Okay, actually, it didn’t quite work out like that at all, but here is the almost-a-week-overdue story of how I was tasked to make an improv project for my Networked Objects class (which involved monkeys, pudding, lentils, cups, etc), how it all kinda worked, and then how it all mostly sucked in the end.
I started out with a simple concept: we were tasked to make a project in one week that had to interact with the user. It had to use one or more from a list of verbs (including blowing, tapping, pushing, etc), a list of random objects (the aforementioned monkeys, pudding, lentils, cups, and playground balls), and must produce a reaction (including sound, light, movement, etc).
I started out with a computer fan, a big cup (stolen from my kitchen), a bag of lentils (thank you Adam Simon!) and a piezo attached to my arduino. However, after a few hours of playing around with various setups (and hot glue, foamcore, and a few other helping items), it became clear that it just wasn’t going to work out, and thus the concept was abandoned.
So, since I fortunately have a huge freaking pile of white LED’s from last semester, I wired up three of them, and plugged them through a cup from the water station. The original plan had been to wire fiberoptics through the bottom, however they were being cantankerous and at this point time was of the essence. Once they were set, I stuck a piezo to the edge of the cup, and hooked it all up to an arduino mini. The plan was that if you flicked the cup, the lights would blink.
What I ended up with was this: a cup of lentils with lights… except the lights went off constantly. Somewhere on the trip back from Jersey City (or perhaps just due to the insanity that is the ITP floor), the piezo just stopped behaving properly, and when it was time to present, my “interactive” concept wasn’t interactive at all — it didn’t require user input for anything.
So, in short, it didn’t quite work out as planned, but the original concept, I still think, would have been great. I’ll be honest, I hope I get an excuse to build that again later on.
Post a Comment