tube. The Arduino then sends the position to a Macbook hidden under the case over a serial connection, using the Firmata firmware. The info is then interpreted using a Pure Data patch that maps the Arudino input to different points in the song. This allows the user to scrub forward and backward through the song.

All the technical specifications can be found here:

http://time.com/3902181/how-to-help-your-kids-say-goodbye/

YouTube / Rachel N – via Iframely

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Sensing Prototype: Collabright

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 03:26:13 +0000

Ninety percent of communication is nonverbal. Though everyday life is full of nonverbal communication such as traffic signals, morning alarms, and even facial expressions, people often find themselves unable to work as a team once they can no longer verbally speak to one other.

So our group posed the question, what if we forced two people to work together by communicating through outputs appealing to two different senses?

Collabright bridges two users by allowing one to control sound output in the form of the classic “Happy Birthday” and the other to control visual output in the form of a strip of LED lights. The user whose output is sound controls the song by running a piece of wire down a length of rubber tubing at varying speeds and positions while the user who changes the LEDs controls the lights by running a piece of wire around a color wheel, also composed of rubber tubing.

The idea is that the users can create an experience together that is more powerful than when either one works alone.

http://courses.ideate.cmu.edu/physcomp/f15/60-223/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/20150921_233428.mp4

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