Introduction to Physical Computing
60-223 Fall 2017
This project displays a bodily response to an emotion or action. The solenoids under a latex membrane respond to light changes as the hand gets closer to the photoreceptor. This simulates chills as the hand gets close to the ‘skin’. The main thing I learned is to utilize simple code to check for circuit issues.
Here is the zip file for my process and final work:
Brennan_Emma_Assignment03_solenoid 2
Shes sassy, she has a taste for the finer things in life.
Who is she?
Shes the posh PIR.
Wave at her like a normal person and you’ll only get a stuck up wave back…because you know deep down she doesn’t like your shoes.
I created a little machine that when you wave at it with will give you the cliché posh wave back. I did it by making an input PIR sensor and an output servo motion. I wanted it to have a fairly quick response time however I found that difficult to achieve, lets just say the delay adds to her aloofness. When you wave you will get back an irregular number of waves every time like a regular person. It generates from 1- 5 how many waves you get back. I tinkered with the speed and rotation and finally came to this as my final product.
Video link- https://youtu.be/SzFV096u0PA
Drive- link- https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_JEXda9ZXwvSDViRUcwZnVySlk?usp=sharing
Can I make the sensor read the heartbeat, calculate bpm and flash a blueLED with some relation to the readings?
Emotion portrayed: annoyance and frustration at trying to write a seemingly simple code for a seemingly simple task, rather than use the library available here: https://pulsesensor.com/pages/code-and-guide
Original idea: change red/blue LED blinking patterns in accordance to BPM readings.
Difficulties: I found that thresholding techniques were needed to to process the raw sensor data (reads a spectrum of values, highs correspond to a heartbeat) to identify and count the number of heartbeats and calculate BPM. Much of the time was spent doing this.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B6vucT1cFrpgdlBVWTlUamxzV1U?usp=sharing
Confused but Irritated Faces
For this assignment, I wanted to transition a face from a neutral expression to an irritated expression by changing the states of each motor (6 in total, 2 for the mouth, 2 for the eyes, and 2 for the eyebrows). If the audience were to come near the photosensor, the motors would go to new positions to scrunch and look towards the direction of the sensor (maybe to warn the audience not to come near).
This project was relatively straightforward, but over time I interestingly ran into a few problems (still unresolved). My general process was to take each servo one by one, to ensure each of the motors would respond to the sensor. The first time I put everything together, the servos worked correctly (see video), but after half an hour or so, the servos started fidgeting. At first, I thought it was the way I programmed it, but over time I came to realize that the amount of power needed to control 6 servos was too much. The second time around, when I assembled more than 2 together, they would fidget and not work correctly (no changes to the program made). If I were to refine this, I would like to play with an alternate power source to avoid the fidgeting.
Video: https://youtu.be/6wD-HHZuRHU
Zip File: https://cmu.box.com/s/y8exprgw8plgt1gtg83e3b6j8i0cwl3i
For my project, I made a dog/cat/some 4 legged thing up to the viewers interpretation. The emotion that is portrayed is fear.
It starts off on alert, with pulsing orange lights. Once it calms down, the lights turn off. At this point, if it detects any motion it goes crazy until it wears itself out, and the cycle continues.
There were a couple of technical issues that had to be solved, like servos not playing nice with neopixels on the arduino at the same time, but nothing super serious.
video – https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6bFUuOZ0DHJRjI0amFveDNjUnc/view?usp=sharing
code – https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6bFUuOZ0DHJeXFSZGVZLTNXa1k/view?usp=sharing
I used several solenoids and a IR motion sensor to create my device. I think I’d like to call it “monster in a box” or something along those lines… Anyway, I envision him as this cute little guy that gets very scared and skittish when you approach him. He can only peek out one side of the box though.
The IR sensor reads the distance, and then a random pattern displays on the solenoids, increasing in speed as you approach.
This device personifies, well buggifies, anger of a disturbed bee. The yellow board serves as the basis of the little creature. And all the components are stuck to the board, just like the parts of a bee are stuck to its fuzzy body. A red LED illuminates to show the stinger of the bee, and a piezo buzzer audibly conveys the bee’s angry wingflaps.
A viewer can interact with the piece and make the bee angry! On the converse, to show the bee is angry, the circuit also needs to show the bee is not angry. So, a viewer can tap two capacitive sensors, one to make the bee angry, and one to make it less angry. Ideally, it would be a fun interaction if one sensor could be used for both interactions. A jab interaction would make the be angry, but a petting motion would calm it down.
To make this program happen, I combined two example sketches, and modified the code some. I started with the TouchSense 1188 example. The program registers which pin is touched, when the pin is touched. I changed the program to increment a counter when the angry pad is touched, and subtract the counter when the happy pad is touched. The second example program was to control the position of a servo with a potentiometer. The main problem I encountered during this was trying to integrate the two programs together. Additionally, two of the capacitive sensors were not registering, but that is probably because of the nature of the sensor pads.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sn3x6xGiFQ&feature=youtu.be
Zip: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6FN8R0MrzCKS29BbHk3ZW84MEE/view?usp=sharing
For this assignment, I created a board that imitates playing catch with a dog. A solenoid is the “ball” being thrown, light races across 3 LEDs (as a dog would run across a yard) at varying speeds dependent on “dogEnergy”, and a servo wags its tail in an arc proportional to “dogHappiness”. The “dog” is happier/more tired when it is played with, and more energized/ less happy when its fed (it’s high standards for food are unfortunately rarely met).
Push buttons allow the user to play fetch with and feed the dog.
This is a video of my project: Happy and Hungry Pupper
Here’s the zip of my project: zipMotorEmotGillianNolan (feat .ino and .fzz)
