Category: F2025 – Mang

Concept

For this week’s assignment, Shahram and I made a small musical instrument using an Arduino. We decided to create a pressure-sensitive drum pad that lets you play different drum sounds depending on how hard you press it.

The main part of the project is a force-sensitive resistor (FSR) that acts as the drum pad. When you press on it, the Arduino reads how much pressure you applied and plays a sound through a small buzzer. The harder you hit it, the longer the sound lasts, kind of like playing a real drum.

We also added a button that lets you switch between three drum sounds: a kick, a snare, and a hi-hat. So pressing the pad feels interactive, and you can change the type of drum as you play. It’s a really simple setup, but it was fun to experiment with.

Schematic

const int FSR_PIN = A0;        
const int BUTTON_PIN = 2;     
const int PIEZO_PIN = 8;     

// Drum sounds 
int kickDrum = 80;             // low drum
int snareDrum = 200;           // mid drum
int hiHat = 1000;              // high drum

int currentDrum = 0;         
int lastButtonState = HIGH;    

void setup() {
  pinMode(BUTTON_PIN, INPUT);  
  pinMode(PIEZO_PIN, OUTPUT);
  Serial.begin(9600); 
}

void loop() {
  int pressure = analogRead(FSR_PIN);
  if (pressure > 20) {
    int duration = map(pressure, 10, 1023, 10, 200);
    // Play the drum sound
    if (currentDrum == 0) {
      tone(PIEZO_PIN, kickDrum, duration);
    } else if (currentDrum == 1) {
      tone(PIEZO_PIN, snareDrum, duration);
    } else {
      tone(PIEZO_PIN, hiHat, duration);
    }
    delay(50);  
  }
  int buttonState = digitalRead(BUTTON_PIN);
  //if button was just pressed, we need to change drum sound
  if (buttonState == LOW && lastButtonState == HIGH) {
    currentDrum = currentDrum + 1;
    if (currentDrum > 2) {
      currentDrum = 0;
    }
    delay(200); 
  }
  lastButtonState = buttonState;  // Store utton state 
}

A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design

After finishing reading the article, I caught myself staring at my hands and realizing how much I take them for granted. It’s strange how technology, which is supposed to make us feel more connected, can also make us feel so detached from the world right in front of us.

I’ve spent years glued to glowing screens typing, swiping, scrolling without thinking about how unnatural it all feels. Victor’s phrase “Pictures Under Glass” stuck with me like a quiet accusation. That’s exactly what these devices are: smooth, cold panes that flatten our world into something we can only look at, not touch. I thought about how I used to build things as a kid—Legos, paper circuits, even sandcastles. I remember the feeling of resistance when stacking wet sand, the satisfaction of shaping something that pushed back. Now, most of my creations live behind glass, where nothing pushes back.

What really struck me was Victor’s idea that true tools amplify human capabilities. We’ve built technologies that expand what we can see and compute, but not what we can feel. I realized that so many “futuristic” designs we celebrate are really just shinier versions of what we already have more pixels, more gestures, less connection. It’s like we’ve mistaken slickness for progress.

Reading this made me wonder what kind of future I want to help design as someone in tech. I don’t just want to make tools people use. I want to make tools people feel. Tools that understand how deeply human interaction is tied to touch, weight, and presence. Maybe that means haptic design, maybe something beyond it. But I know it means remembering that we are not just eyes and brains; we are hands, bodies, and motion.

Responses: A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design

When I read Bret Victor’s Responses to A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design, it felt like listening to a passionate inventor defending an idea most people didn’t quite understand. His frustration was almost funny at times how he keeps saying “No! iPad good! For now!” but underneath that humor was something deeper: a kind of hope that we can still dream bigger about how we interact with technology.

What struck me most was his insistence that the problem isn’t the devices themselves. It’s our lack of imagination. We celebrate flat screens as the height of innovation, but Victor reminds us they’re only a step in a much longer journey. Reading this, I realized how often I accept technology as inevitable, as if it just happens to us. But Victor insists that people choose the future. We decide what gets built, what gets funded, what gets normalized. That realization hit me hard, because it turned passive admiration into personal responsibility.

His section on “finger-blindness” especially stuck with me. The idea that children could lose part of their sensory intelligence by only swiping at glass felt unsettling. I thought about how often I see kids with tablets, and how natural it looks yet maybe that’s exactly the danger. Our hands were made to shape, feel, and learn through texture. If we stop using them that way, we’re not just changing how we play; we’re changing how we think.

What I admire about Victor’s writing is that he doesn’t reject technology. He just wants it to grow up with us. He’s not nostalgic for the past or obsessed with sci-fi fantasies; he’s practical, grounded in the body. When he says that the computer should adapt to the human body, not the other way around, it reminded me that innovation should honor what makes us human, not erase it.

Reading his response made me feel both small and inspired. Small, because it reminded me how little we really understand about designing for human experience. Inspired, because it reminded me that design is not just about what looks cool. It’s about what feels alive.

Maybe the real future of interaction design isn’t in inventing smarter machines, but in rediscovering the intelligence already built into our own bodies.

For this week’s assignment, we had to make a musical instrument involving at least one digital sensor and one analog sensor. Aditi and I decided to create a simple piano-like instrument with lights whose pitch level can be controlled by a potentiometer. There are 4 buttons (switches) that act as the piano “keys” and play different sounds, while the potentiometer has been mapped to three different levels so that the keys produce a high-pitched, middle-pitched, and low-pitched sound.

Materials

• Analog sensor: 10K Trimpot
• Digital Switch: Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green tactile buttons
• Output: Piezo Buzzer to produce the sound and LEDs for light output

Schematic

Video

link: drive

Code

const int button_yellow=8;
const int yellow_light=7;
const int button_blue=9;
const int blue_light=6;
const int green_light=5;
const int button_green=10;
const int red_light=4;
const int button_red=11;
#define BUZZER 12
int potValue=0;
const int potPin=A0;
int melody[]={262,294,330,349,392,440,492,523}; // notes from C4-C5
int melody2[] = {523, 587, 659, 698, 784, 880, 988, 1047}; // notes from C5–C6
int melody3[] = {1047, 1175, 1319, 1397, 1568, 1760, 1976, 2093}; // C6–C7
int nodeDurations=4;
int increase=0;
int potValue_p;

void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
  pinMode(button_yellow, INPUT);
  pinMode(yellow_light,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(button_blue, INPUT);
  pinMode(blue_light, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(button_green, INPUT);
  pinMode(green_light,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(button_red, INPUT);
  pinMode(red_light, OUTPUT);

  pinMode(BUZZER, OUTPUT);
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
  potValue = analogRead(potPin);
  
  if (digitalRead(8) == HIGH) {
    if (potValue <= 300) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody[1]);
    } else if (potValue >= 300 && potValue <= 550) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody2[1]);
    } else if (potValue >= 550 && potValue <= 1023) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody3[1]);
    }
    digitalWrite(yellow_light, HIGH);

  } else if (digitalRead(9) == HIGH) {
    if (potValue <= 300) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody[2]);
    } else if (potValue >= 300 && potValue <= 550) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody2[2]);
    } else if (potValue >= 550 && potValue <= 1023) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody3[2]);
    }
    digitalWrite(blue_light, HIGH);

  } else if (digitalRead(10) == HIGH) {
    Serial.print("green");
    if (potValue <= 300) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody[3]);
    } else if (potValue >= 300 && potValue <= 550) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody2[3]);
    } else if (potValue >= 550 && potValue <= 1023) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody3[3]);
    }
    digitalWrite(green_light, HIGH);

  } else if (digitalRead(11) == HIGH) {
    if (potValue <= 300) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody[4]);
    } else if (potValue >= 300 && potValue <= 550) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody2[4]);
    } else if (potValue >= 550 && potValue <= 1023) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody3[4]);
    }
    digitalWrite(red_light, HIGH);

  } else if(digitalRead(8)==LOW && digitalRead(9)==LOW && digitalRead(10)==LOW && digitalRead(11)==LOW) {  
    Serial.println("Pin is LOW");
    noTone(BUZZER);
    digitalWrite(yellow_light, LOW);
    digitalWrite(blue_light, LOW);
    digitalWrite(green_light, LOW);
    digitalWrite(red_light, LOW);
  }
}

Reflection & Future Improvements

We had fun making this project, however it was also challenging to make all of the connections. Initially, we planned to have at least 6-7 switches, but the setup became so crowded with just 4. I started drawing the schematic diagram on paper before we began to build the connections physically, and this made the process much more manageable. We definitely could not have done it without having the diagram in front of us first. Sometimes, the setup for a particular switch would not work and we would face trouble in figuring out whether the issue was in the code or the wiring. In future versions, we would love to have more keys, as well as a tiny screen that displays the letter for the current note that is being played. We would also want to research on more “melodic” or pleasant sounding notes to add to the code.

In the early iPhone era, Apple’s design mimicked physical textures(leather stitching in Calendar, felt in Game Center, the green felt of iBooks’ shelves). This skeuomorphism gives digital things tactile analogs was arguably the last mainstream attempt to preserve a sense of touch through sight.

Then came iOS 7 led by Jony Ive, where Apple decisively flattened everything: gradients gone, shadows gone, buttons became text. It was a move toward visual minimalism, but also toward what Victor warns against. The glass stopped pretending to be wood, or leather, or paper. It simply became glass.

Victor’s essay makes me realize that friction is information. When you open a book or turn a knob, your hand is in dialogue with resistance; you feel the world push back. That pushback is not inefficiency. It’s meaning.

What’s fascinating is that Apple, perhaps subconsciously, has been quietly circling back to Victor’s point. The Apple Vision Pro’s “spatial computing” rhetoric reintroduces physical space and hand gestures, but ironically, without touch. You can see and move objects in 3D, but you can’t feel them. It’s embodiment without embodiment. Victor’s “hands without feedback” problem all over again.

Every major design philosophy of the 2010s has quietly absorbed the “frictionless” ethos. Uber, Tinder, and Amazon all measure success by how little thought or effort stands between desire and fulfillment. You tap once and the world rearranges itself.

But Victor’s warning, when applied here, becomes almost moral: when everything becomes too smooth, we lose the feedback loops that teach us how the world works. Swiping on a screen doesn’t just numb the fingers, it numbs cause and effect. It’s a design culture that erases the material consequences of our actions.

A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design – initial article

The part of the reading that I found most interesting was the idea that we should stop limiting human interaction to just the tips of our fingers. It made me question why so many interactive designs and technologies focus almost entirely on finger-based gestures. Why not explore other parts of the body as tools for interaction?

I think part of the reason is that we, as humans, feel we have the most control over our fingers – they’re precise, sensitive, and easy to coordinate. But that doesn’t mean interaction should stop there? How could we design experiences that involve other body parts, ones that are still easy to control, but that go beyond what’s been unimaginatively repeated in current design?

The article emphasises how much of our natural ability to sense and manipulate the world through touch has been lost in “Pictures Under Glass”, flat screens that give us no tactile feedback. That really stood out to me, because it highlights how technology, despite its innovation, can sometimes strip away what makes interaction human.

Overall, the reading made me realise how limited our current designs are compared to the potential of the human body. I think it helped me to challenge myself and image more creative ways to interactive with my projects.

Responses

I appreciate his point on the iPad being revolutionary but if it acts the same in 20 years, it won’t be as there has been no big enough change to stay revolutionary. But what are those next steps? Mind control, hand and arms altogether with holograms? It is difficult to come up with answers or suggestions to the rants that were mentioned but I also see the finger being a cap to how we interact with daily tech objects.

Reading A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design honestly made me think how much I take my hands for granted. The author talks about how our hands are designed to feel and manipulate things and it really clicked for me when he compared using a touchscreen to “pictures under glass.”  That idea stuck with me because it perfectly captures what phones and tablets feel like: flat, smooth, and completely disconnected from the sense of touch. I never thought about it before, but it’s true , we don’t really “feel” anything when we use them. It’s weird to realize that the same hands that can tie shoelaces or shape clay are now mostly used to swipe on a flat screen.

The part that resonated most with me was his point that technology should adapt to us, not the other way around, especially when he says that technology can change but human nature cannot change as much. I see it all the time,  people getting frustrated because a phone gesture doesn’t work or because an app “expects” you to use it a certain way. It’s like we’re the ones bending to fit the machine, instead of the machine fitting how we naturally act. Also , with older objects like books or physical instruments, there’s something really satisfying about physically turning a page or pressing real keys. You just feel connected to what you’re doing. With touchscreens, everything feels the same no matter what you’re interacting with.

One part I didn’t completely agree with was how strongly he dismissed “Pictures Under Glass.” I get his point, but I think those devices have opened up creativity in new ways,  like drawing on an iPad or making music digitally. It’s not tactile in the same sense, but it’s still expressive.

The follow-up also made me think about how disconnected technology can make us sitting all day, barely moving, everything done with a single finger. I guess, I am a little scared of a future where we become immobile because there’s too much automation, and we don’t need to do much anymore. I guess we shouldn’t be losing touch entirely with the world around us (pun intended).

Concept

For this week’s assignment, Khatira and I made a small musical instrument using an Arduino. We decided to create a pressure-sensitive drum pad that lets you play different drum sounds depending on how hard you press it.

The main part of the project is a force-sensitive resistor (FSR) that acts as the drum pad. When you press on it, the Arduino reads how much pressure you applied and plays a sound through a small buzzer. The harder you hit it, the longer the sound lasts, kind of like playing a real drum.

We also added a button that lets you switch between three drum sounds: a kick, a snare, and a hi-hat. So pressing the pad feels interactive, and you can change the type of drum as you play. It’s a really simple setup, but it was fun to experiment with.

Schematic

Video Demo

const int FSR_PIN = A0;        
const int BUTTON_PIN = 2;     
const int PIEZO_PIN = 8;     

// Drum sounds 
int kickDrum = 80;             // low drum
int snareDrum = 200;           // mid drum
int hiHat = 1000;              // high drum

int currentDrum = 0;         
int lastButtonState = HIGH;    

void setup() {
  pinMode(BUTTON_PIN, INPUT);  
  pinMode(PIEZO_PIN, OUTPUT);
  Serial.begin(9600); 
}

void loop() {
  int pressure = analogRead(FSR_PIN);
  if (pressure > 20) {
    int duration = map(pressure, 10, 1023, 10, 200);
    // Play the drum sound
    if (currentDrum == 0) {
      tone(PIEZO_PIN, kickDrum, duration);
    } else if (currentDrum == 1) {
      tone(PIEZO_PIN, snareDrum, duration);
    } else {
      tone(PIEZO_PIN, hiHat, duration);
    }
    delay(50);  
  }
  int buttonState = digitalRead(BUTTON_PIN);
  //if button was just pressed, we need to change drum sound
  if (buttonState == LOW && lastButtonState == HIGH) {
    currentDrum = currentDrum + 1;
    if (currentDrum > 2) {
      currentDrum = 0;
    }
    delay(200); 
  }
  lastButtonState = buttonState;  // Store utton state 
}

Future Improvements

For future improvements, we’d like to add a potentiometer to control the sound more precisely, allowing the player to adjust tone or volume in real time while drumming. We could also include LEDs that light up based on which drum sound is active and how hard the pad is hit. These additions would make the drum pad feel more dynamic,  and visually engaging.

Concept

For this week’s assignment, we had to make a musical instrument involving at least one digital sensor and one analog sensor. Aditi and I decided to create a simple piano-like instrument with lights whose pitch level can be controlled by a potentiometer. There are 4 buttons (switches) that act as the piano “keys” and play different sounds, while the potentiometer has been mapped to three different levels so that the keys produce a high-pitched, middle-pitched, and low-pitched sound.

Materials

• Analog sensor: 10K Trimpot
• Digital Switch: Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green tactile buttons
• Output: Piezo Buzzer to produce the sound and LEDs for light output

Schematic

Video Documentation

The Code

const int button_yellow=8;
const int yellow_light=7;
const int button_blue=9;
const int blue_light=6;
const int green_light=5;
const int button_green=10;
const int red_light=4;
const int button_red=11;
#define BUZZER 12
int potValue=0;
const int potPin=A0;
int melody[]={262,294,330,349,392,440,492,523}; // notes from C4-C5
int melody2[] = {523, 587, 659, 698, 784, 880, 988, 1047}; // notes from C5–C6
int melody3[] = {1047, 1175, 1319, 1397, 1568, 1760, 1976, 2093}; // C6–C7
int nodeDurations=4;
int increase=0;
int potValue_p;

void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
  pinMode(button_yellow, INPUT);
  pinMode(yellow_light,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(button_blue, INPUT);
  pinMode(blue_light, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(button_green, INPUT);
  pinMode(green_light,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(button_red, INPUT);
  pinMode(red_light, OUTPUT);

  pinMode(BUZZER, OUTPUT);
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
  potValue = analogRead(potPin);
  
  if (digitalRead(8) == HIGH) {
    if (potValue <= 300) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody[1]);
    } else if (potValue >= 300 && potValue <= 550) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody2[1]);
    } else if (potValue >= 550 && potValue <= 1023) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody3[1]);
    }
    digitalWrite(yellow_light, HIGH);

  } else if (digitalRead(9) == HIGH) {
    if (potValue <= 300) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody[2]);
    } else if (potValue >= 300 && potValue <= 550) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody2[2]);
    } else if (potValue >= 550 && potValue <= 1023) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody3[2]);
    }
    digitalWrite(blue_light, HIGH);

  } else if (digitalRead(10) == HIGH) {
    Serial.print("green");
    if (potValue <= 300) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody[3]);
    } else if (potValue >= 300 && potValue <= 550) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody2[3]);
    } else if (potValue >= 550 && potValue <= 1023) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody3[3]);
    }
    digitalWrite(green_light, HIGH);

  } else if (digitalRead(11) == HIGH) {
    if (potValue <= 300) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody[4]);
    } else if (potValue >= 300 && potValue <= 550) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody2[4]);
    } else if (potValue >= 550 && potValue <= 1023) {
      tone(BUZZER, melody3[4]);
    }
    digitalWrite(red_light, HIGH);

  } else if(digitalRead(8)==LOW && digitalRead(9)==LOW && digitalRead(10)==LOW && digitalRead(11)==LOW) {  
    Serial.println("Pin is LOW");
    noTone(BUZZER);
    digitalWrite(yellow_light, LOW);
    digitalWrite(blue_light, LOW);
    digitalWrite(green_light, LOW);
    digitalWrite(red_light, LOW);
  }
}

Reflection & Future Improvements

We had fun making this project, however it was also challenging to make all of the connections. Initially, we planned to have at least 6-7 switches, but the setup became so crowded with just 4. Aditi drew the schematic diagram on paper before we began to build the connections physically, and this made the process much more manageable. We definitely could not have done it without having the diagram in front of us first. Sometimes, the setup for a particular switch would not work and we would face trouble in figuring out whether the issue was in the code or the wiring. In future versions, we would love to have more keys, as well as a tiny screen that displays the letter for the current note that is being played. We would also want to research on more “melodic” or pleasant sounding notes to add to the code.

My initial impression regarding the”Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design” reading was that it was formatted in a very engaging way. As someone with ADHD, I tend to read long paragraphs a lot slower than individual sentences structured this way; this made me trust in the credibility of the author’s perspective on interaction design.

The way the author transitions from explaining the importance of touch to the complete lack of it in our touchscreen technology was really done, and I couldn’t agree more. Using touchscreens is really un-stimulating, and if anyone who has tried texting without haptics will know it feels incredibly unresponsive– but that also seems to be the future we’re headed towards. The images Bret Victor chooses to accompany his texts are hilarious too; there really aren’t many things we naturally need our hands to swipe on other than manmade touchscreens. Victor’s explanation of how humans naturally transition between grip-styles is pretty interesting to me too.

This reading gave me a lot to think about. One of the things that came to mind was the experience of using a controller versus mouse & keyboard when playing video games. For those unaware, let me explain the main differences between the two.

When you use a controller (or gamepad as some call it), you’re primarily using your thumbs for everything from the analog sticks to the surface-buttons. Using just your thumb to control your camera controls can be quite difficult if precise and delicate movements are required.

When you use a keyboard and mouse, your arm and wrist are capable of microadjustments while holding the mouse to input much more precise and delicate movements; not to mention your keyboard hand is using way more than just your thumb to control what’s happening on screen.

So going by what I’ve said, many would probably wonder why anyone would ever use a controller, but that’s the thing– I haven’t explained the one thing that makes this remotely a difficult decision.
Controllers give an extra layer of immersion by both letting the user relax their arms and lean back, but also provide the user with haptic feedback and vibrations in response to what’s happening in-game. Imagine you’re playing a game where explosions are involved– the controller would vibrate violently in your hands as explosions affect your character. This is why you turn to keyboard and mouse for precision but controllers for immersion.

Now onto Victor’s follow-up article– I thought his response to voice was pretty amusing, “I have a hard time imagining Monet saying to his canvas, “Give me some water lilies. Make ’em impressionistic.” It’s amusing because that’s literally how our modern generation approaches stuff they don’t know how to do.

One other thing that really caught my attention in the follow-up was this quote, “The density of nerve endings in our fingertips is enormous. Their discrimination is almost as good as that of our eyes. If we don’t use our fingers, if in childhood and youth we become “finger-blind”, this rich network of nerves is impoverished.” I wonder if late-gen Z and gen alpha have any indicators of finger blindness as so many of us grew up with touchscreen devices as our main source of entertainment.

A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design and A follow-up article

I have never really thought much about it, but if someone were to put me on the spot and ask me which is more important, the visual or the tactile senses, I would probably choose the visual. This rant by Bret Victor has successfully changed my mind, though. I think what really convinced me was the example he gave on tying shoelaces. Indeed, I could easily tie my laces with my eyes closed, but if I numbed my hands or fingertips, I wouldn’t be able to do it anymore. This enlightenment has made me realize that I’ve never even considered the tactile aspect of any of my works, even though the first part of the course didn’t have room for it. I’m excited to take this into account for my upcoming projects since they involve physical human interaction.

I really liked the way Victor described today’s technology of iPads and phones as Pictures Under Glass. When phrased in this way, it actually makes the technology seem so boring and unintuitive. Like what do you mean our “revolutionary” technology doesn’t use the human tactile sense at all, probably one of our greatest assets? It actually gets more absurd the more I think about it.

When I moved on to the follow-up article, I found some of the comments and his response to them quite funny. But amongst all of this, the line that really stood out to me was, “Channeling all interaction through a single finger is like restricting all literature to Dr Seuss’s vocabulary.” I believe this line perfectly sums up the point Bret was trying to bring across about iPad technology only using your fingers. Where real literature’s scope goes to Shakespeare and beyond, leaving a human being with words only from a Dr. Seuss book is the dumbest thing, anyone can see that. So why can’t people see that limiting one’s fingertips- the body part with the highest density of nerve endings- to a flat, smooth screen, is dumb too? Overall, this has been one of my favorite readings so far, very eye-opening.