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Please visit the site to see images, production stills, background information, and code from our midterm project: http://www.solidhang.com/h2oracle/
We decided to create an oracle. A bowl of water that will be displaying random, beautiful images until a user comes up to it, waves his/her hand over the bowl of water, asking it a question. The oracle will then respond by displaying a vision/image answering the user's qeury.
I used a flex sensor and a potentiometer as my analog inputs. The arduino program was very straight forward. I intend to sit down and play a bit more with serial communication and different sensors for some applications I have in mind.
The first image is the setup, the second image is the 3 byte output of the arduino, after it recieves a byte input through the serial port.
I'm using serial port COM4 for communication between the processing language and the arduino. TODO: Customize the processing program for another interesting graphic application. Maybe a game w/ a joystick?
I had decided to observe people's use of digital devices during a day I was navigating through the city by subway, bus, and just plain walking...
11:00 am - L Train, 1st avenue. People were using the machines to charge their MTA cards. People were swiping their cards.
11:15 am - L Train, moving. Almost 1 in every 2 people have headphones on. I'm assuming they're iPods.
11:40 am - M5 Train. There is a sign at the front of the bus that has 6 colored segments that light up when someone pays the bus fee. The "Adult" segment lights up when someone swipes their MTA card or pays in coins.
12:00 pm - M5 Train. People were swiping their MTA cards, to pay for the ride. People were pressing the tape to stop the bus.
12:15 pm - M5 Train, heading uptown. The radio informing the bus driver of the traffic, allowing communication in the bus network.
1:00 pm - M5 Train. A lady in front of me is talking on her cell phone.
1:15 pm - M5 Train. A man w/ headphones boards the bus. Followed by another gentleman. Probably some sort of mp3 player.
1:16 pm - M5 Train. Another woman is chatting animatedly on her cell phone.
4:00 pm - My apartment. The radio is blasting in my roommate's bedroom.
5:00 pm - My apartment. My roommate is on her cell phone. I'm on my laptop, using the wireless router to connect to the internet.
After the lab, I had tried to make the servo motor move like a wheel, only to discover this is not how a servo motor moves. So, instead we decided to work with another variable resistr - the flex sensor alongside a vibrator. We wanted the flex sensor to control the intensity of the vibrator. The more you flex, the higher the vibration. If the flex sensor is straight, then the vibrator is still
We were thinking we might use a vibrator in our midterm project idea #1 - the hospital-friendly pet; whenever a child would hold it/pet it, it would purr/vibrate.
I did this lab and Lab 4 together, since it was the most logical next step.