The Whiskey Sea

Just got the parts in for the irrigation system, and soldered the pump to a three-pronged outlet.  I’ll be plugging the outlet to a relay system controlled by the arduino:

Tested out the pump/relay system with the misters and it seems to work fine.  The mister gives off a much smaller amount than expected but that shouldn’t be a problem.  Next step is joining all the tubing properly so that nothing leaks, and then I have to test out the PIR-sensors for the recycling bins underneath!

Due to time constraints and a deadline for another installation, I’ve decided to turn my attention for the Pcomp final to the TweetGrass project, diagrams and pictures of which can be found at tweetgrass.wordpress.com.  The major problems I’d like to resolve for the next prototype of TweetGrass, include the following:

Problem 1: water system
We used gravity and a solenoid valve to control water flow to the wheat grass.  The holes in the tubing were too big and not distributed evenly.
Possible Solutions:

• I recently tested an aquarium pump, some small nozzles and smaller-diameter tubing.  Unfortunately the pump wasn’t powerful enough and the nozzle openings were still too big.  However, it’s clear that the pump is the way to go and it turns out, the nozzles were good as joints for splitting the tubing.
• Need to find a more powerful pump and to use misters…

Questions:

• any suggestions for misters?
• if we wanted control of the water flow, what’s the simplest solution? (valve?)

Problem 2: sensors for non-twitter tweets
We used a capacitance sensor on the planter box so that people who don’t twitter could send a tweet-cloud to the screen by pressing against the box.  However, the capacitance sensor never stabilized and is too easily affected by humidity.
Possible Solutions:

• I tried turning the planter box sensor into a switch using aluminum foil.  However, upon seeing the garbage sensor on thefuntheory.com, it seem to make more sense for people to trigger a tweet-cloud whenever they threw away recycling into some bins installed underneath the TweetGrass stand.
• Infrared proximity sensors installed above the bins seem the way to go.

Questions:

• any other types of sensors we should be looking at?

Problem 3: danger of overwatering the wheatgrass
Wheat grass doesn’t actually need that much water, which is why misters seems like a good way to get the greatest effect with minimal delivery of water.  However, eventually, we’d like the wheat grass to also be able to tweet a notice when it needs more, or receives too much water.
Possible Solutions:

• Just read a few articles on how to use the Arduino and some nails to register how much water is in the soil.  This would be the first time installing this aspect of the project.

(Problem/Question 4: how can we make everything look better?)

I. Punctuation method:

II.Call and Response method:

Print out of BYTE data:

Making arduino talk to processing (unfortunately no video):

Input range: click here.

Analog tones: click here.

Multi-tones: click here.

Using touch sensor to control a servo motor:

OVERVIEW: In this lab, you’ll learn how to connect a variable resistor to a microcontroller and read it as an analog input. You’ll be able to read changing conditions from the physical world and convert them to changing variables in a program.

Potentiometer+LED (code,demo):

int potPin = 0;
int potValue = 0;
int led = 9;

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
pinMode(led, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
potValue = analogRead(potPin);
analogWrite(led,potValue/4);
Serial.println(potValue);
delay(10);
}

Photocell Resistor + Potentiometer:

I wanted to try adding the photocell resistor to the potentiometer so that you could operate the photocell and potentiometer as separate functions.  The only thing I can’t figure out is how to make the serial monitor print a different color for the potentiometer.

LINK to video

/*map sensor value from input range (e.g.400-900) to output range (0-255):
int brightness = map(sensorValue, 400, 900, 0, 255);
analogWrite(led, brightness); */

int potPin = 0; //Analog input pin that potentiometer’s attached to
int sensorValue = 0; //value read from the analog sensor
int led = 9;  //PWM pin that the LED is on.  n.b. PWM 0 is on digital pin 9

int potPin2 = 1; //Analog input pin that potentiometer’s attached to
int potValue = 1; //value read from the analog sensor
int led2 = 10;  //PWM pin that the LED is on.  n.b. PWM 0 is on digital pin 9

void setup() {
//initialize serial communications @ 9600bps:
Serial.begin(9600);
//declare that led pin as an output:
pinMode(led, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
sensorValue = analogRead(potPin); //read potentiometer value
potValue = analogRead(potPin2);

/*map sensor val from input range (e.g. 400-900)
to the output range (0-255).  Change the values 400 and 900 below
to match the range your analog input gives:*/
int brightness = map(sensorValue, 400, 900, 0, 255);

analogWrite(led, brightness); //set LED brightness w/ the result
Serial.println(sensorValue); //print pot value back to the debugger pane
delay(10); //wait 10 milliseconds before next looop

analogWrite(led2,potValue/4);
Serial.println(potValue);
delay(10);
}

My fantasy device for Physical Computing is called the Articulator.  This device allows one to manipulate other people’s facial and body movements remotely.  The device itself is disguised as jewelry–viz. rings, bracelets and watches.

I conducted the following interviews to see people’s different perspectives on what it means to articulate something.  A consolidated video coming shortly….*

1: Crystal

2: Nik & Allison

3: Noah & Jenny

4: Chris

5: Benji & Cat

6: Greg

7: Sonaar

8: Minette, Mark, Chika

9: Jeremiah & Zack

*Um, have no idea what just happened to the audio on these.  Perfectly fine when I uploaded them, played fine the first two time on blip….  eh? Articulate!!

“Mwahahahaha!”  -dukA

A TIP TO EVERYONE FROM CHRIS CERRITO (whose patience and clear explanations are greatly appreciated): readjust your wirecutter’s clamp radius so that it doesn’t cut through the wire when you squeeze all the way. You do this by moving the screw a touch up on one of the handles.  Do not go out and buy another wire cutter just because you’re snipping inordinate amounts of wiring off by accident!

*For some reason Wordpress uploaded my images sideways and there is no immediately obvious option for rotating.