Final Project Collaboration House

I felt our project was kind of the center piece of this collaborative house idea. Thinking about having all these things in a house tweeting at and about you, everyone else's projects could possibly feed off of these tweets. For example, the couch could tweet about Hayley & Kacee's flowers and how they won't stop moving. The different sensors we have place around the house could not only tweet about the house but tweet about people's projects as well. Each person could have some type of input that ties into our sensors so when one of us trips it, their project could also be tweeted about.

I like the idea of having a final project show that showcases all our projects working as a cohesive unit. It'll be really interesting to see everyone's projects working simultaneously together and everyone interacting with each other's pieces.

project 33, 34, 35

Project 33: Basic Touch Screen

Project 34: Touch Screen Keypad

Project 35: Touch Screen Light Controller 

House Colab Reflection

For the plant contribution to the "house" maybe we could have something of a greeting element? Our plants could be in the "front yard" area and react somehow when people approach the door. That could go both with the idea of the house being sentient and the idea of surveillance/protection. The flowers could greet perceived visitors or family members (non-threats) but would also be monitoring the front yard area as though watching for threats. They could be part of the house's preliminary "eyes."

Actually, on that note, I think it could be really cool if all of the different projects related back somehow to the house as having its own senses. The flowers might relate back to the house sensing with eyes, the couch/twitter project could be touch related, different elements could be triggered by sound, etc. Not sure how taste or smell would be addressed but if it were manageable it could be a strong aspect of the idea of sentience.

House Collaborative Ideas Final Project

Our first project used the following:

Windsor
Arduino
Processing

With these combination we were able to create a visual/audio experience with the effect of someone breathe.

Some ideas where it would affect a domestic home space:

-Door bell (entrance to space)
-Portable remote (to turn on something)
-Effect the lights of the living space
-Portrait pictures of breathe with pretty frames

House collaborative ideas...

So our project was about plastic/electronic bug toys merging with nature to create an uncanny sculpture about nature meeting technology. This, as it is, could be the "backyard" for "smart house" as it is, just expanded in form.

But there is more to consider. While creating our sculpture, I couldn't help thinking of lost toys in the backyard, transformed and destroyed by dirt, insects, and the elements. Growing up I had a veritable forest of a back yard (at least to my child self), and plenty of toys ended up wayward. This narrative of the lost toys becoming their own creatures when abandoned in nature fits with the "after us" apocalypse  of Ray Bradbury's future house. So I think the "toy" connection in our projects can remain. I think the project is still kind of about toys anyway; as the "bug" concept only went so far in removing the powerful "plaything" connections inherent in the toys we used.

I do not want to get too far away from this, as I think it is creepy and uncanny in exactly the manner this "class collaborative" desires. A backyard where the children's lost electronic toys have merged with their natural surrounding; a graveyard writhing with plastic zombies. A marriage of culture, consumerism and technology with the natural world. While other peoples projects focus on merging electronic processes with bodily ones (the wind sensor) or emotions (the heartbeat, rangefinder hats) or giving human qualities to objects (obi and dragens smart house) our project focuses on the intersections between "wild" nature and cast-off technology. I think it has an important place in the "smart house:" our installation can express the potential of technology to alter environments that should be hostile towards it.

Final Project Idea Domesticity

The idea of the robe in the sense of mating rituals and attraction can be used in this scene of domesticity as someone comes home for the day... this would tie in with Obi's/Dragan's project. The person comes home to their "mate" waiting for them with the robe on. When the person gets close to their robed mate, the lights light up... a lot. It will be about human interaction with their mate and response in the private, domestic scene. 

Process Project 1

Working on the code for sound in relation to the graph

We are working with Minim on Processing.

The first example we tried was through the Arduino. As you blew to a certain threshold, the serial monitor would say "knock." We were thinking of then within Processing that when the knock threshold was hit, a sound (a file) would play.

We decided this tactic was not completely what we wanted but we actually wanted a constant tone and the frequency be affected by the wind sensor.

We merged two sketches, one being the graph visual being affected by the serial output and the other being an example from the minim library, sin wave signal.

We were not able to successfully get the sound to continue after the sketch was played. After many attempts, we discovered that the problem was that there needed to be a timer because the serial output was being calculated too fast for the sound to follow.

Here is the full code:
For Arduino:

For Processing:

Success!!!
The blowing/breathing on the wind sensor affects the visual graph as well as the frequency of the sound.

Here are pictures of the final built box to place the computer as well as the arduino/windsensor in

Project House expansion

So I'm not entirely sure how the project Anna and I worked on will fit into the house exhibition. As far as dealing with personal space, I'm not sure that concept wise it would fit in so well. Still, we can use the hats as security sensors on "important objects" in the house, sending out a warning is someone gets too close. Or we could place sensors on the doors, to inhibit people from leaving or entering with out "distressing" the house.

On the other hand, we could do something somewhat reversing the sensor. Instead of going off when someone gets to close, perhaps the hats will force people to search for company. For instance, in a quiet empty home, when no one is around the viewer, the earpiece will start playing whispers and creeks and just unusual white noise sounds that an uneasey parinoid person might imagine. But, once they panic, and start searching for someone else to see if the noises are real, the sounds go away. In this way, it will show how staying in hope, alone, out of any social contact make the brain produce it's own 'company' or noise.

pieces of a house reflection

The way everyone's projects came together in a domestic setting was quite interesting. It was mentioned that our couch brought everything together as a centerpiece and gave it the feel of a house, but since we came from a place where we were already thinking about this responsive house that allowed interaction and conversation in a way, I think having an exhibition that uses a house as a medium to express all the concepts we were trying to communicate with individual projects would be a great thing. It would allow more to happen over a shorter period of time just because more people are working different parts and it could grow to a size not easily achievable by one or two people. Further more, our couch project could expand to interact with the other projects by giving them a voice and an internet presence as well. Before they communicated, now they talk too, and the entire house talks to whoever is connected to the internet. It would be an interesting way to bring people together, bring people home.

Crit Thoughts

Well our first go at our sensor performance wasn't very successful. It didn't work...at all. When we hooked everything up again and tried it, it worked. We were happy that it did what it was supposed to, but certain things were brought to our attention that could've been thought out further and deeper, so we  appreciated all the comments and suggestions. Looking back at it after everything is done, I do feel it was a bit of a prototype as of 10/28/13. Twitter is a pain in the ass and has an incredible amount of restrictions on what can and can't be done, which we learned along the way. One thing we want to focus more on is to establish the personality of our speaker, whether that is the entire house or if it is bits and pieces of the house. But it was a lot of good feed back that made sense and that if we continue this project will definitely be implemented into the final piece.

Critique Pictures Project 1

The Results

Thinking about the results of our project... we are happy that we had something to show for critique. Although we did not successfully get the sensor to work in time, our concept was there and we finally got the Flora LEDs to light up.

We had a lot of trouble getting our Flora to work. The drivers would never install. We tried different macs and pcs, but never had any luck.

So we posted on the adafruit forum: http://www.adafruit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=44950

In the end, we had our project look like this... 

And here's how it works:

Rest of the "making of" the project

Everyones Presentation Footage

Haley and Kacee

Dragan and Obi

Carlota and Lexi

Katie and Chris

Miriam and Emilie

Presentation!!

Random Victims Experience!

Katerie's Experience!

Final Process || Putting together

Calculations were made by taking the measurements of the room which was 21x22ft and then finding the area as in a circle (using 10.5 as the radius) and then dividing out the area into separate "bubbles" and then finding the diameter of each bubble and using that to input into the "how far away" individual space each one had. 

We sewed cloth to the top of the hat and had an opening large enough for all the material to fit into and tried it on to see if the sensor would reach the front of the hats. We tested the chords and the batteries to each one also. 

We did run into a problem of not having enough batter plug ins for the arduino because we took the pack that had 2 of the right plug ins but the other 3 had female inserts instead of the plug in and found some that other students took but were not using. We used electric tape to secure the chords in with the arduino and the sensor. 

Project One Process

I took a photo with my crap phone, but it won't send to my e-mail for some reason (it used to...)

Chris has photos and videos! But I have to either get those from him or he needs to figure out how to log into Blogger again.

We worked on this project. We worked on it a lot. The videos and photos will show that process... tedious, uncertain, and experimental as it was! I think, overall, it turned out pretty ok. It was on the road to misery, but now it's just sort of in the middle.

The middle of mediocracy.

No, I'm kidding, it's actually pretty fucking amazing and if i wasn't so jaded by sensors in general by now it would seem like a legitimately impressive project.

Which is now about bugs and nature vs culture/technology, not toys. I wonder how people will read it, i really do.

Flowers and motors and sensors Oh My!

Progress update - IT'S ALIVE. and shINY

Finally got the neopixel leds to work!! Apparently the problem was with the flora, not the pixels, so we should be able to make them work just fine with the Arduino.

Progress on the Project 1

So we just were able to connect Arduino and Processing and it was really exciting!!!!!

Here's our development so far:

Showed the connection worked!!!!

So we first tried it with a normal potentiometer

and then we used our wind sensor!!!!!!!!!!! YAY

LCD screens are fun

Temperature Sensor AND LCD screen Activities

Using the LCD monitor built-in library. My LCD screen works, as you can see.

This first video show the thermistor working properly, showing the temperature of the room to be 77 degrees Fahrenheit.

This shows the LM355, the temperature going UP after the ICE was applied. It does eventually show the temperature of the room. I swear. At around 77 Fahrenheit. 

Liquid Crystal Examples tryouts

Prj 24

Prj 23

Random Project Process