Month: February 2019

Police Light

The police are coming!! But don’t fear they shall calm down with the push of a button.

Chris Crawford’s paper on defining interactivity aligns closely with my own understanding of design within this class. As I conceptualized and experimented with my code, I began to consider the contextual interaction or use of what I am creating. Crawford establishes a useful distinction in interaction, that passive or “non-conversational” designs cannot be classified in the same light as those that are a product of a conversation between a product and user. I do think that this allows us, as a society, to distinguish overused ideas of interaction from those that are truly interactive. I do, however, believe it is important to acknowledge that our conception of interaction and interactivity has come from complex and specific forms of human and technological development. Fridges, and their lights, upon their inception, would be revolutionary forms of interaction.

In today’s world, where interaction becomes more complex, and human behaviour becomes more closely intertwined with technology, the type of interaction we desire becomes that of the conversation. Fridge lights have become quite ubiquitous, and so have books, but our value of interactivity should not be hierarchical, rather an acknowledgement of the range of interaction. Much of Crawford’s argument lies in a conversation that exists within programming and processing. This is the context of our class and interactive media is useful, however, should not overshadow existing technology like doors, or create normative ideas about making all technology the same. What would doors or fridge lights look like if there were regular conversations between them and users? How much would that cost? Is that worth it?

I believe that we should let non-conversational interactions exist in our paradigm, and undergo a process of determining what type of interaction we desire from products.

 

Response: “The Art of Interactive Design”

“Is interactivity utterly subjective?” I thought this was a compelling question, especially with regards to our conversation about interactivity in class.

Crawford suggests that interactivity could possibly be one of a few “objective truths”, however also still not completely objective- as he goes on to prove how we can use personal subjectivity to measure the degrees of interactivity within an object. Here, he offers the example of Boolean properties, and how we tend to think of interactivity as a Boolean–it either exists or it doesn’t. Crawford proposes that we should instead view interactivity as a “continuous variable with relative measures”. An example of this would be to rate or measure interactivity from high to low, or strong to weak. This leaves some level of subjectivity, in that each person may rate an interaction differently on the scale.

I appreciate Crawford’s efforts in reaching a middle ground. He does not completely dismiss the objectivity nor the subjectivity of interactions, and instead constructs a means of using both concepts in our understanding of what is interactive, and what is not.

As for Crawford’s review question “come up with your own damn definition of interactivity!”– that is a question I hope to revisit and answer by the end of this course.

What is Interactivity?

The Art of Interactive Design by Chris Crawford, acts as a guide for explaining the nuances of using the term interactivity, and describing which experiences can be deemed interactive. Crawford clarifies that the term interactivity is often contested and misunderstood, as people attribute it to user experiences that do not necessarily interact with the user, but rather simply provide a reaction or a response. It was interesting to see how Crawford compares interactivity to a conversation, where two or more entities engage in active dialogue; having to carefully listen and think in order to produce an adequate response  (or speak).

Moreover, establishing that successful conversation through “listening, thinking, and speaking”, is metaphorical in the sense that it does not have to exclusively occur between two humans; since these are processes associated with the human senses. Crawford illustrates that such conversations can occur between different types of system – both digital and analog. I felt like the reading acted as only the tip of the iceberg for the discussion on interactivity

Week 2 – Digital Read/Write Circuit & Code

Digital Read a button on pin 2 and digital write an LED on pin 3:

Remember to include a 330 ohm resistor for the LED and a 10k ohm pull down resistor to ground for the button.

int buttonPin = 2;
int ledPin = 3;
int ledState = LOW;
int prevButtonState = LOW;

void setup() {
  // set pin modes
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT);
  // needed in order to start serial communication
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

// PSUEDO CODE:
// check if button is currently pressed
// if button is pressed then check to see if it was pressed during the last frame too
// (we need to remember our button state)
// if button is bressed and previous button is not pressed then flip our LED state

 void loop() {
  // check to see what state our button is in, and store that information
  int currentButtonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);

  // if the button is currently being prssed down, AND during the last frame is wasn't pressed down
  if (currentButtonState == HIGH && prevButtonState == LOW) {
      // flip the LED state
      if (ledState == HIGH){
        ledState = LOW;
      } else if (ledState == LOW){
        ledState = HIGH;
      }
  }
  // if you want to print out the LED state
//  Serial.println(ledState);

  // set our LED to turn on and off according to our variable that we flip above
  digitalWrite(ledPin, ledState);

  //we need to remember the state of our button for the next time through LOOP
  prevButtonState = currentButtonState;
}

Response: The Art of Interactivity

Crawford begins his work by exploring the overuse of the word ‘interactivity’, a word that is thrown around to describe almost every product in the market. He, thus, attempts to define it himself. Crawford metaphorically uses the actions of “listening”, “thinking” and “speaking” as the foundations of interaction. He states that interactivity requires two active participants and exists on a continuum rather than an either/or situation or (as its most often confused as) an intensified emotion or even simply an act of participation. Instead, it is almost a conversation wherein the three aforementioned actions are optimised.

Crawford also describes the role of interactivity designers as ones who have to consider both the form and function in creating their design. They work by maximising the strengths of their computer in the aforementioned actions (listening, thinking and speaking) and minimising their weaknesses. He urges that interactive designers, although should be learning from the past, must not cling firm to their foundations in “graphic design” but more importantly, incorporate “form with function”.

Playing cards switch!!1!!1!

Greeting fellas,

So today I was wondering what type of switch to do. We were told we need to make a switch not using our hands, but what if someone else triggers the switch (I’m not using my hands for it, duh).

So what I did was is connected the LED as we did in class and then the wire that goes from the power (5V) to the LED i just divided it into two. One part is connected to an edge of a card using tape, the edge had foil tape and the other one is connected to another card the same method. After that I place a card in between them to separate the contact and ask someone to pick a card (the middle one of course).

There we go, didn’t use my hands to trigger the switch 🙂

Dancing Shoes Switch

As the professional dancer I certainly am (clearly demonstrated in the video as well), I built a switch that completes the circuit based on movement of the feet on a conductive “board”. I used somewhat simple techniques: I attached conductive tape to the soles of my shoes (later I added a circle of aluminium foil to get better coverage), attached wires to the end of the tape to make sure the current flows to the LEDs. For the board, I used a piece of paper with lines of conductive paint on it, to get the right texture and surface for some dancing. As you can see on the picture below, this is just a tryout (I didn’t want to waste that much of a paint, therefore I tried to figure out a way to get full circuit coverage with the least amount of paint). And although I realise that there are so many ideas/materials that would work better (but trust me, dancing on aluminium foil is not compatible… with anything, I tried), this was a lot of fun to make and a lot of learning in the process.

Natural Flow (First Assignment)

While thinking about how to be creative for the assignment, which was to not use hands, I thought of something I learned in chemistry during my high school years. If I just need a medium to chain electricity, I could use salt water since it is a good conductor of electricity. This is because when salt is mixed into water, the water pulls apart the now positively charged sodium atom and the now negatively charged chloride atom apart. Therefore, the two ions will allow the solution to conduct electricity feasibly.

If there is one aspect I would reflect upon after the assignment, it is that I should be more careful when dealing with water because electricity and water are two potentially dangerous mixtures. Maybe next time if I have a substance that again links these two it would be much safer. Overall, this was a very fun experiment considering that it was my first ever Interactive Media assignment.

Here is a video of how it works: you will see the LED flashing when the two cords are in the water, and not when they are disconnected from the salt water.

A Switch for Fitness: Pushup-Switch

The General Outlook of the Pushup Switch

“Switch without the use of hands” was what we were asked to create for our first assignment. In the process of making the circuit, the assignment reminded me of the time when I was in the military where people would frequently cheat the number of pushups they do. Since the pushups were counted by human eyes, it was hard for people to know whether a pushup was done correctly. With this switch, we will know whether the person is doing the push up right.

For this switch, there is a wooden base with disconnected foils on the surface. The cloth on top has a foil placed beneath, and when the cloth touches the surface of the base, the circuit becomes complete.

#1: Switch without Hands

For our first assignment, we were asked to design a switch that turned on an LED without using hands. For my project, I wanted to incorporate a book and a book mark that would align to light up the LED.

To do so, I created a bookmark out of foil and copper tape and added a foil lining to a page in a book (ideally, this would exist on every page). Both the page and the bookmark were connected by wires to the breadboard to complete the circuit where an LED would light up once they were in place.

I also, just for fun, decided to attach wires to magnetic salt and pepper shakers to complete the circuit.