Saturday, December 20, 2014

Final Process

For this final project I wanted to work with new sensors that interacted with movement, I am interested in asking the question of our involvement in the process of creating the effect of drift wood. I had many trials and errors within the project to come to my final decision to create a pole like shape with a Pomfrom and a piece of driftwood facing each other.  After my critique the idea of current and tides adjusting to the moon was mentioned and I think this is an interesting idea because the range finders and RGB colors interact with the position of the person who is in between both objects. There is something kind of magical and charming about the RGB LED's to me personally. The colors they recreate are never just red, green and blue but mixtures of each so the have a warm feel to them. Because of this I start to go in a direction of celestial colors and blends so it feel almost alien like to have these glowing objects on these very commonly found beach items. However there is this cheesy Florida holiday appeal about these pieces as well which I believe speaks to typical and stereotyped florida. None the less the interaction in-between the objects is what I am most interested in and the color waves being created in between.

The construction of these objects are following the same process for Project 1.  The  parallel construction for the wires and RGB LEDS is the simplest to me for creating this work and the way the lines follow the marks of the drift wood I find really meditative to create but really aesthetically pleasing. I after this project looking at the parts I would like to find really small LEDs and work on the drift wood Idea, I like the idea of doing really meticulous work and extending this idea further once I leave school.









The picture above shows the rang finder collecting data of the location of the person. There are 3 pins accessing  the RGB functions of the LED and there are there are three outputs on the rang finder that are sending those outputs to the pins. ***CODE BELOW




long pulse, inches;
const int pwPin = 7; 
const int redPin = 2;
const int bluePin = 3;
const int greenPin = 4;

int redVal, greenVal, blueVal;


void setup() {

  //This opens up a serial connection to shoot the results back to the PC console
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {

  pinMode(pwPin, INPUT);
   
  pulse = pulseIn(pwPin, HIGH);
  //147uS per inch
  inches = pulse/147;
  
  //redVal = map(inches, 5, 60, 0, 255);
  //blueVal = map(inches, 5, 60, 255, 0);
  //greenVal = map(inches, 5, 60, 100, 200);
  
  if(inches < 10){
    redVal = 0;
    greenVal = 0;
    blueVal = 255;
  } else 
    if(inches < 30){
       redVal = 0;
       greenVal = 255;
       blueVal = 0;
    } else if (inches < 50) {
          redVal = 255;
          greenVal = 0;
          blueVal = 0;
    } else {
         redVal = 0;
          greenVal = 0;
          blueVal = 0;
    }
  
  analogWrite(redPin, redVal);
  analogWrite(bluePin, blueVal);
  analogWrite(greenPin, greenVal);
   
  Serial.print(inches);
  Serial.print("in, ");
  Serial.println();
  
  Serial.println(redVal);
  Serial.println(greenVal);
  Serial.println(blueVal);
  delay(500);
}







Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Process and Documentation Final Project: Portable Automated Bird Caller

Here are all of my reference sites and sounds!

I am in love with this library. I have so much to learn from this website, xeno-canto.org
It provides so much detail! I could find bird calls specifically recorded in Florida!

It also allowed me to differentiate between bird calls via spectograms!!!
XC192423 Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) :: xeno-canto
XC130965 Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) :: xeno-canto
XC153654 Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) :: xeno-canto 
XC170060 Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) :: xeno-canto
XC141908 Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) :: xeno-canto
XC141908-CARW_20130707_MarshCreekSP_LS100180.mp3

A video of a game whistle:
Dove Call (D-90) by Haydel's Game Calls - YouTube

An interesting article on mocking birds. I remember coming across the article a while back.
I have to agree with it, as I've been flown at on campus before for being curious more than once, of a palm tree across from the architecture building.  
05 » Research: Mockingbirds, no bird brains, can recognize a face in a crowd » University of Florida

My research on Florida Birding! Nice resources...
Birding Basics | Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail
Birds | Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail

How to Support Wildlife DIY
Cir 1429/UW175: Landscaping Back>yards for Wildlife: Top Ten Tips for Success

UF Resources
Florida Wildlife Extension at UF/IFAS




The following are my process and documentation videos (spark fun mono amp):









Here is a link to the Bird Calls List:
Bird Call Edits

Here is a link to my Arduino Code:
Birding Project


Post Critique Reflections

My intention for this piece was to create a Portable Bird Caller. The proximity of spectators would trigger varied bird calls. For the presentation of the piece, I had it set outside to blend with the natural wildlife sounds of the campus. This aspect of the project was successful. Viewers managed to trigger the Mourning Dove, the Carolina Wren, and the Northern Cardinal calls.

The second aim of this piece was to play off of the concept of "what is real?" This is a topic that we have been discussing across courses in the program. I got nervous at critique, as I was unprepared. I wanted to put on a performance as a believable Ornithologist expert. Time and sensor struggles did not offer me time to map out a dialogue needed to sell the Bird Caller product and inform students of bird call interpretations and sightings. I loved the research involved with this project, but I really wish I had honed in on the concept with a successful performance rather than the brain fart I succumbed to.  I am very curious about birds and their means of communication. Such small beings produce calls that travel across campus. Their messages are echoed, and I wish with all my heart that I could do more than overhear the conversation. If only I could join, contribute, and yet understand. In that way, this Bird Caller box is successful. But it does need a lot more development.

I had been struggling between amplifiers to make the sound clear and loud. I had to choose a spark fun amplifier over an Adafruit amplifier. It worked out as a mono amp and my files played as I used Audacity to make them mono audio files. I wanted the mourning dove whistle to sound more realistic to follow the theme, but ended up accidentally making it quieter instead of deeper in audacity.

Stereo 3.7W Class D Audio Amplifier - MAX98306
This product was surprisingly difficult to get to work with the wave shield. I hooked it up with the learning guides, but it refused to cooperate.  After 4 hours of troubleshooting and then advice from Katerie, I moved on to Sparkfun which only took...five to ten minutes to assemble and hook up.  I felt incredibly silly. But was grateful that it worked.




Mono Audio Amplifier Quick Start


Working with the wave shield was easy. As long as the file names are short, as the audio listed above proves, the wave shield won't fail. The Rangefinder however, was sensitive. I expected to work with it's different ranges...
Like the previous project I referenced this project:
Pumpkin, Wave Shield, and Range Finder

I guess I was confused with measurements in the code because the readings were quite finicky for the Bird Caller's range finder.
For future similar projects, I will definitely consider presentation more. I liked the feedback from critique that referenced seemingly natural objects with obvious technology incorporated into the structure. Like speaker boulders at theme parks and zoos. I'd like to incorporate that feedback for future use, and hopefully my audience will walk away with new knowledge of birds...whether it's valid or invalid. If my audience believes in me, I will definitely interpret a bird call dialogue next time. I hope to further this project to some extent at some point.

More Inspiration

Also I found this reading that proved significant to this semester. It made me reflect on creating based off the perspective of the user...
The More You Fail, The Greater Your Success: A User-Centered Design Case Study

Here is a small blog on the uniqueness of bird calls:
What is in a Song?






Documentation and Process - Project 2

This project honestly came together in a blur -- one of the tightest deadlines I've ever had to deal with, but I think I made an interesting and worthwhile iteration to my previous project. Due to the small amount of working time, though, there wasn't much process or conceptualizing that happened with this one, so I apologize.

I got the idea of having many crystals thanks to classmates at the last critique, but in my conception, they would be created to express different representations of energy, and different ways of interacting to infuse human energy into the object. For this project, I decided to use a light sensor and make a theremin-like crystal that would emit spacy sounds when a person covered parts of the crystal by hovering their hands over it or actively touching. The light sensor actually threw people for a loop, as they couldn't figure out how the crystal was made into a sensor, which made me happy. I was also able to get rid of the cords, which made the crystal more of a standalone, mystically-charged, object, in my opinion. I was happy people got to touch the crystal without gloves, whose surface I worked on forever, since it really does have an alluring satiny texture to it.

The electronics part was very simple, having just  a photoresistor, and piezo. The code was a bit harder to figure out, but with some help from other arduino projects trying to emulate a theremin online, I was able to figure it out. The crystal and base were the same as from my last project due to time constraints.

Here is a photo of it in action during critique :)

And here is a video, where you can hear some of the sound, it got pretty loud:




The tones were low, continuous, and calming when touching the crystal all over, and high pitched and more sporadic, like the crystal was sending out a radar signal, if hands were just hovering nearby.

Some ideas brought up in critique were:

- Feels oddly relaxing and therapeutic to play with

- A cave or room full of crystals that interact with you, make it overwhelming

- Feels like a kit that people could assemble and have their own pet crystal -- I took this to mean that it feels like a domestic object that could bring people some happiness, which is the goal, and makes me feel good :)

- The case needs to be more sturdily constructed if inviting people to touch it, would hate for it to break -- that's not relaxing. Wood was not a problem for people aesthetically though.

Documentation and Process - Project 1

At the beginning of this project, I only knew that I wanted to work with pressure sensing and LEDs. I was initially seduced by the cabinet space on the 3rd floor of FAC where all of the A+T people would sit around, as it seemed like a surreal idea -- we napped and ate in a display case, without consideration for what it is actually built for, as art is rarely displayed there. Thankfully, Caitlyn and Shanna managed to pull off a sensors project in there :) But I was destined for a different direction this semester...

After the first Skycraft trip, and a subsequent visit (which was really awesome), I ended up with some large, rough acrylic chunks that reminded me of crystals. Going off of my work with digital crystals in Jack's 3d modeling class, some of the concepts I developed there being:

- Crystals as products of growth over time, light, and energy

- Geometric and sharp-edged forms, created by nature in the case of real crystals, but more easily made and common to the aesthetic of man-made objects, or mathematical/digital models

- Subversion or re-framing of the idea of crystals as a healing object - can they have a different kind of healing energy or even induce a placebo healing by relation when shown brightening up an inhospitable, man-made "cave" (dusty basement with graffiti), or in the case of this course -- made into soothing interactive installations.

I also remained interested in the interaction possible with FSRs, they were very fun to squeeze and see what kind of value range i could get out of them (pretty large!):

This is the first build of my project, simplified to one pressure sensor and LED. As you can see i was super hyped to get it working! :)

After talking with Katerie at Artbash, and doing a little brainstorming, I decided to have two gloves, allowing people to connect with one another by hi-fiving, holding hands, or making fists, or slapping each other -- really any kind of human interaction would activate the crystal's energy, suggesting the flow of energy from person to crystal and crystal to person that is purported by crystal healing enthusiasts.

Here's the initial sketch I came up with.

I spent a long time polishing the crystal with sandpaper, as the surface was gashed and uneven from whatever cutting process it went through before it ended up at Skycraft. I wanted to emphasize the artificiality and abstract it a little, so I wasn't trying to emulate something nature has already perfected, haha.

I doubled the electronics and code, and added plenty of LEDs, red being controlled by one glove, and blue being controlled by the other, so the crystal would indicate who was putting off a stronger energy: 



And then I laser cut a base for the crystal, so the electronics could be out of sight a little, at least:



And here's the finished effect, I need to borrow a nice camera to take some really cool documentation of this, but at least you can see the general effect of the lights within the crystal:


Some ideas people brought up during critique are:

- Differentiating the gloves, two gloves the same color suggests it's for one person to interact with. But the intimate table and two chairs was good for suggesting interaction and to sit down and spend time with the crystal for two people.

- More gloves, so many people could interact at the same time (I love this idea)

- Many more crystals

- Reminiscent of Ouija board, feels ceremonial

Manga Guide to Electricity Questions 156-195

1. Semiconductor devices are things that use silicon most often, like processors, RAM, transistors, LEDs, etc. Basically, most of the electronics we use have semiconductors in them.

2. Silicon is prized for its ability to partially conduct, the small electron holes in it allow more electricity to pass through as it is heated. Often, silicon is doped with other metals in small percentages that allow very precise control of how much conductivity the silicon hybrid has.

3. N-Type Semiconductors have more electrons, and less holes, with an overall negative charge. They are charge carriers. P-Type Semiconductors have more holes, and less electrons, with an overall positive charge. They are charge acceptors.

4. Diodes are the joining of an N and P semiconductor into one unit. It has a positive and negative side, this way. It is used for converting alternating current to direct current, as one important application.

5. Rectification is the ability of a diode to only let electricity flow one way. It's like a selectively-permeable membrane in chemistry, where in this case electrons are only allowed through if they are flowing in the right direction with enough "pressure" i.e. the concentration of electrons on one side is so great that they force through the small holes.

6. Different semiconductor materials produce different wavelengths when energized, thus different colors of light in an LED. Gallium Nitride, for example, produces blue light.

7.  When the base current is flowing, the collector current also flows, allowing an amplified signal that wouldn't be possible with just the collector's power alone.

8. The transistor is a good alternative to a switch since it can be electronically vs mechanically controlled, allowing precision. Also, there is less physical wear and tear on the transistor vs. a physical switch.

Project 1 Documentation Photos

My collaborator was not able to take documentation photographs with me until next semester so I asked another student for help. We also took video documentation of the action with sound playing but I have not had a chance to edit this in Final Cut Yet.



Final Project Process 1.8

I decided I would go back to Crystal River on Monday and spend half the day driving down 19 looking for kitsch at various places.

I will say I don't think I have ever seen so much love for manatees and mermaids and that was pretty incredible.

I started my search for kitsch at the Weekiwachee preserve thinking they may have a visitor center or something that may help with visual research but after walking down the path for about a mile I turned back and decided to go to Weekiwachee directly.




Apparently dinosaur themes are really big down in that area of Florida. I passed three or four giant dinosaur looking objects.


I had never been to Weekiwachee before and it was certainly an experience. It was like a really bad dream involving renaissance sculpture--Or what it might be like if the Renaissance had a spring cleaning.




It never ceases to amaze me how people attempt to merge winter holidays with the beach.


Here's a poster for the mermaid show.





Giant igloos made of milk jugs. Talk about an interesting use for recycling plastic in a public setting.


What snowmen and block letters have to do with mermaids I will never know.





I was actually drawn to these mermaid tails/fins as interesting fabric objects for embedding a pressure or bend sensor within. Thinking further about this character it could be interesting to create some kind of a beach kitsch shrine and really go all out with embodying this character of kitsch, imagined further as a merman and different functions are triggered by the waving of the mermaid tail interacting with the pressure sensor.






The throne was a little much but it does give ideas visually for a "kitsch shrine"












I stopped at several tourist shops and felt I was lucky to find this gem of technology and kitsch. I'm not exactly sure how the shirts work but somehow they absorb uv light from what appears to be this blacklight box and then turn to color. I'm not certain what applications this may have to art making but I thought it fit in nicely with doing research on kitsch and technology intersecting.