Check out my project, Etch-a-Sketch 3.0, on Engadget!

The project was also featured in Sony Wonder Labs in Mid Town – check out this NYT press release for the event.

(better video coming soon…)

~ User Manual ~

Basics:

- To move the line horizontally, move the left knob of the etch-a-sketch device left or right.

- To move the line vertically, move the right knob of the etch-a-sketch device left or right.

Line Thickness:

- Press and hold the black button on the etch-a-sketch (top-left). While keeping button pressed, squeeze the force sensor until you reach desired line thickness. You can see changing thickness on the right side of the etch-a-sketch screen. Once thickness is chosen, release button and force sensor.

- To change thickness of existing line, press and release black button on etch-a-sketch device. This will drop thickness to zero. Then, press and hold black button and choose the new line thickness by pressing the force sensor. Once thickness is chosen, release button and force sensor.

Colors:

- The etch-a-sketch follows the RGB color model. You can choose from hundreds of different line colors for your drawing.

Additative primary colors:

- Press and hold red, green, or blue button on the etch-a-sketch device. While keeping button pressed, squeeze the force sensor until you reach desired hue. You can see changing hue on the right side of the etch-a-sketch screen.  Once hue is chosen, release the button and force sensor.

-  The harder you press the force sensor, the lighter the color hue will become. Zero intensity for each component gives the darkest color.

- You can easily switch from one color to another. For instance, press and hold the  blue button and choose intersity of hue. Move the knobs to draw. To switch to a different additative primary color, press and release blue button. This will turn blue color off. Press and hold red or green button. Choose hue color. Once hue is chosen, release the button and force sensor.

Color Mixing

- A secondary color is formed by the sum of two primary colors of equal intensity: cyan is green+blue, magenta is red+blue, and yellow is red+green. To mix two or more additive colors together, press color button and choose hue. Then press another color button with which you wish to mix with.

Example: Press and hold blue button and press force sensor until you reach highest hue intensity. Release button and force sensor. Then, press and hold red button until you reach highest intensity. Release button and force sensor. The resulting color is magenta, which you will see in the color mixer on the right of the screen.

- The combination of all three colors, red, green, and blue makes white.

Restart

- To save your sketch and reset, press the white button on the etch-a-sketch device.

Things I learned while building an etch-a-sketch:

- Radio Shack wires absolutely suck. They break constantly, they crack off, snap off, whatever. Use them for very basic prototyping… a couple of wires, maybe. DO NOT use them for an entire final project with a shit load of wiring.

- Serial Communication sucks. Thanks to Tom Igoe, Gabriella Levine, and Heather Velez who all gave me good advice on how to fix communication between my Arduino and Processing. The more components I was adding to the board, the worse the communication between the two programs was. Eventually, Processing simply stopped running my sketch at all. After days of panic, I figured I had no choice but to start taking components off the board one by one. Thankfully, I emailed the list and got an easy solution (note to self, email list earlier rather than later). I was, and I quote Tom, “overuning an array… One possible place:

if (sensors.length > 0) {
Yet you are looking for 7 bytes. Try changing that to
if (sensors.length > 6)”.

- If you’re going to house your Arduino in a small box, you best solder your wires to the board…

Boy oh boy do I wish I thought of this sooner. Now every time something breaks, a wire comes loose, etc, it is an absolute nightmare to take my crazily-wired Arduino and board out of this stupid box.

- Speaking of boxes, using an old cardboard pastery box was probably not the best housing option for this device.

I wanted to laser-cut a box made of acrylic, but didn’t have time. I think I would like to with this project, eventually.

- SparksFun is your friend. Look at these badass knobs and buttons:

If you don’t believe me, ask Lola how fun they are:

Other Words of Wisdom

When I met with Benedetta last week I told her I wanted to have 12 buttons on the board.. Ha. Thank god that didn’t happen because a. I can’t stand soldering, b. that would have been ridiculous to wire considering I didn’t solder anything to the board and c. maybe users really don’t like so many buttons, no matter how pretty they are? …

I now have a clean 5 buttons. 3 are responsible for changing the line color (red, green, blue), one responsible for changing line thickness, and one responsible for saving and resetting the sketch. I dropped the accelerometer idea because it was way too unstable.

In the beginning….

So I now have the basic functionality of an etch-a-sketch working. My next steps are housing the device (i.e. coming up with a clean design so users can easily play with the device) and working towards an “etch-a-sketch-on-steroids.”

Right now, I have the board with 2 potentiometers and two buttons:

Like the classic etch-a-sketch, there are two potentiometers – one that draws a line along the x axis, and one that draws along the y axis. My current concern with this is that the readings from the potentiometer are a little jumpy, so if you’re ‘drawing’ with the pots on the Processing sketch, the lines are jumping up and down a little bit. I’ve looked at my sensor readings in the Arduino environment and they seem to be consistent (maybe they jump one unit up or down without me touching them, but not really). In Processing, however, it seems like they are slightly more jumpy without me touching anything. I am wondering whether this is because there is a problem with the serial communication between the Arduino and Processing. It is also possible that because I am using two different pots on my board which aren’t soldered on, maybe something is loose, which is causing the sensors to jump. I hope to have this figured out soon.

There are also two buttons on the board thus far. When users press one button, the line they are drawing changes to green. The other button changes the line to red. Pressing both buttons at the same time changes the line back to black.

I’m planning on adding several more buttons onto the device as well (this is the part that really gets at the ‘etch-a-sketch on steroids’ idea… maybe Steroid-a-sketch? name in progress..) Users will be able to ‘draw’ with different shapes if they choose to, and also ‘stamp’ on custom images onto their sketches. So, a user can press a button and make a design by drawing in circles along the x/y axis as opposed to just a straight line. Or, a user can press a button and ‘stamp’ on a face I’ve created in processing onto their sketch (see crappy example below). So far, in terms of the ‘custom’ images, I only have a face that gets stamped on if a button is pressed. You get the idea though.

One of my biggest successes today was getting the images of the knobs of the etch-a-sketch to rotate in the Processing sketch (see knobs in image above – I don’t feel like posting the actual processing sketch but trust me, they’re rotating). My next step with this is mapping the images of the knobs to the actual potentiometers. So, the idea is, when users physically twists the potentiometers on the device, the potentiometers in the sketch rotate as well and reflect that movement (instant feedback, baby). I have no idea how to map that rotation yet correctly, but hopefully I can get that figured out tomorrow.

Next steps:
- Mapping physical potentiometers to image of potentiometers
- Adding a ‘save sketch’ feature
- Adding an accelerometer (when you shake the device, the image resets,just like an etch-a-sketch. I am also considering adding a little box of sand inside the device so that users can hear the sand moving when they shake to reset – like in the original device… just for fun)
- Adding more buttons
- Adding more ‘custom stamps’
- Cleaning up some processing code
- Housing (parts are ordered, laser cutter on Thursday afternoon).
- Making the thing wireless (unlikely, don’t count on it)

I’ll probably post the entire code when I’m completely finished. For now, here’s the Processing code for the rotating knobs:

float rotIndex;
PImage etch;
PImage knobRight;
PImage knobLeft;

void setup(){
size(750, 607);
etch = loadImage("etch.png");
background(etch);
}

void draw(){
rightKnob();
leftKnob();
}

void rightKnob(){
rotIndex += 0.01;
pushMatrix();
translate(700, 550);
rotate(rotIndex);
imageMode(CENTER);
knobRight = loadImage("knob_right.png");
image(knobRight, 0,0);
popMatrix();
}
void leftKnob(){
rotIndex += 0.003;
pushMatrix();
translate(50, 550);
rotate(rotIndex);
imageMode(CENTER);
knobLeft = loadImage("knob_left.png");
image(knobLeft, 0,0);
popMatrix();
}

I’ve wanted to do this all semester and have been putting it off for weeks, so I’ve decided to make it into my final for both P-Comp and ICM… and I would like to make it badass.

Remember this toy?:

I’d like to build one from scratch. It would be a similar physical device as its famous predecessor, only with mine (pending name: Lis-a-Sketch), users would be able to draw within a Processing sketch on an external screen.

The device would be similar in shape and size as the original Etch-a-Sketch. It will have two main knobs users can turn to draw  lineographic images along an x and y axis. In addition, the device will have features such as: reset your sketch, change stroke-weight, change shape (i.e. draw with circles instead of a contour line), change colors, etc.

Ideally, I want this product to be simple, clean, and intuitive. I’d like users to have the option of drawing in the classic manner of the etch-a-sketch (drawing a line without taking their hands off the “paper”), or, trying  an array of additional options to play with in their sketch. So the Processing sketches created by users could be as simple as a points that go along on the x and y axis, to more complicated shapes and settings.

The physical device would feature several analog (or pseudo-analog) and digital inputs and outputs and would be housed in a clean cover similar to that of the original toy.

I think this is a good project for the final for both classes. Its base is simple, and yet over the course of 3 weeks there are several elements I could keep adding on to the device. It is also perfect because it builds upon so many concepts learned in both classes.

Ideally, I would like the device to be wireless… but no promises.