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November 13, 2007
November 09, 2007
Final Project Progress
With some help from Ben Chao, Andy and I were able to get the LED driver to work, and randomly change the color of a bunch of tri-color LEDs. This made us veeery happy.
We are about to start working on the shift-in registers, and on writing some code to get the palette LED to set the color for the LED of the screen. On Wednesday I am going to Material Connection (as an assignment for another class) so I will look into material we can use for the screen.
Then the next step will be to network the screens to each other.
November 01, 2007
Final Project Idea
I am working with Andy to make a pair of networked LED panels that people can use to communicate. It will be a dedicated, always on, persistently online channel of communication between two people who own the panels. The interaction will be through touch, so you will touch each LED to change its state. I imagine the panel hanging on someone's wall, or on their bedside table.
The screen will be low resolution, primarily because of time constraints, but we will use full-color LEDs to give the users an different, more abstract means of expression. We were torn between making a higher resolution screen of single-colored LEDs (which would be on/off, or PWM to produce a grayscale image) or making a smaller (and lower res) screen of full-color LEDs, but we decided to go for the colors.
Extending my space -- mini version
I decided to use the window screen as a place to install my smaller version of the mirror. Most windows have them and they are the outermost layer of the sliding windows, so even if you open the window (or even lift the screen) there won't be a problem.
I bought a small mirror (12"x12") and adhesive hooks, and used some wire from the pcomp lab. I attached the hooks to the four corners of the mirror, and used the wire to attach the mirror to the screen. Attaching the top is a little tricky, and the wire has to be pretty long in order for the mirror to be tilted enough to show you the sky and not the side of the building. But overall it isn't too hard to do. I must say I am curious to see what happens when it rains. If the rain is too hard I imagine I can pull the wire that is attached to the top of the mirror in, so that it lies flat against the screen and is somewhat protected.
Extending my space
This week's reading influenced my thinking about space a lot. It made me think about the role of "life" (I see it more as energy) in a space -- though I have some issues with his photos: are we judging the space or the photo? I was thinking about the feeling a space gives me, and I really feel best when I am feel some connection with nature. Every summer my family goes sailing, and the experience of living on a sailboat, which is so well integrated into the natural environment, is extremely relaxing and energizing at the same time. I feel connected with nature, like I am becoming a part of the space that I am in.
In New York City on the other hand, I feel very disconnected from the surrounding/natural environment. From inside my apartment I can never tell if it's sunny of cloudy out. There is a tall apartment building across from my building that blocks all the sun and the view, and as a result it always feels the same in my apartment, even if it's the most beautiful day out. This really bothers me, because I would like to spend time in my apartment, but I hate to be missing out on nice weather, and I feel like I really need all the contact with nature (and the sun) that I can get.
So for this week's assignment I decided to intervene in my space and try to bring a sample of what's going on outside to my apartment, thereby transforming the tiny disconnected space of my apartment to a space that is more cohesively bound with the outside world. I am lucky to have a fire escape on one of my windows, and (though I never thought this before) even luckier that there is a broken swivel chair on it (left by the previous tenant I suppose). I took a full length mirror and used the chair and a milk carton to place it so that it leans diagonally on the chair, right outside the window, so that it reflects the sky but faces my apartment. As a result, I can finally see what the sky looks like from my window! It is still not a big change, but it helps. The extra light that comes into my apartment this way is also a big plus. I want to find more discrete ways of doing this, also for people who don't have a fire-escape.
I found that someone else has made a very clever version of this using suction cups and metal wires to keep a mirror in place, but that might not be very practical with the sliding windows that are on most New York apartments. I will try to design something, possibly using the ledge that most windows have.
the view
the mirror on the chair
the view in the mirror (finally! sky and clouds!)
the whole window
the reflected light that comes into my apartment
