Month: October 2022

This switch uses the photodiode to create a circuit that lights the LED. When the photodiode receives enough photons, it allows current to flow and vice versa.

The switch:

A picture of the closed circuit:

Reflections:

It was fun to play with the various ways to construct a circuit for current to flow. I had a lot of options but using light to close the circuit was my favorite.

Concept:

For this project, I took brainstorming to another level. I actually did multiple projects but since I like gyming (although results not showing) so I decided to do the flexing the way our fathers and grandfathers did it: bicep flexing. Something that bothered me in this is that while connecting the circuit it burned my skin so much that my hands began shaking. However, I liked the project so I just went on with it.

Circuit:

a simple circuit and attach two pieces of aluminum foil on both ends of the wire where the switch would normally go. Attach one piece of foil on the bicep and the other on the forearm. When I begin flexing – the circuit is completed.

Result:

Reflection:

It felt really good engaging gyming in any way in an academic course. Looking forward to engaging more with circuits and Arduino.

Concept:

When the task stated that we can’t use hands, I immediately though about legs and thought it would fun to recreate the soccer game. The led-light goes on when the person strikes a goal(battery) with a small ball. Then the battery falls and  connects two cables, which turns on the switch. This kinda resembles the football game where you have to kick the ball on the field.

Process:

First, I made a basic circuit to turn on my led-light with a resistor 0hm 330. Then, I prolonged the circuit and added more cables and taped two cables to allow myself broader area to work. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to make the switch stay on, not light it once when the ball and cable have a collision, because ball bounces back. That’s why I added a battery as a target, which will fall and stay in the same place, so the two cables could be connected and stay on.

Reflection

It was really fun and super brain-stormin process to figure out how to make the switch on without hands, as connecting cables with hands seemed so easy and most efficient. I wish I had flat surface like domino cards, because I had a lot of trouble of the battery’s round surface, as it would roll around and won’t stay on the cables. However, this also added difficulty level to my soccer game, as scoring a goal is never easy in the real life too.

Concept

The main functionality of this unusual switch is to create a night lamp of sorts which goes into action as soon as the window blinds are closed.

Method

The method is simple: create a simple circuit and attach two pieces of aluminium foil on both ends of wire where the switch would normally go. Attach foil on the window blind. When the blinds go down – the circuit is completed.

Result

Reflections

Although there is little functionality, the design is really flimsy and it looks very unappealing. This is my first time working with Arduino and I am enjoying it so far.

concept

For this project I was lost as to what to do until I remembered my guitar having metal strings. I gave it a test to see if the signal would go through and it did. Something that bothered me when learning guitar was how seemingly play many notes at once and not pluck the strings, my circuit makes it so that when the string is plucked the LED will light up.

circuit

My circuit is based on this one we did in class to demonstrate how switches work:

The difference being that where the button would be the 5V cable is connected to my guitar, specifically positioned to not affect the sound. And the blue cable is serving as a pick to pluck the string.  It ended up looking like this:

Circuit in action

(I couldn’t get the video to upload on the media tab, there were errors when I tried, here is a google drive link to it)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YEtHQ7wPWW2iyJYIZq_hYwD8EEd6IBIJ/view?usp=sharing

As you can see by the video, whenever I touch the string, the LED lights up, and when I pluck it it turns off. Due to where I put the 5V cable the sound is not altered and it can sound fully.

My only difficulty was working with the short length of the cables and the size 0f the guitar.

further improvements

Personally this is the best I can make with my limited knowledge of Arduino, however, I’d like to make another circuit like this where each string is connected to a different LED light. This could be very useful for beginner guitarists if they’d like to see what string is being plucked.

Concept

For this task I decided to generate some sort of imagery based upon the music being played. There isn’t a particular reason why  wanted to implement this other than the fact that it seems pretty cool and fun to make.

Implementation

let song, buttton, fft;


function toggleSong() {
  if(song.isPlaying()) {
    song.pause();
  } else {
    song.play();
  }
}

function preload() {
  song = loadSound('bgmusic.mp3'); 
}

function setup() {
  createCanvas(600, 600);
  colorMode(HSB);
  angleMode(DEGREES); // Change the mode to DEGREES
  

  song.play();  
  fft = new p5.FFT(0.9, 128);
}

function draw() {
  background(0);
  space = width / 128;
  
  let spectrum = fft.analyze();
  //console.log(spectrum);
  for (let i = 0; i < (spectrum.length/2)+1; i++) {
    stroke(255);
    let amp = spectrum[i];
    let y = map(amp, 0, 256, height, 0);
    fill(i,125,125); //remove stroke(255);
    noStroke();
    rect(i * space, y, space, height - y);
    rect(width - (i * space), y, space, height);
    //rect(space, height ,width - (i * space), y);
  }
}


function touchStarted() {
  getAudioContext().resume();
}

Sketch (you might have to click the canvas to start)

Reflections

I would love to explore creating 3d visuals for the background and improving the aesthetics in general for this sketch. However, this was a lot of fun to make and I enjoyed the process.

Calf Extension Switch

Idea

I realized that I cannot make my claves bigger regardless of how much I trained them. There were three probable reasons for this: inefficient training, insufficient training, or bad genetics. Hence, I came up with a solution that lets me overcome all three obstacles by efficiently training my calves all day efficiently.

Implementation

As seen above the switch if formed by connecting a 330 ohm resistor and bulb in series configuration, and then using two pieces of aluminum foil (one attached to my heel and the other to my shoes inner sole). Resting the foot completes the circuit by making the sheets of foil come in contact and thus lighting the bulb to indicate that you have failed in flexing your calf muscle.

Reflections and improvements

Something I would improve in the design is definitely the mobility of the switch. I have to be able to move with the switch to further activate my calves. Also the look of the switch is very unappealing, it is something I would like to make much more visually appealing.

Concept

I wanted to visualize data from important and relevant statistics such as global climate statistics and data. I also realized that representing these statics can also pave way for an art form where the statistics come together graphically to convey an abstract artistic motif.

Implementation

var data_stored = [];
var data_in;
var colors=[];

function preload (){
  data_in = loadTable ("global_csv.csv", "csv","header"); 
}

function setup() {
  randomSeed();
  createCanvas(400, 400);
  noStroke();
  background(0,0,0);
  //Hard code the selection of data required
  for (var i = 0; i<260; i++){
    for (var j = 0; j<2; j++){
      //push into data stored array
      data_stored.push(data_in.getNum(i,j));
          
    }
  }
  //random colour generator
  for (var c_=0; c_<244; c_++){
      colors[c_]=c_+1;
    }
//drawing the shape
  var base= 30;
  for (var k =0; k<data_stored.length; k++){
    var data_points= data_stored[k];
    var x = width/2;
    var y = height/2;
    //fixing data to correct proportions
    var h = map(data_points, 0, max(data_stored), 0 , (height/2-base)*1.3);
    var r = map(k, 0, data_stored.length, 0 , 2*PI); 
    fill (random(colors), 100, 100);
    push ();
    translate(x,y);
    rotate(r);
    rect(0, -base, 1, h)
    pop(); 
  }
}

The code implemented simply loads a csv file containing raw data, then takes the data on to an array. Then it uses the values from the array to produce heights of the bars that will be visualized. Then these heights are mapped onto a suitable scale and displayed.

Design

Reflections and Improvements

I would definitely like to make the application take in any arbitrary data set and visualize it. Here I had to hard code some of the properties. Some of the functions to manipulate the array did not seem to work. Also, I would like to add a bit more meaningful color to the presentation of data to give it an extra dimension.