Introduction to Physical Computing

Heartbeat Pup is a soft good built for overly anxious children. It takes in the pulse of its human companion and creates a mirror heartbeat effect through a physical simulation inside the stuffed animal. So, the bear mirrors the heartbeat of its companion child. If the heartbeat is detected to be over a resting heart rate, the animal’s own heartbeat will gradually lower until itself and the child’s heart rate is resting.

The bear becomes a grounding mechanism used to manage anxiety by creating a movement or feeling to anchor its companions awareness back to the environment.

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How it works:

The child’s pulse is sensed through the pulse sensor in the Pup’s nose. Based on the readings, the Pup’s heartbeat (created through the movement of a  speaker’s cone as electricity runs through it) will either operate at a gradually lowering rate, or will mirror the child’s heartbeat.

Reflection:

This was a project I’d been thinking about quite a few months. Overall, I’m very happy with the execution, and craft of both the program (coming from a beginner level) and the design. The biggest issue I faced was how to clean and process the values from the sensor to get what I wanted. I was luckily able to find well-documented resources at https://pulsesensor.com/ that worked through the signal processing in an interrupt file that I needed (linked in the program as well).

all files, documentation, and process:

https://cmu.box.com/s/shsr8rlt0hj0uhea9fjsoifbz157zg50

 

Millennialism

    

As a millennial myself, I feel like our generation is very vulnerable to our obsession and addiction to things. As the world evolves at an exponential rate, our generation tries its hardest to keep up with the changes. But sometimes we lose track of what we really want, which makes us want to hold onto certain things in our lives or follow certain ritual/routine that we believe without which our lives would fall apart.

This piece explores the millennial lifestyle with a focus on coffee, cats, and cat cafes. The enlarged coffee cup is a symbol of the amount of stimulant ,like caffeine, that millennials need to start off a day. The logo is a combination of starbucks logo and the internet-famous nyan cat, a product of the meme culture. The user has to “pet” the cup so that it can change color. This interaction symbolizes how the millennials are enslaved to their obsessions. The cup also looks like floating in the air, which is a symbol of this generation that dreams and always has their minds in the air.

Key Features:

1. Activate with hot water/beverage
   
2. While activated, touch the cup to make the Cat happy (LED changes color)

3. When beverage in the cup is being consumed/leaving the cup, the cup animates

Full Video:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z7xNZy0JsYe7m7_NSSXNuARZIdpRJpfC/view?usp=sharing

Process:
Following my previous post (Assignment 7 rough crit: smart cup), I added the temperature sensor. And instead of trying to use a teensyduino, I decided to make a bigger paper cup that can hold my hardware.

By chance, I found a flower pot from ikea that I could use as the top part of the cup. It was an ideal choice because it can hold liquid and is sensitive to temperature change.

Shoving everything into the cup:

In addition, instead of a traditional potentiometer with a rod, I decided to use a soft potentiometer that I can tape to the side of the cup to change the color of my neopixel. This not only solve the problem of limited space, but also made the user experience more interesting (petting the cup to please the cat).

Lessons learned:

1. Instead of trying to fit everything into a constrained space, I can change the form to make the hardware fit more naturally and securely.
2. Before, I have never spent that much time on the form of the project. This time, I took my time to make the paper cup and design the logo using Illustrator, which made the project looked a lot nicer and secure.
3. If I had more time, I would add sound to enhance the user experience. Right now, all the user feedback relies on the change in color of the neopixel, which is quite limiting. I would also add a proximity sensor to make cups interact with each other to furthermore show the social interaction among millennials.

 

video: https://youtu.be/xAO66SjFdWg

My final project is a play on a flower. With this project I wanted to present the idea that living things need human connection just as much as the usual basic essentials for survival. So light and water are replaced by physical closeness and touch: when you come closer or further away, the petals open and close, and “water” travels up the roots when you touch the base. The first part of the title comes from a quote from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, which describes how a bee and a flower depend on each other through their interaction.

Components: The open/close motion is controlled by a servo motor attached to each petal by wire. The petals and hinges are laser-cut basswood, the base is foamcore, and the root outline is cotton fabric. The LEDs are controlled by a standalone momentary capacitive touch sensor, and the servo motor is controlled by an ultrasonic distance sensor.

The biggest changes I made from my initial prototype were the petals, the base box, and replacing the linear actuator with lighting of the roots. I chose to replace the upward motion because I thought it wasn’t very graceful, and I felt that representing water with lights would be more effective for my purpose. I had some trouble wiring up NeoPixels, so decided to use regular small LEDs instead. I also had some trouble converting my petal drawing into dxf, but it eventually worked with some help from the Soft Fabrication class.

fritzing and sketch: final_project_NinaPrakash

So at this point, I have all the individual components working separately.

Components:

• Arduino Uno
• Solderless Breadboard
• 12V Lightbulb
• Analog Photoresistor
• HC_Sro4 distance sensor
• servo motor
• H-bridge
• Lasercut Lampshade and chassis

 

So I’ve now tried to connect the 12V power source with the bulb, hoping to dim it with an H-bridge. After trying to alter a circuit I had with a DC motor for a bulb to no avail, I tried again with a MOSFET.

I tried to just get the bulb working with the MOSFET,  but I reached an issue with that as well!

continuing on