I had no problems setting up the wiring and the code for this lab, although thrown for a loop when I had to tear apart my apartment while looking for my soldering iron for the potentiometer!
Here is the LED with the potentiometer turned halfway:
And here is the LED off, as result of the potentiometer turned all the way clockwise:
I was thinking about how a push button switch is just a quick connection between two incomplete halves of the circuit. From here I starting thinking about times when people touch very quickly–and how I could turn one of those actions into a push button-like switch.
So, I came up with wiring gloves up to make a switch out of a game of Slaps. For those of you not familiar with Slaps, here is the variation I am thinking of, as displayed by a couple of giggly girls in this youtube video:
Basically, the person with their hands on the bottom with palms up (who I will call the attacker) tries to beat the reflexes of the person with hands palms down on top (the reactor), slapping the top of their partner’s hands. Some debate can arise whether or not contact is actually made by the attacker’s hands, so a visual confirmation of a switch from a red LED to a green LED would be helpful.
Here is the glove for the attacker, wired into the circuit:
and here is the mitten for the reactor:
Next are images of the two gloves side by side with the red LED on, and after that an image of the green LED turning on when the two make contact:
Problems:
1. I need much longer wires to connect the gloves. This can get to be a very heated game with a lot of quick movements.
2. I need to figure out how to wire a second switch into the circuit and write that into the program so that both hands can be wired to play the game.
3. A fundamental flaw: once the attacker hits the reactor, they switch positions. Currently, this would require the two to switch gloves, but that does not work well with the quick pace of this little game.
The only experience I have had with anything resembling programming was limited to the software for the LEGO Mindstroms, which I liked a lot as a kid. So I was super excited to try out this first Arduino program! The setting up of the bread board and circuit was fun like a puzzle, and after loading the program onto the Arrduino microcontroller module I did encounter some wiring problems. The first LED (red, in my case) was on, but would not switch to the second (green) when I pushed the button. But this was readily resolved by seeing that one of the red wires was not in the same line as the push button pin.
so, here is the red LED on:
And here is the green LED on at the push of the button switch:
As part of my “get creative” section of this lab, I made my own switch with some balled up tinfoil:
The tinfoil balls are not my creative solution, see next post!
Not entirely sure if i did this correctly, namely because I dont know that I have the DC power connector? But what I got from this lab is the understanding of power and ground and how to wire for each on the breadboard.
The walk down my street is full of sensors: ATM buttons, video camera enabled apartment buzzers, security cameras, and crosswalk signal buttons. While these are fairly typical examples from many streets in Manhattan, I also live down the block from a robot. The Little Laptop Shop on Clinton street has a huge figure in the window of the shop that has a video camera looping back the sidewalk scene in it’s “face” panel.
Further up the street I pass by a duane reade, with automatic doors that are controlled a very slow working motion detector.
Once at NYU Coles gym, I hand over my NYU ID to a security guard, who swipes the magnetic strip to unlock the turnstile to let me into the building. (Although my ID is 3 and a half years old now, and the magnetic strip is pretty worn down and only works about half the time. So this instance of interaction becomes reliant on the social aspect: guard: attempts to swipe a couple of times, grunts in frustration, and presses a button to let me in. me: “sorry, thaaaaanks!”
There are emergency exits that are alarmed, sensing when the door is opened from the inside.
Once inside I head to the women’s locker room. there is an electronic scale and automatic toilet flush motion sensors.
Unlike fancier gyms in the city (and at this school), the weight training room features no electronic interfaces. At NYU Palladium gym, the weight training machines are connected to small computer screens that are connected to a system that monitors data from your workout.
I like to use rowing machines in the cardio room, which has a small screen and button interface to control the time or “race” setting. Once you start to pull the chain, the computer also measures the speed/intensity of your pulls and displays that information back to you, through estimated distance traveled in meters and strokes per minute.
The other machines- treadmills, ellipticals- all have digital interfaces too, but the only other one that i use is the stationary bike.
The stationary bike’s interface allows you to program the resistance of the pedals, along with exercise time length and if you enter your age and weight, during the work out it shows you an estimate of how many calories you are burning. Other information you can get during the work out is your heart rate, by holding onto the the metal-plated handles. One thing I have never understood is why both hands are needed for the machine to read your pulse. I suppose the solution for people that cannot hold the handles with two hands but want to know their pulse can wear a heart rate monitor belt around their chest, which can interact wirelessly with the bike’s computer.
And lastly, there are security cameras all around for good measure.
Intro to Physical Computing 