Category: Physical Computing

First semester work in Physical Computing.

Final Project – TweetBots need your emotions

TweetBots is a project that involves 2 Braitenberg inspired Bots, acting and reacting under the influence of human emotions.
The initial attractor for developing this idea into a project was effective causality resulting in unpredictable and unprogrammed behaviours.
I was very interested in these hopefully unforeseen physical manifestations defined by what would appear to be basic intelligence. At this point I started to narrow down the basic cause and effect relationship of an intelligence based on reactions to certain stimuli. It was clear to me that if something appeared to be intelligent enough to avoid or be attracted to a certain environment, then clearly it would appear to be “alive” and hence possessing of very basic intelligence.
The stimuli I chose to isolate were SOUND, LIGHT, SMELL and TEMPERATURE. This is mostly due to the availability of electronic sensors capable of evaluating and transmitting these qualities in an environment as data.
For this particular experiment I chose LIGHT as the the main and only stimulus.
This seemed like a fairly good approach but it had limitations. The Bots appeared to be functioning on a basic level but were limited to one specific behaviour- either attraction or repulsion to light.
I started wondering how this behaviour could be initiated via human influence and even could this be done remotely. Could these bots act based on remote input?
However, the more I thought about this, the more I realized that there was an inherent contradiction in this idea. If I wished for the Bots to have a certain essence of autonomy, after all they were “alive” , is it possible at all to bring human influence in a way that doesn’t involve a direct input. I wanted to the Bots to sense their environment, but I was also interested in a more advanced way of controlling them, specifically a control that is not only remote but that doesn’t involve human interaction based specifically on a stimulus, LIGHT.
How can I have human input that is not just someone holding/withholding a light source to disrupt and influence the bots?
I chose Twitter as the source of this influence. The reasoning was that tweets can not only contain inane pointless statements but also can be a great platform for simple emotional expression. I chose to focus on these emotional expressions. How can I convert a tweet, for example ” I am so happy, I just got accepted to ITP” to a command that the Bots can execute in a physical space.
I was concerned with creating a database of “happy” words, and “sad” words, mostly due to the conflict of taking them out of context. I have to admit, there is something conceptually very interesting about losing the meaning of a tweet in translation, and misinterpreting it but for this specific project I wanted this to be as close to the original intention as possible.
The solution was fairly simple- look for the words “sad” and “happy”. More often than not , these words will illustrate their true meaning in a sentence, and hence the minimize the chance of misinterpretation. I wanted to avoid making SchadenFreude Bots.
So the basic scheme of this experiment becomes this. An origin of tweets being parsed is set as the longituted and latitude of ITP, with anything within 10mile radius being parsed for “active” words.
If a “sad” is in a tweet, it gets extracted and sent to the bot, the bot then switches his behaviour to “photophobic”, however if “happy” is present, the bots become “photophilic”
Each bot contains a RGB led that changes color based on the word present acting as a status, and also functions as a stimulus(light source) to provoke a response in the bots to their ever changing environment. Ultimately the bots roam around in a physical space, changing their physical proximity to each other based on the virtual emotional space around them(Twitter). The resulting behaviour is fascinating.

BUILD
*parts were mostly sourced from Polulu, Sparkfun and Jameco.

- Tamiya 70097 Twin-Motor Gearbox Kit at a ratio of 204:1
- Round robot chassis from Polulu( amazing for balance)
- Tamiya toy tires
- SN754410 Quad Half H-Bridge( for controlling each motor individually)
- Arduino Pro 328 – 5V/16MHz
- 2.4GHz XBee
- photocells
- rgb led
- round acrylic half globe(Canal Plastics)
- various wires and breadboard

CODE
-PHP using Twitter API php code(TwitterSearch) for querying for tweets based on “ID” and geographic location
-Processing to parse and define “happy” and “sad”
-Arduino to receive “happy” and “sad” messages and control Bots and behaviour

Download Code

Code and other bit Thanks to Eric Mika, Daniel Shiffman, Heather Dewey Hagborg, Rory Nugent and Tom Igoe.

Tweet Bots/ Emotion to Motion

This is a further development/revision on Intelligent Emotional Bots project.
The overall behaviour characteristics are heavily inspired by Valentino Braitenberg’s ideas in Vehicles, Experiments in Synthetic Psychology.

Theory
The goal is to create fairly sophisticated and intelligent cause and effect behaviours.
The bots initial cue for emotional response is dependent on human emotion, specifically shorthand expression for emotional states-emoticons.
Thus the bots are influenced and interfered by human interaction rather than being controlled directly.
The focus of this project is the re-interpretation of emotional content into motion consequently resulting in emphatic emotional bots that have characteristically complex and organic behaviours.

Construct
The project consists of two bots.
Bots are 3 wheel with two rear wheels driven by a twin motor gearbox at a 58:1 ratio.
Photosensors are connected individually to each motor and logically to each wheel.
Communication is achieved via XBee radios.

Interaction Logic
Twitter is set up as permission via OAuth to an app called Emotbot sampling from 60 ITP student Twitter accounts.
PHP is linked to Emotbot and listens for messages containing emoticons- :) :(
If found, message is parsed and this is sent to Processing.
Processing sends “emoticon” via serial wireless through XBees to an Arduino- random function.
Arduino receives and interprets message as specific behaviour.
Behaviours are either photophillic or photophobic.
Receiving a :) results in a photophilic behaviour.
Receiving a :( results in a photophobic behaviour.

IntelligentEmotional? Bots

e·mo·tion (-mshn)
n.
[French émotion, from Old French, from esmovoir, to excite, from Vulgar Latin *exmovre : Latin ex-, ex- + Latin movre, to move; see meu- in Indo-European roots.]

This project will involve using information acquired via Twitter to control physical bots.

The aim is to have a bots that will be driven by mental states that arise spontaneously rather than consciously.
It may be equally as important to consider both if those moods arise from artificially created cause and effect circuitry that mimic biological reactions or from emotions parsed from twitter feeds into commands for kinesis.
This is an experiment that aims to explore these two areas; The function of anthropomorphism, and consequent modes of control.
The ultimate goal is to create something that feels “alive” rather than constructed and based solely on Aristotelian physics(flawed?) and explore the close ties between perturbations in physical motion and emotional states.

A few points I want to explore as I move forward:
Effective intelligence based on cause and effect behaviours triggered by either circuit/sensor or Twitter?
Importance of the bots to be aware of each other/seeking each other?
Bots to act as one unit/is this beneficial?
Is there a way of outputting emotional information externally as a guide to spectators for the bots mood?
Is the motion useful?
How much human involvement?
Clarity of commands i.e (turn left vs Kurosawa Hidden Fortress is great)?

Laser Audio Installation +Video


Laser Audio Installation was concepted and created by Ara Cho, Zach Schwartz and I.
Materials- plastic boxes (Plastic Land),speaker wire(RadioShack), laser pointers(EBAY), misc hardware.

This concept is an attempt at creating an environment that can be interacted with directly, either purposefully or incidentally.
14 lasers contained in individual boxes are suspended via speaker wire connected to a centralized power supply.

Disturbing and agitating each box creates a pendulum, resulting in a natural motion pattern of each laser diode beam on the floor.
These motion paths are tracked by a video camera using luma difference.

Jitter is used to divide the floor plane into distinct 2D quadrants. As the beams cross over from quadrant to quadrant, Jitter triggers a midi note resulting in extremes of single notes to cacophony proportionally related to the motion.

Laser Sound Installation from Alexander Kozovski on Vimeo.

M5 Bus Ride

I wanted this assignment to function as an experiment for answering specific questions.

How can this trip be functional?
Can it provide more than just experience?
If so, how can I attempt to modify an experience along a route that is set by the MTA?
Is there different way of thinking about the journey, in terms of specific values?
If I were to collect a data set, how different would my experience be?
Would it make a difference, if I use a different mode of of moving through the physical world?

As an experiment, I decided to use my bicycle and my own power to cover the entire distance. The interest and fascination in this experiment lies partly in the idea of using something of the everyday, in my case a bicycle and use it out of it’s usual context of the familiar streets that lead me to Brooklyn. This also brings an interesting point of psycho geography, and the freedom and levity a bicycle allows one. It both lets you move rapidly but does not limit you to the road. A bicycle can be used on various surfaces- the sidewalk, grass, water and mud to name a few.

A very interesting side-effect I wish to explore more, is the immense effect I  found one bicycle can have on road patterns, other vehicles and people.  In this specific sense riding a bicycle affects the experience of many people who travel along the road. This reminds me Vito Acconci’s pieces of following strangers on the street, and how his actions were able to influence set patterns. More to come on this, once I gather enough documentation.

Like any experiment it is useful to set limitations, especially when this experiment involved gathering data in various forms. To discipline my ride I set the following rules:
1.) never stop(brakes were removed), to rest, for traffic, lights or pedestrians.

2.) follow the bus route as closely as possible.

3.) In case of an accident, recover as quickly as possible and continue on the set route.

4.) create a record of the ride (data as video and coordinates).

I followed the M5 bus route starting at Houston and 6th Avenue. My original intention was to ride along with the bus.  However as the bus, was both limited by its size within traffic and tasked with making stops every couple of blocks,  it soon became apparent that this would not be a viable option since it would be effectively breaking the rules I had set for myself.

My overall time from ORIGIN (Houston St and 6th Av) to DESTINATION (George Washington Bridge) was 43 min and 23 seconds. This includes time lost from 2 wrong turns on the route,  and an accident/collision with a taxi cab. The trip was documented with a rigged helmet cam consisting of an Sanyo Xacti CG10. Longitude and Latitude coordinates together with Altitude and Time were logged using my Android phone and Offline Logger application at 1 second sample size.

As further documentation I put together a video of my experience. The video is of two parts. The first showcasing the entirety of the route via satellite view and the second the actual detail of the route as it happened. This part has been time-remapped intentionally to showcase the anxiety and chaos of the encountered traffic patterns. All data captured (Longitude, Latitude, Altitude and Time)during the trip is overlayed on screen moving in a pattern from left to right. The video was created to document a first person experience of doing this route on a bicycle, as a facsimile of an  experience of the M5 route  in a different way. Following the video through the entire duration takes the viewer through the entire route as it would be done, at a chaotic 2000% speed. Taking the time out of the context was necessary as it serves to condense the experience.

By gathering data and using my own body and energy to transport myself through space, I feel I have gained a more intimate connection to spaces and lines that were previously unknown to me. This  intimacy, I feel would not be possible within the space of a bus. The ability to interact with your environment and have minute control within the confines of the M5 route intensified the tension that is inherent in the amalgamation of 18KM streams of socio-political architectural distortion.

Bouquet of lasers/Impossible device

I have this really interesting idea, inspired by impossible devices. Ara Cho and I spent a good part of Sunday soldering together some leads to lasers to use for a Pcomp project.  We finished with 16 very nicely done lasers.  The lasers gathered in a bunch looked so much like a bouquet of flowers that I cannot resist but make it what I wish it to be- a deadly beautiful thing capable of blinding you.

Interactive Public Technology/Elevator


Elevators are the mobile entry space within most modern buildings, a space within space, a mechanical transition – the way to transport you from street-level to a space in the clouds or deep underground and anywhere in between. I like their inherent vertical limitation. To me it makes a model of an approachable and comforting machine.
I like to watch the way elevators open and close, now a fairly standardized sliding motion, the door concealing itself into the wall, this in great contrast of how the design first began, as a two part system – a sliding grate and a hinged door with a doorknob.

I enjoy the multitude of buttons , the banks of possibility, of commands, putting this machine, suspended by heavy cables, defying gravity, at your command at a push of a button. This button the input to various executable commands – open doors, close doors, stop, start, numbers signifying floors, emergency, speakerphone etc.
The intelligent way the door knows not to crush the hand, foot of the person who tries to slide in at the last moment, and the way this safety feature gets abused and technically by people holding the elevator.
My favorite interaction by far however, is the impatient way the call button gets pressed or pumped multiple times even after proper feedback.
In some subconscious neurotic level, the person executing this action believes that by pressing the button, the elevator will perhaps abandon its stored commands and will quickly descend or ascend to the call. I am interested to know if this is due to an inbuilt function of some past and obscure elevator design- a programming function, a sort of “reset”. Or is this simply a human reaction. By acting upon the button in this way the function changes from a simple on/off switch to an “accelerator” – the amount of button presses in direct proportion to the speed at which the elevator will return the call.

For this particular assignment I chose to focus on the elevators at 721 Broadway; specifically the ones that get me to ITP, floor 4.
It is important to note that there are 2 elevators that fulfill this requirement.
I will not focus on this extensively, but these outwardly identical looking elevators have 2 radically different spaces, both in volume and shape. This clearly is already confusing to the habitual user. Until the expected space is learned in relations to the left or right arrangement of the elevator, the contrast between the spaces revealed will hold the user in an anxious state of anticipation.
1. Door
In a design sense of usability, the size of the door is clearly too small. The limitations of the size are so apparent that it forces people to initiate physical contact with random strangers in their attempts to enter or exit the elevator. Clearly there is an understanding and acceptance of public space/common space, but the dimensions of the entry/exit points creates a necessity of creating a strategy of conscious physical arrangement based the required floor exit. Even with this strategy in place, at capacity, it is impossible to not physically disturb or be disturbed upon exit. My solution would be enlarge the door, in fact make it proportionate with an entire wall. If for example the elevator has an orthogonal shape and volume then on of the walls should open entirely. This should help not only with the sluggish shuffling into the elevator, but also at the disturbing exit out of the elevator.

2. Controls
Why are all the controls focused in one place, usually tucked neatly as a bank on one side of the elevator. Lets say for example that the elevator is full to almost capacity. One is forced by design to either reach over or request from someone to press the appropriate floor. Design should make life easier. Possible solution could be multiple banks of buttons on each side of the elevator recessed in order to avoid accidental engagement. Or avoid having buttons in the elevator at all.
I have experienced other designs that have the programming component on the actual floor. One can program the required floor while waiting for the elevator to arrive. The elevator aggregates all requests and moves accordingly to fulfill them. This avoids all the questions, requests, accidental pressings etc.
Moving on to the specific, edge detection component of the button design.
Lets assume that we are trapped with keeping the buttons inside the elevator for whatever reason.
The current design of signifying a button press is the subsequent illumination of said button. In the elevators I observed this function is heavily obscured. In fact people repeatedly ask and act upon pressing a button when it has been clearly engaged already. This shouldn’t be the case. The feedback should be easier to see.
The current level of illumination signifies feebly that the button has been pressed, however apparently the designers of the interface didn’t consider the overall level of ambient illumination inside cabin of the elevator, hence the small amount of light emanating from the buttons becomes impossible to see.
Why not have the entire button made out of a transluscent material, glowing in and out, much like the subtle standby of a macbook. People will know that the button has been activated and will not have to wonder.
The current design makes smart people stupid.

3. Ambient Illumination
An elevator is by definition an enclosed, sometimes claustrophobic space. Within the limitation of the structure it is more often than not inside the building, covered entirely, with no natural light. The general way of lighting an elevator is via top lighting. I would like to make an argument that the lighting should glow out of the walls. Not only will this be more visually appealing but it would create an illusion of a larger space contained within the elevator and a more comforting feel overall.

Never Eat Alone/Interactive Eating

Never Eat Alone from Alexander Kozovski on Vimeo.

This project was for the “stupid pet trick” assignment in Physical Computing. The initial inspiration stems from the societal function contained or in this case missing in the process of eating.
The problem this design attempts to solve was alleviating the act of eating alone. Eating alone is something that affects me, and I have noticed that it is a problem that affects other people as well.
My solution was to create a device to simulate interactive company for eating enjoyment in pleasant company. The layout includes a pair of chopsticks connected to an accelerometer. The x value read from the spatial configuration of the chopsticks as being utilized by the user are sent to an Arduino and values are mapped to another pair of chopsticks attached to a servo motor. User motions holding the original pair of chopsticks, and eating are mimicked by the second pair of chopsticks. To enhance the overall experience a video database is aggregated, and represents a variety of company. This is projected on a screen or wall to complete the overall experience.

Fantasy Device/Modular City

Scanner_final from Alexander Kozovski on Vimeo.

In PhysicalC we were asked to create a fantasy device. The range is from the wildly phantasmagorical to the purely practical.
1. It doesn’t have to actually function, but
2. it must be a created physical object that illustrates a concept, and
3. should explain how it would interface with the operator and it’s environment.

Back Story:
I was digging through the junk shelf at ITP when I saw the top half of a scanner, glass, motor and mechanism still intact.

With the help of Eric Mika (Thanks Eric!) we managed to connect the Stepper motor to the Arduino via an H-Bridge. Desired function was either in direct input from a potentiometer or pre-programmed steps. Both were achieved.

Now I faced a problem. I had a functioning mechanical device but no clear idea why I had chosen it and what i would do with it. I started gathering suggestions.
Ideas from puppet shows, to meat slicers, from light switches all the way to a full motion security system to be operated wirelessly, were suggested.

All of the ideas above are great and pretty brilliant but something was missing. I didn’t want to do any of them. None of these ideas intrigued me enough to begin.

After some time, and some sketching and brainstorming I had an idea that I liked.

In basic terms the scanner contains a rail for stabilization and a band connected to pulley on one end and a stepper motor via a gearbox on the other. The motion is a horizontal, deliberate and highly precise. Also even on such a small scale it is capable of pulling and pushing almost 3kgs.

I started to think of it as a micro version of something amazingly huge. A huge machine on rails, that moves things that we are not accustomed to moving.
But I decided to go even further. Not only buildings but a theoretical city composed of movable buildings. An entire infrastructure that doesn’t depend on the immobility of buildings to supply electricity, water and carry away waste.

A city that is so modular it can re-arrange itself based on the needs of its inhabitants. Everyday, every month, every year could provide a new pattern, or a series of repeating patterns. Buildings will be built based on the required modular algorithms to insure that maximum space and energy efficiency is reached. Cities will break from their assumed and accepted immobile stance and become flowing cities.

The concept is to separate from the old mentality of a city grid system to a flexible modular fully customizable system, consisting of interlocking pieces of buildings that can slide into each other and away with ease.

The Good Old Digital In and Out – part 2

An experiment in using a mechanical bicycle fork and hub to create a switch.
Positive (+) Negative(-) are connected to different quadrants within the rotation of the hub.
The hub is wired trough spoke opening with a continues wire half way through its diameter.
When rotating, the contact made and lost between the positive and negative wires will make the LEDs toggle from green to red.
The design is based on a rotating contact switch.

Digital In/Out Alt Switch from Alexander Kozovski on Vimeo.