Introduction to Physical Computing – Page 7

Assignment 6: Final Project Proposal – “Draw Your Music”

SooJin Sohn – DRAW YOUR MUSIC (Proposal – Draft 1)

Abstract/Concept:

The core objective of this project is to explore the possibilities in conversion of media through user interaction. This project is designed to capture and scan a hand-drawing on a piece of paper, translate the coordinates of the drawing into musical notes.

Material:
1. Arduino UNO – 1
2. Clear acrylic boards (paper scanning area)
3. White paper
4. Black marker (the ink needs to be strong and heavy enough to bleed through the other side of the paper)
5. A web camera
6. some back lighting material for eliminating shadows
7. A push button – that triggers the camera to initiate scanning/translating of drawing into music
8. Some heavy Processing/MAX and Arduino coding

Plans for Production:
1. Make sure to build the code in the following steps:
  - Control the webcam to capture a fixed frame size of a paper.
  - Manipulate the captured image into grayscale, and define an array that saves all RGB values of each pixel.
  - Map the captured image pixels into 0 to 1, and 50Hz to 1500Hz (serial communication between Arduino and Processing)
  - Print the mapped value coordinates
  - Serial communicate the coordinate values to Arduino, and print the coordinates into auditory data.
2. Build the hardware
  - Use the acrylic boards, and glue the webcam along with the back lighting switch.
  - Connect a simple push button switch to the Arduino (the push button should work as the trigger for scanning and initiating the translation of the image to music)

Class Notes, 7 Nov

Not shown in class, a guide to making mechanical automata. I think many of these could be made on a laser cutter or 3d printed.

507 Mechanical Movements.

Multiplexers, shift registers, and how to read a data sheet

The Arduino Playground guide the 4051, including the spiffy Arduino bitRead() call.

Instructables page on how to use the 74HC595 shift register.

The Sparkfun guide to reading a data sheet.

An interactive toy that passes “the tigoe test”

Paro, an interactive therapeutic robotic toy, now used in treatment for a variety of mental health problems.

Upgraded version of what I saw in Miraikan, the national museum of emerging science and innovation.
Used in treatment of people with Alzheimer’s and general dementia. Live animals are usually not allowed in rehabilitation or senior care facilities.
Paro Corporate site.

Koi Fish Coffee Table

This project is going to be a installation for the size about a side table/coffee table. The top of the installation would be in glass/clear acylic where things can be put on like a real coffee table.

The table installation would be able to interact with different objects been put on the table based on the temperature. The koi fish would swim in a random pattern (similar to a real koi fish). When someone sits at the table and put something on the table top, if the thing is hot like coffee or tea, the koi fish will swim away from the object. If the thing is cold, like soda or snacks, the koi fish will swim towards the project, and swim around for a while.

Personally, I am very fond of the east asian style gardens (Chinese and Japanese). The project is to make the living room more interesting for people that doesn’t have enought space or time to take care of a koi pond garden. Kind of like the idea of karesansui，the Japanese Zen Garden, which is very artistic and easier to take care of. In the modern urban settings, it is really hard to have a big enough tank/pond body of water for actual koi fishes. However, a koi pond that does not require water or big space would be ideal.

Hardware:

2 or 3 stepper motor (maybe more)
Some non real koi fish (Wood carved would be awesome, 3D printed is also acceptable I think)
A couple of timing belts (or one really long one), and pulleys
tiny camera/IR camera for tempertature detection/ Motion Detector?
Some white sand (For appearence, not super necessary for mechanical part)
A couple of strong magnets
I might need more things but I can’t think of it right now….
(basically it is the x and y axis for a 3d printer/laser cutter)

Software:

I need software to work with the camera to read temperature
I need some library to work with the stepper motor

Order of Construction and Testing:

Make the stepper motor work
Figure out how to detect temperature
Construct the table with 8020
Install the stepper motor and timing belt to test
Make the servo work and behaves like a koi fish
Install magnets and stick the koi on the moving part
Make the table look like an actual aquarium/pond
Work with a couple of servos to make koi more realistic

Music Video made out of laser etched toast

Final Project Proposal: One of Two options

I explored a couple other ideas and included them just to show my process.

https://samanthaho.myportfolio.com/final-project

My actual project proposal is to make an interactive lamp that requires a group of people to coordinate with each other. The lamp shade itself will be lasercut be on a vertical track. One person of the team controls the vertical height of the shade and the other, the brightness of the bulb.

The height of the shade will directly correspond with person A and how far away they are from the lamp. Similarly, person B will need to take their phone out and use their phone light to control the brightness of the bulb via photoresistor.

It requires the coordination of both parties to properly project shadows and silhouettes onto the table.

Project proposal: chocolate temperer

I want to create a tool to temper chocolate bars with designed weak points; this will allow chocolate to break into specific shapes. To accomplish this, a heated bar mold to control the rate of temper of chocolate will be made. Ultrasonic speakers will be paced below the chocolate bar mold. As the material cools, standing interference waves will vibrate the chocolate to create low pressure areas. The chocolate’s crystal structure / density will be different along specific lines.

Steps:

Design 3D model for chocolate bar
3D print
Screen print resistive, conductive ink on thermoform, food-safe plastic to create heating element
Thermoform printed plastic over 3D print
Test heating element by running current through print
Mount 2-4 ultrasonic speakers under the bar mold
Program arduino to run through a sound (sine wave) sweep, user can press button when the desired interference pattern is shown.
test!

Tools:

Arduino
ultrasonic speakers
push button (or capacitive sensor)
thermoform plastic
3D print of chocolate mold

An Interactive Mechanical Flower

Abstract/Concept

For my final project I want to create an interactive mechanical flower. The idea behind the interaction is that the flower thrives off of human touch and connection rather than sunlight and water. I am imagining a structure with a single flower bud and stem mounted on a clear box or frame, and roots suspended underneath (see images below).

Conceptually: I want to accomplish a few things with this. First, I want to explore an organic, fluid, and natural side to mechanical design as opposed to linear and strictly functional. Second, I want to portray the idea that living things need human connection just as much as they need the basics of food, water, shelter, etc.

In terms of what the flower will actually do: I want the flower to close when nobody is around and open when people come closer (the analog to opening/closing in response to sunlight). If possible it would be cool if it could “grow”, maybe get taller or raise and lower, when people touch its roots (the analog to growing in response to water and nutrients).

Hardware

Flower
- Wood (probably ⅛” basswood, which has worked well for me in the past)
- Distance sensor
- DC motor
- H-bridge
Stem
- Long threaded rod and thing to screw it into
- DC motor
- H-bridge
Roots
- Thin wires for the roots
- Capacitive touch sensor
Base
- Clear acrylic

Software

Flower
- I need code to read the distance sensor and open/close the flower accordingly
Stem/roots
- I need code that will read capacitive touch input and raise/lower the stem accordingly

Plan

Make simple petals that open and close using a motor and H-bridge
Make the opening/closing respond to distance sensor
Create a raise/lower mechanism using motor
Mount flower to this
Make the raise/lower respond to touch sensors

The Indexical Mark Machine

I want to make a drawing machine. What interests me about machines drawing is rhythms in mark making, rather than accuracy and depiction. I think what’s beautiful about mechanical drawing is the pure abstraction of endless uniform marks done in a pattern, simple or complex, that is evidence of the same motion done over and over again.
I feel what’s most beautiful about all art is the presence of the indexical mark: the grain of a brush stroke, the edge and slight vibrations in a line of ink that prove it was drawn with a human hand, or the finger prints in a clay sculpture. I make the case that the difference between artistic media is defined by indexical marks. Do two works have different indexical marks? Then they are different forms of art entirely, showing us different aspects of compositional potential.

So I want to invent new indexical marks, ones that the human hand is not capable of producing. I want to see patterns fall out of a mechanical gesture that I built, but didn’t anticipate all the behaviors of, and to capture a map of these patterns on paper.

I don’t care if the machine can make a representational image; rather I want to make a series of nodes and attachments that each make unique patterns, which can each be held by mechanical arms over a drawing surface, each hold a variety of drawing tools, and be programmed into “dancing” together.

Hardware

5 V stepper motors

12 V Stepper motors
12 V DC motors
Sliding potentiometers; light and sound sensors (I want the frequencies of the mark making mechanisms to be adjustable by both controlled factors and factors influenced by the environment. )
Controller frame
Card board for prototyping the structure of the machine
Acrylic to be laser cut for the final structure

Software

Built from the ground up. The most complex programing will be that of the arms which position the drawing attachments over different places on the drawing surface. I may use a coordinate positioning library for a configuration of motors that pushes and pulls a node into various positions with crossing “X and Y” arms.

Timeline

Weeks 1 and 2

Make several attachable drawing tool mechanisms which each hold a drawing tool differently, and move it about in a different pattern.

Week 3

Build a structure that holds the attachable nodes over a drawing surface, with the capability of arms to move the nodes across different areas of the surface.

Week 4

Control board and sensory responders that can be used to change patterns of the arms, and the nodes.

Week 5

Program built-in patterns that the controls will influence factors of.

Week 6

Make some more nodes, and make some drawings!

Project Proposal: Fishies

Concept statement:

I plan on making an automatic fish feeder/ pump system that responds to texts (or emails, or some similar interaction) – certain key phrases will trigger specific responses in the system. I want to use this project to synthesize a more human interaction between people and their fish — while texting isn’t the most intimate form of communication, it’s such a casual means of talking to other people that I think it will be useful in creating an artificial sense of intimacy.

Hardware: some sort of feeding mechanism (motor-based?), submersible pump (small), lights (LEDs), fish tank, fish (I already have the last two, don’t worry)…. I’m not sure what I’d need to connect w/ an arduino via sms or through wifi

Software: I’ll need software to make the arduino respond to texting (or something similar), and then perform fairly straightforward mechanical outputs

Order of constructing and testing: first I need to get the arduino response down pretty well, since the project largely hinges on that, then creating a feeding mechanism will be the next priority… everything after that will largely be “frills”/things that aren’t crucial to the project. As I add components, I’ll need to figure out how to display them non-ratchetly. I’m also definitely going to need constant reminders to document my process.

Final project proposal: smartCUP (updated)

Here is the updated proposal

Abstract

How do we make art, and better yet, how do we express ourselves through art? Traditionally, people express thoughts and feelings through intentional choices of color, stokes, medium. I want to experiment with idea of skipping artists’ intentional choices and allowing their body (or physical properties of their body make these choices. I believe this will allow artists’ to have a closer (physical) connection with their artwork because their body would go through the same change in states as their artwork.

I want to upcycle paper cups (ones you would get at starbucks) as a tool for drawing. The cup can animate the user’s interaction (opening cup, drinking, warming up drinks, even socializing with cups), and then it will take these (unstaged) interactions into art.

Concept drawing

Cup design: to be added

Inspiration:

Hardware

temperature sensor
Neopixel LED
tilt sensor
potentiometer
photo-sensitive paint

Software (tentative)

blynk — connecting arduino data to PC
pygame (looking for better option for UI)

Order of construction and testing

Potentiometer + tilt sensor -> color change of Neopixel LED
temp sensor -> color change of Neopixel LED
Fit things into cup
proximity sensor -> 2 cups interact
make an information poster for the final show
write up my artist’s statement for the final show

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Abstract

I want to make a lantern as a tool for drawing. The lantern will be tied to the user’s hand. User’s body temperature controls how much the lantern expands, which then changes the intensity of color; User change color by changing the orientation of their hand and lantern. A virtual canvas will then capture the states and motions of the lantern to form a painting.

Concept drawing

Lantern design: