#_4 Electronica

All went fine, though I somehow didn't soldier the power jack properly, which is why it was somewhat awkward. Made me unsoldier it... was an "interesting" experience.


LEDs – serial hook up. As I added the third one they were all working, however not as bright anymore.

LEDs – parallel circuit.

#_3 Analog In

The lab went great. At first the force sensor I used was giving me trouble but I was basically using the wrong resistor for the LED. However, I was reading from the sensor all the time so it was easy to track down that something was wrong with LED connection. Lucky, huh... The potentiometer didn't give me any trouble and it was fun to soldier power and ground to it.

Also realized that you can use mathematical operators within the println command, which gives you the values you are sending to the LED in the serial monitor.

Don't have any idea for the Pet trick yet... just got the complete edition of Adrian Tomine's Optical Nerve comics in the mail today, hope that gives me some inspiration.

#_2 Phantasy Device – Discourse Prototyper

This is the discourse prototyper. It let's you prototype a discourse by simply rolling it through ink and continuously printing on to (almost) any surface. The prototyper only let's you print the introduction, seminal parts to discursive constellations (i.e. analyze, interpret, conclude) are left out. Anyway, you get the point.


This device is the result of the horribly dullifying experience you have when attending school in a system that lacks multiple choice exams. So, you would get an excerpt of text, make your conclusion while reading and not thinking that it is worth more than two, three sentences. However, your teacher demanded a ten page essay written in 90 minutes (as a 14 year old). So, the discourse prototyper would have made a lot easier in school.

#_1a Blinking LED Switch

This is my Arduino. Ground and power (5V) are hooked up.













This is my setup consisting of the Arduino microcontroller, a breadboard, yellow and red LED, 10k resistor (switch) and two 220 resistors (LEDs) and wires. I used two wires as switch, which I connected by using a screwdriver.













These are the blinking lights.









Video of the final product.


The code used was the basic code provided on the ITP PComp Wiki, i.e.:

// declare variables:
int switchPin = 2;      //  digital input pin for a switch
int yellowLedPin = 3;   //  digital output pin for an LED
int redLedPin = 4;      //  digital output pin for an LED
int switchState = 0;    // the state of the switch

void setup() {
pinMode(switchPin, INPUT);       // set the switch pin to be an input
pinMode(yellowLedPin, OUTPUT);   // set the yellow LED pin to be an output
pinMode(redLedPin, OUTPUT);      // set the red LED pin to be an output
}

void loop() {
// read the switch input:
switchState = digitalRead(switchPin);

if (switchState == 1) {
// if the switch is closed:
digitalWrite(yellowLedPin, HIGH);    // turn on the yellow LED
digitalWrite(redLedPin, LOW);       // turn off the red LED
}
else {
// if the switch is open:
digitalWrite(yellowLedPin, LOW);   // turn off the yellow LED
digitalWrite(redLedPin, HIGH);     // turn on the red LED
}

}

Source: http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Labs/DigitalInOut

#_1 sensorwalk

There are quite many sensors when walking around the various hoods I pass on a daily basis. The more sensors I thought I was encountering the more metaphoric – and blurry – they got (policeman [analog or digital], hanging doorbell in a shop that triggers unreliably [analog or digital], motion detecting water tap [digital?] vs basic water level measuring toilet flush [analog, I guess], individual tolerance level [analog, we still believe]).

So, here are the most basic ones I figured out, sticking to the literal meaning of sensor (i.e.: 1 : a device that responds to a physical stimulus (as heat, light, sound, pressure, magnetism, or a particular motion) and transmits a resulting impulse (as for measurement or operating a control) http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sensor):

1. Trafficlight
digital sensor
(red hand: 0 | man: 1)

2. Public Phone

.1 Coin Slot
digital sensor
(noMoney/noTalk = 0 | Money/Talk = 1)

.2 Dial
digital sensor
(noPress = 0 | Press = 1)

.3 Receiver
analog sensor
(mumblemumble = 0.1-0.3 | blablabla = 0.4-0.8 | AARGH = 0.9-1)
hypothetically assuming a scale on which 0.4-0.8 would be the stereotypical sound level (SPL) for a phone conversation.

Considering language in general, one might model words as reality sensors. Negations, local or global, form digital pairs and lexicalized opposites form analog poles, which allow for states in between that can be formalized on scales. So you could model pairs such as happy/unhappy as a way of digital expression whereas pairs such as happy/sad have more of an analog touch to them. Similar, all/not all (*nall) vs all/none, live/not live vs live/die, ...

#_0

Hello [wired] world!

This blog is intended to document my Physical Computing attempts and hopefully advances during the class with the same title taught by Rory Nugent at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) this fall (2009).
Feel free to contact me or to comment on any of the future posts.

Keep it unreal in the realer world.