Category: Spring 2019

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.

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.

Hug Switch

What’s better than getting a warm hug from a good friend, and also illuminating your home! Or maybe just lightly illuminating a 3 cm radius.

Yes, the hug may have been awkwardly long, but it can be useful in exploring human contact as a way of powering facilities. Some technologies exist that use human work, like biking, to create energy. However, what does our world look like when we can harness simple human interactions to power what we use?

Step Switch

For this first assignment, I decided to create an open circuit that could only be closed if a conductor were to bridge the two gaps in the shoe outlines. For the purposes of this project, I attached aluminum foil to the soles of an old pair of sneakers in order to close the circuit.

I used two clip cables to attach to the jumper wires, and used three strips of copper tape on the “mat” itself that the copper would come into contact with the aluminum on the shoes.


Circuit Without Hands: Aluminium Skirt

For this assignment, we were asked to create a simple circuit that functions without the use of hands. I completed my circuit using a “skirt” made of aluminum foil. The reason I chose a skirt was because I wanted to experiment with a wearable object. To do this, I added two long wires and connected them to four LED lights. Then, I placed the two opposing wires on the chair, in order to light up the LEDs (and complete the circuit) as soon as my skirt touched the wires. Here is an image of my circuit:

The skirt was a bit too tight, but it worked. Here is a video demonstration:

No Hands Switch: Sunglasses Edition

I’m what the kids call (sunglasses flip down onto my eyes) a huge nerd. Honestly this took me way longer than it should have to make purely because I didn’t have clear tape. But alas, there is nothing that blue tack can’t do. But between screaming in frustration every time the alligator clamps fell off my nose and crying whenever the wire fell off my glasses, I actually got a few cheers in when the little blue light would show itself.

Basically, I wired up an LED and then added a bit of a disruption in the middle. Instead of the electricity going straight from the power source to the LED, it made a quick detour through two alligator clamps, one wire, my sunglasses, my nose, and then to the LED. The wire was taped onto a piece of tinfoil that was on the brim of my sunglasses. The other end was attached to an alligator clamp which then fed into the breadboard.

On my nose was more tinfoil and attached to that was an alligator clamp with the wire that would complete the circuit. Once I flipped my sunglasses from my forehead to my eyes, the LED would light up.