For this assignment to create an unusual switch, I decided to create a circuit with the cutest tool possible- my emotional support plushie.

( His name’s Poochababy 🙂 )

Concept:

I feel like hugs are meant to comfort you and “light” up your world when you’re sad or lonely, so that’s my concept here! So when you hug Poochababy, the LED lights up!

the circuit:

First, I formed a simple circuit, using jumper wires, alligator clips, resistors, 2 red LEDs, aluminium foil, some tape and of course, Arduino Uno! Then I connected the ends to Poochababy with some tape. I then taped some aluminium foil to my T-shirt to complete the circuit when I hug Poochababy.

Here’s a close up of the circuit and the connections. And the link to the video demo :

Challenges and Improvements :

I first tried to use only jumper wires, but it was too short. So I fixed that by using alligator clips, which helped me getting longer wires. It was also a bit hard to place the aluminium foil correctly, but a few adjustments and strips of tape helped!

For improvements, I would definitely like to hide the wires in some neater way  on Poochababy, some sort of covering maybe. I would also like to experiment with codes, maybe a sweet audio message to play when we hug Poochababy.  I would also like to adjust the LEDs using code, maybe for them to blink faster or slower when we hug tighter!

 

 

 

The idea that attractive things work better made me think about how much design affects the way I interact with everyday objects. I realized that when something looks nice or well-designed, I’m more likely to enjoy using it, even if it’s not perfect. It made me think about my phone apps some are so easy to use just because they look clean and simple. I don’t know if I fully agree that looks always make something work better, but I do see how a good design can change my mood and make me more patient. It also made me wonder if we sometimes value appearance too much and overlook function. Shouldn’t something work well even if it’s not pretty?

Reading about Margaret Hamilton really opened my eyes to how important her work was in getting humans to the moon. I had never thought about the software behind the mission, or that a woman played such a huge role. It made me question why we don’t hear about people like her more often. It also made me think about how women in tech are often seen as exceptions rather than just part of the team. I liked how the article highlighted her focus on preventing errors it reminded me how important it is to think ahead in problem-solving. It made me want to learn more about other hidden figures in science and tech who made big changes but didn’t always get the credit.

I created a simple but fun circuit using one LED light, three wires, a resistor, and copper tape. My goal was to make an unusual switch that doesn’t use hands. Instead, I used my little brother’s legs to complete the circuit!

I wrapped copper tape around both of his leg. When he touches his legs together, the copper tape connects, and the circuit closes, lighting up the LED. When he separates his legs, the circuit opens and the light turns off. It was really funny to see it work—it felt like he had leg powers!

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1Kk2lkQgoAyybXSYWVmY2Dog9uQVX_DMq

This project taught me how the human body can become part of an electronic switch. It also made me think about how switches don’t always need buttons or hands—they can be playful and interactive in unexpected ways.

In the future, I want to add sound effects using a buzzer so that it not only lights up but also makes a sound when the legs touch. I think that will make the experience even more surprising and fun!

Norman’s article made me rethink what makes a design successful. I always assumed that usability was the most important goal, but he shows how our emotions can change the way we interact with objects. When we feel good, we tend to be more flexible, more creative, and more forgiving of small flaws. On the other hand, when we are stressed or anxious, even simple tasks can become difficult. This means that good design is not just about how something works, but also about how it makes us feel while using it.

His story about the three teapots really brings this idea to life. One is intentionally useless, another looks awkward but works well, and the last one is both practical and thoughtful. What stood out to me is how he chooses which teapot to use based on his mood. Sometimes he wants efficiency, other times he wants elegance or creativity. This shows that design is not just about solving a problem in one way, but about understanding the different contexts in which people live and make decisions.

In the end, Norman is not saying beauty is more important than function, or the other way around. He argues for a balance where usability, emotion, and aesthetics all work together. That idea stuck with me because it feels true not just for products, but for how we make choices in general. We are not purely logical or purely emotional. We are a mix of both, and the best designs (and maybe even the best ideas) are the ones that recognize that.

Reading about Margaret Hamilton made me realize how much of the space race story we usually miss. We often focus on the astronauts and the rockets, but here was someone working behind the scenes, writing the code that actually made the missions possible. What is fascinating is that she was doing all of this before “software engineering” was even considered a real field. She helped define it as a serious discipline, at a time when software was seen as secondary to hardware.

One moment that really stood out was when Hamilton tried to build in error protection after her daughter accidentally caused a crash in a simulation. She was told it would never happen during a real mission, but it did. Because of the precautions she took, the astronauts were able to land safely. It makes me think about how we often overlook the importance of preparing for the unexpected. Her work was not just about getting things to function, but about thinking ahead and designing systems that could handle failure.

There is also something meaningful in the way she worked: methodical, thoughtful, and persistent, even when her contributions were underestimated. She showed that innovation is not just about new inventions, but also about foresight and responsibility. Her story raises an important question: how many people are quietly shaping the world through careful, often invisible work, and how can we do better at recognizing their impact?

Concept:

I love dancing, so I wanted to create a switch that incorporates my hobby by doing the Stanky Leg! To do this, I used copper tape and attached strips to my knees. As I move and dance, my legs bend and the copper tapes on each knee come into contact. When they touch, the circuit is completed, which activates the switch and lights up the LED. This way, the LED lights up through the movement of dance, making it both interactive and fun.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TfbptN2TEvhUywdUC8JOCoeZR8rrbgjd/view?usp=sharing

Challenges:

It turned out to be more challenging than I expected because the wires had to maintain solid contact with the copper tape. However, as I moved my legs while dancing, the tape started to come loose, which caused the connection between the wire and the copper tape to break, disrupting the circuit.

This reading discusses the valuable contributions of Margeret Hamilton in the Apollo space mission and the field of software engineering. It is quite impressive to note that Hamilton was a working mother who worked days and nights to formulate the very software for the Apollo space missions. She faced deep skepticism and bias as a woman working in male-dominated fields, but she earned her righteous place among the others as a pioneer in the field of software engineering. It was interesting to see how the Apollo 8 mission astronauts once accidentally wiped out the navigational data, and how effectively she solved the problem with her team. Hamilton’s story inspired me in reflecting upon her values and mission as a woman in the male-dominated world of engineering and technology. She inspires everyone to step outside their comfort zones and experiment with curiosity. Her duality as a mother and a software engineer tells us that life can never give us setbacks, and it is up to us to overcome them. She inspires me to adopt her tactics of problem solving and team management and leadership in my life as well, adapting to these values and visions in the field of design and technology.

This reading by Don Norman focuses on the concept of aesthetics influencing an objects’ useability. Norman argues that aesthetic appeal can positively influence a person’s user experience. It can even help cover up minor errors and discrepancies in the objects’ useability. From “Coffee Pots for Masochists” to colourful TV screens, the beauty of everyday items can influence cognition and overcome minor misunderstandings. This reading made me think long and hard about all of the objects I use on a day-to-day basis, starting from the very iPad Pro I’m typing this blog post on, to the oversized cute coffee mug next to me. Is the mug very large; do I even need that much coffee? Probably not. But is the mug very pretty to look at; does it fit my aesthetics perfectly? Oh yes. Norman talks about the colourful TV screens, how colour was merely a thing of beauty in the already perfectly functional screens. This made me think of how we, as students, always design powerpoint presentations, or any sort of display. While the text to get the point across is visibly apparent, we also focus on the aesthetics and how appealing it is to our audience. However, too much “beautifying” can take away from the display’s message; and too little can’t capture the attention of our audience. The fine line between beauty and functionality is exactly what Norman proposes we depend on for the perfect formula in creating cool things.

Link to the Sketch: https://editor.p5js.org/izza.t/full/V9Mv_WERI

For my midterm, I decided to do a spin-off of a classic maze that is also heavily inspired by 2 other things I love: mystery and cats. The story of the game involves an archeologist exploring an abandoned tomb that is said to hold a large treasure with their cat. Suddenly, something spooks the cats and it runs off into the tomb. It is then revealed that the tomb is like a maze, and the user must navigate through it. The catch? It’s pitch black apart from the small light from their flashlight and there are booby traps in certain parts of the maze like a mummy, beetles, and a snake that will cause the player to have to restart if the player collides into them.

The game works by showing a start screen that explains the situation and what keys to use to navigate the game. The player uses the arrow keys to navigate up, down, left, and right through the maze and can use the ‘C’ key to call for their cat and hear it’s meow which expands their flashlight radius momentarily (almost like a power up). This feature does have a cooldown feature that is displayed at the top. The user must navigate through the maze to the end to win and find both their cat and the lost treasure. They must do so without triggering any of the booby traps and dealing with all of the dead ends in the maze.

The maze itself took the longest time to create, almost an entire day, as it all had to be hardcoded using an image I had found of tomb-like stone walls online. Then, creating the flashlight like circle around the player and making sure that only pieces of the maze that are within that circle are displayed required the use of masking. This required me to use a new function called drawingContext which unlocks more features of the canvas in p5js and allowed me to do that. The code for which I’m very proud of and can be seen below.

class Maze {
  constructor() {
    this.walls = [
      // Outer boundaries (these are always visible)
      {x: 75,    y: 0,    w: 1200, h: 30},   // Top
      {x: 0,    y: 570,  w: 1200, h: 30},   // Bottom
      {x: 0,    y: 0,    w: 30,    h: 600}, // Left
      {x: 970, y: 0,    w: 30,    h: 535}, // Right

      // Interior walls (these are only visible within the flashlight radius)
      {x: 75,  y: 25,  w: 10,   h: 100},
      {x: 75,  y: 165,  w: 10,   h: 220},
      {x: 75,  y: 425,  w: 10,   h: 90},
      {x: 145,  y: 25,  w: 10,   h: 100},
      {x: 195,  y: 25,  w: 10,   h: 100},
      {x: 195,  y: 115,  w: 75,  h: 10},
      {x: 75,  y: 115,  w: 75,  h: 10},
      {x: 75,  y: 165,  w: 200,  h: 10},
      {x: 265,  y:115,  w: 10,   h: 55},
      {x: 75,  y: 375,  w: 165,  h: 10},
      {x: 75,  y: 425,  w: 215,  h: 10},
      {x: 280,  y: 295,  w: 10,   h: 140},
      {x: 235,  y: 355,  w: 10,   h: 30},
      {x: 105,  y: 345,  w: 140,  h: 10},
      {x: 155,  y: 295,  w: 135,  h: 10},
      {x: 155,  y: 255,  w: 10,   h: 50},
      {x: 105,  y: 205,  w: 10,   h: 150},
      {x: 75,  y: 515,  w: 210,  h: 10},
      {x: 280,  y: 515,  w: 10,  h: 60},
      {x: 105,  y: 490,  w: 205,  h: 10},
      {x: 105,  y: 450,  w: 205,  h: 10},
      {x: 105,  y: 450,  w: 10,  h: 50},
      {x: 155,  y: 255,  w: 155,   h: 10},
      {x: 115,  y: 205,  w: 195,   h: 10},
      {x: 300,  y:95,  w: 10,   h: 115},
      {x: 235,  y: 85,  w: 75,  h: 10},
      {x: 300,  y:255,  w: 10,   h: 205},
      {x: 300,  y:490,  w: 10,   h: 85},
      {x: 225,  y: 25,  w: 10,   h: 70},
      {x: 345,  y: 25,  w: 10,   h: 320},
      {x: 345,  y: 345,  w: 225,   h: 10},
      {x: 345,  y: 395,  w: 60,   h: 10},
      {x: 465,  y: 395,  w: 60,   h: 10},
      {x: 345,  y: 395,  w: 10,   h: 180},
      {x: 515,  y: 395,  w: 10,   h: 180},
      {x: 565,  y: 345,  w: 10,   h: 180},
      {x: 565,  y: 525,  w: 50,   h: 10},
      {x: 605,  y: 300,  w: 10,   h: 230},
      {x: 655,  y: 165,  w: 10,   h: 410},
      {x: 405,  y: 300,  w: 205,   h: 10},
      {x: 405,  y: 255,  w: 205,   h: 10},
      {x: 405,  y: 225,  w: 205,   h: 10},
      {x: 605,  y: 225,  w: 10,   h: 40},
      {x: 405,  y: 255,  w: 10,   h: 50},
      {x: 405,  y: 25,  w: 10,   h: 210},
      {x: 465,  y: 165,  w: 195,   h: 10},
      {x: 465,  y: 85,  w: 10,   h: 90},
      {x: 465,  y: 85,  w: 225,   h: 10},
      {x: 685,  y: 85,  w: 10,   h: 25},
      {x: 685,  y: 150,  w: 10,   h: 425},
      {x: 745,  y: 20,  w: 10,   h: 345},
      {x: 745,  y: 410,  w: 10,   h: 120},
      {x: 745,  y: 525,  w: 70,   h: 10},
      {x: 805,  y: 450,  w: 10,   h: 85},
      {x: 865,  y: 450,  w: 10,   h: 85},
      {x: 805,  y: 445,  w: 70,   h: 10},
      {x: 865,  y: 525,  w: 140,   h: 10},
      {x: 745,  y: 410,  w: 145,   h: 10},
      {x: 935,  y: 410,  w: 40,   h: 10},
      {x: 745,  y: 355,  w: 170,   h: 10},
      {x: 905,  y: 90,  w: 10,   h: 275},
      {x: 845,  y: 90,  w: 60,   h: 10},
      {x: 845,  y: 90,  w: 10,   h: 245},
      {x: 785,  y: 20,  w: 10,   h: 315},
      {x: 785,  y: 325,  w: 60,   h: 10},
    ];
  }

  display() {
    for (let i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
      let wall = this.walls[i];
      image(stoneWall, wall.x, wall.y, wall.w, wall.h);
    }

//creating the masking
    for (let i = 4; i < this.walls.length; i++) {
      let wall = this.walls[i];
      // Create a mask for the wall
      drawingContext.save();
      drawingContext.beginPath();
      drawingContext.arc(player.x, player.y, lightRadius, 0, TWO_PI);
      drawingContext.clip();
      image(stoneWall, wall.x, wall.y, wall.w, wall.h);

      drawingContext.restore();
    }
  }

The outline of the maze itself can be seen in this image below which I took before I made the maze pitch black apart from the flashlight.

The flashlight itself is another thing I am very proud of as I wanted to make it look as natural as the way the light coming from a flashlight looks like. This means it has a bright center and a smooth gradient to transparent. For this effect, I had to learn how to use the blendMode in p5js which allowed me to create it in the easiest way. The code for this can be seen below.

function drawFlashlight() {
  fill(0);
  noStroke();
  rect(0, 0, width, height);

  blendMode(SCREEN); 
  drawingContext.globalCompositeOperation = 'lighter'; 

  // Draw the flashlight gradient
  let gradient = drawingContext.createRadialGradient(
    player.x, player.y, lightRadius / 4,
    player.x, player.y, lightRadius 
  );
  gradient.addColorStop(0, 'rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)');
  gradient.addColorStop(1, 'rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)'); 
  drawingContext.fillStyle = gradient;
  drawingContext.beginPath();
  drawingContext.arc(player.x, player.y, lightRadius, 0, TWO_PI);
  drawingContext.fill();
  blendMode(BLEND);
}

The result of this and the masking can be seen in the image below (with a peep of one the traps – the mummy):

The game proved to be more challenging than I anticipated, and I quickly realized I had set the bar a little to high for myself. Originally, I wanted the player to be a sprite of an archeologist and to have all the booby traps be animated and moving. However, with time constraints and animation struggles, I wasn’t able to do that (but would love to try and incorporate in the future). I also wanted for the cat to somehow appear at the edge of the flashlight’s radius when the ‘C’ key was pressed, the radius of the flashlight expanded, and the meow sound occurred.

Overall, I am still very proud of the game I ended up creating. It is fun, has an overarching Egyptian theme through carefully selected images and even the Papyrus font, and has a niche to it that sets it apart from other games. I learned a lot about p5js and how to code new things while working on this game, and I hope you enjoy playing it!