Author: Dhabia AlMansoori

Making Interactive Art: Set the Stage, Then Shut Up and Listen

This reading (and I won’t be anything less than honest) is what I didn’t want to hear. It’s a hard pill to swallow, especially as I am trying to transition more into making interactive art and leaving more room for the extraordinary rather than the (people would call them mundane) paintings I’m used to.  I’ve come across this concept before and I got really defensive when I was being told to not let people know about my intentions and my emotions, about my motive, which is something that needs to be clear when you’re writing an essay- but not when making an interactive art piece (according to this reading). I agree with this reading on a lot of the point the author makes, one of them is to not impose and annotate every single part of the experience for the user. Trying to leave more room for the imagination and for the user to actually “converse” properly with the interface/piece you’re creating is really important for feedback and for the whole overall artwork to be more satisfying for the user. Besides, some would say that imposing one opinion on what a piece means (even if it is your own ) would be some form of propaganda, would it now?

 

Midterm Project Plan: Spinning Art Reveal Using Pitch

 

For my midterm project, I am going to make a spinning wheel using a servo and a sound sensor. According to the pitch it detects, the servo will turn and reveal a different piece of art. I think the code aspect of this is going to be more complicated than the visual/design aspect of it as I have a very clear idea on what I want it to look like at this point. I have not used a sound sensor before so this should be an interesting challenge, to say the least.

Group Project – Music Box

Our task this week was to work with one other person from class and make a musical instrument. Sara and I decided to make a music box.

The materials we used on our Arduino are as follows:

  • two servo motors (one for the rotating figurine, one for the lid opener)
  • one buzzer (for tone)
  • a potentiometer (to switch the music box on)
  • a wooden box
  • a small figurine

First, we stuck the servo boxes using velcro into the box, and then we added the buzzer. One servo was to just open the box and the other one was to turn the figurine around.

The building process: 

Our Code:

#include <Servo.h>
 
Servo servo;
Servo servo2;

//PINS
int speakerPin = 8;
int servoPin = 10;
int servo2Pin = 9;
int potentioPin = A2;
int length = 15; // the number of notes
char notes[] = "ccggaagffeeddc "; // a space represents a rest
int beats[] = { 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4 };
int tempo = 300;



//FOR SERVO
const int MAX_DISTANCE = 160;
//const int MED_DISTANCE = 90;
const int MIN_DISTANCE = 20;
int degree = 10;
int pos = 50;
int pos2;

//FOR POTENTIOMETER
int potentioValue = 0;

int i = 0;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  servo.attach(servoPin);
  servo2.attach(servo2Pin);
  pinMode(speakerPin, OUTPUT);
  servo2.write(20);
  servo.write(20);
}

void playTone(int tone, int duration) {
  for (long i = 0; i < duration * 1000L; i += tone * 2) {
    digitalWrite(speakerPin, HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(tone);
    digitalWrite(speakerPin, LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(tone);
  }
}

void playNote(char note, int duration) {
  char names[] = { 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'a', 'b', 'C' };
  int tones[] = { 1915, 1700, 1519, 1432, 1275, 1136, 1014, 956 };

  // play the tone corresponding to the note name
  for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++) {
    if (names[i] == note) {
      playTone(tones[i], duration);
    }
  } 

   pinMode(speakerPin, OUTPUT);
}
 
void loop() {

  potentioValue = analogRead(potentioPin);
  Serial.println(potentioValue);
  delay(1000);

  pos2 = map(potentioValue, 0, 1023, 50, 180);
  servo.write(pos2);
  //delay(1000);

  if (pos2 < 90)
  {
 
    pos = pos + degree;
  
    if (pos < MIN_DISTANCE || pos > MAX_DISTANCE)
    {
      degree = -degree;
    }
  
    servo2.write(pos);

    if (notes[i] == ' ') {
      delay(beats[i] * tempo); // rest
    } else {
      playNote(notes[i], beats[i] * tempo);
    }

    i++;555;

    if (i > length)
    {
      i = 0;
    }
    // pause between notes
    delay(tempo / 2); 
  }
  else
  {
    pos = 50;
    servo2.write(pos);
    //no tone
  }
}

 

Light of the Lotus- Assignment 3

Light of the Lotus was my idea for project 3. The idea was to have a temperature sensor inside of a glass lotus and when water of a certain temperature was poured into that lotus an LED would Light up from underneath. Initially, I wanted to have the sensor in the lotus, but then I realized this would create a short circuit. So I just manually carefully put the sensor in.

 

 

float tempPin = A0;
float maxTemp = 50
;
int led = 2;

float  temp, cel;
void setup() {
   Serial.begin(9600);
   pinMode(tempPin, INPUT); //the input recieved is the water's temp
   pinMode(led, OUTPUT); //the output is the LED, so wether it is low high
}
void loop() { 
     int c = analogRead(tempPin); 
     float voltage = c * 5.0;
 voltage /= 1024.0; 
   c = (voltage - 0.5) * 100 ;  //converting from 10 mv per degree wit 500 mV offset

  if(c > maxTemp) {        // if temp is higher than tempMax
      digitalWrite(led, HIGH);  // turn on led
     } 
     
     else {                    // else turn of led
       digitalWrite(led, LOW);  // turn on led
  }
   Serial.print("TEMP: ");
   Serial.print(c);      // display the temperature
   Serial.print("C");
   Serial.println();
}

float readTemp() {  // get the temperature and convert it to celsius
  temp = analogRead(tempPin);
  return temp * 0.48828125;
}
#refrenced, will add urls later tonight

 

Response to Reading #2

In this reading, the author talks about multiple concepts of design. What is good design? Is it to make things more functional and efficient or beautiful with little/ minimal regard to function?

When designing appliances that are sophisticated and complex, we have to work on making them easy to operate, or else the design would’ve lost its value. The reading made me think about how technology and devices are most often than not designed to look pleasing rather than to maximize their function. What is the point of making something beautiful if it’s not going to be used to its full potential?

In the reading there was a mention of devices being the problem and not humans, this reminded me of a sewing machine I got for my 15th birthday. It was described to be a perfect siege into the world of sewing- and yet, I don’t think I’ve ever used it more than three times due to how confusing it was to operate. How can we make devices like the sewing machine easy to use, how can we design them so someone who doesn’t have experience won’t need to scavenge for a YouTube video to do the simplest of things when it comes to that particular device? 

Response to Reading #1

Chris Crawford begins the chapter with his own definition of interactivity:

a cyclic process in which two actors alerternaty listen, think, and speak.

I have read his definition of interactivity in another text he wrote and I agree with him and with the degrees of interactivity that he goes on to point in this chapter. Listening, thinking and speaking are all important aspects of an interface. Both sides need to be equal and while I agree with him on a lot of things, I don’t agree with his statement that books and dancing are not interactive. I personally think that you can have types of texts that are interactive and thus the term- hypertext. An example of hypertext could be “The Garden of Forking Paths”.  I do, however, agree that movies are not interactive, nevertheless, there has been some progress in producers trying to make films interactive. A good example of that would be Netflix’s Bandersnatch. 

Nose Boop Switch

I didn’t take a video of myself demonstrating it for privacy reasons.

My project is a simple drawing of a woman’s face. The person interacting would wear the yellow nose patch on their face, and “boop” the painting’s nose, and the LEDs would turn off. This assignment started with a lot of failed trials. At first, I tried to use Electric Paint to build my circuit but then I lost track of all I was doing and ended up over complicating a very simple solution. I ended up using wires and conductive cloth for the switch.

Second Attempt with Resistor.