to paint the frame white not black since it is in a mostly white space.
To have more tubing.
Refine the code better to react to people distances
make a less bulky frame. Possibly hang from ceiling if allowed in a different location
If this project was continued, it was suggested that we use LED strips instead of the tubes.
Improvements we would have like to have:
Make a less bulky frame
have frame blend with the enviorment more
have the tubes straight instead of curled so they do not hang to each other
make the hanging tube more dense
Have more motors
Overall, I feel this project was successful. We aimed high and shot a little low, but I believe our concept came across. Other students walking in and out of the library asked multiple times if they could walk through it and were excited when we said yes. That kind of recognition and interaction is what we wanted. Like we explained at the beginning of the semester and during crit, this piece was heavily influenced by Soto's Penetrable. We wanted to provide the same art and observer interaction as Soto does with his piece while giving the artwork itself a response to the observer and in a way, giving it a sense of life.
So last night, we ran into a big problem with our project. It worked how we wanted it to Sunday night, but while doing some little last minuet touch ups to the installation and a final run through test, the code would not up load to the boards. It's really bizarre. We even tried uploading the basic Blink code and it would not work. It kept giving us this same error code:
I googled this error code and everything I found suggested reseting the bootloader and reseting the driver. I tried following tutorials on how to do this, but it is pretty far out of our knowledge and skill base.
We changed every variable we could thing of. We changed usb cables, uploaded from different computers, used a PC instead of our macs, used fresh new arduino boards, and used different codes with the new boards. But I think we have determined it is our code. We figured this out by taking Ivette's arduino board and uploading the simple Blink code to it, and then trying to upload our code and we got this same error code. We have no idea how our code could have gotten corrupted with in the past 24 hours since this is the same code we have been using for weeks. We have looked over our code and retyped it into a fresh sketch window and tried uploading it and it still produces this error. Right now we are trying to update the arduino program, type up the code in a new sketch window, and upload it to a fresh board. We shall see if this works.
UPDATE: It worked. We had to update the Arduino program on our laptops to the latest version which was just added on the 15th. (What a coincidence.) So we updated it on both of our laptops, and had to retype the code into a new window and resave it and THEN we could upload it to the arduino board. And we also had to use brand new fresh boards. I think the boards that had our old code without the update were corrupted by the code somehow.
Here is a video explaining our project a little more with both sensors and all motors working.
My name is Tatyana. And I am Kelsey. And we are here to talk to you about our Final Sensors Project.
At the beginning we were hopeful. Happy even. We had an idea early on, one with both an aesthetic appeal and concept to back it up. Our progress was slow, but quite steady. Week after week, we learned something new, and something difficult; yet we persevered. You can't fathom our joy, nay elation when a code worked, or a motor ran, or a daisy chain was successfully soldered. Or the satisfaction felt when our platform was made, our wood painted, and our permeable assembled.
AND THEN TO HAVE EVERYTHING COME TOGETHER AND WORK
no words.
So, by now you may be able to understand how confident we were the day before critique: we merely went down to our project, fine tuned some last minute touches, and then turned on its glory.
To find it not to work.
It doesn't work. AT ALL.
The usb cable, or the Arduino or the serial port are all working together– to not work.
And we are at a loss for words.
And while we did have a pity party (lasting an hour or so, with only our closest friends), we realized something this morning. Perhaps it's due to the much needed hours of sleep we actually got last night, or the fact that today is the last day of finals, but we realized, that while our project may have failed LITERALLY THE LAST DAY BEFORE WE NEEDED IT, we did in fact still learn something. Actually we learned a lot. We've overcome soo many obstacles (sleep), and thought a lot bigger than we ever thought we could for a sensors class. In all honesty, isn't that the point?
It doesn't work. Yes. But we are ok with that. In fact, we're quite proud.
Did not work :( even when plugging the 9 volt to it. We even checked it with a multi meter and it was giving 4 volts which we concluded should be enough for each motor. This circuit only has two motors soldered to it in to save ourselves a little stress and time. The circuit is soldered to hold 12 motors in total
But we took it to a different outlet to see if that was the issue. But I burnt my finger on the board instead.
Consistency is the major problem for this project: regardless of the power source, the motors will run, stop running, and then constantly run regardless of the IR sensor.
I came into the studio early today to look at the circuit again. I connected a multimeter to it and the motors worked perfectly with the sensor just like they did the first time, but only when the multimeter was connected. I tried to get a video of it working but then it stopped just like it stopped working with our laptops. I changed the Hbridge out as well and it still wouldnt power. You can hear the motors try to turn but they dont actually power up. I know its taking too much power and I do not know of any other power source we can use. We may have to drop it down to only four motors if they are really drawing that much power.
We are trying to figure out power supply right now. We had our motors working perfectly but then it shut down my laptop multiple times and now we cannot get them to run from any power source.
For 5v power supply, motors consuming .16 amps, so if we have 12 motors consuming .16 amps each, then we are going to need 2 amps minimum to power the motors.
For 9v it would be 4 amps consumed total.
For 12v it would be 5 amps consumed total.
Doesn't look like a whole lot right now, but we got the H-bridge working with four DC motors and we got the parameters of our sensor how we want it and the go the three different speed of our motors that we want. All there is left to do now it piece it together and apply it to the interface.
Chase is so kindly going to build out frame for us in return for me planning his and my sister's wedding. I have already discussed with him what we want and he has made plans for how it will be made. This weekend we are going to go shopping for the materials and tatyana and I will get proper measurments of the hallway. We have already gotten approval from Mr Cadwell to use the space.
Also, we officially have a bare code ready for our project. We decided to use the IR distance sensor rather than the PIR Motion detector. Now we just need to tweak the code and map the distance to control the speed and direction of the motor.
in class today, Charlie helped us understand the H-Bridge's capabilities a little better as well as its limitations
it can provide bidirectional drive currents to 1 A of power and each of the DC motors show they exude ~.14-.18 A
potentially 4 motors could be hooked up to one H-Bridge
now we just need to incorporate the IR PROXIMITY SENSOR... based on my own difficulties with the motion sensor, as well as with Charlie's advice, we have decided to use those in lieu of the motion sensors
Kelsey was kind enough to subject herself to my dream machine today. Not everyone felt so brave. Madaline took photos and video because she is on it. Thanks Madaline.
I will check out a HD camera soon and document a video for my portfolio. I will share this with the blog once I have done so.
I knew I wanted to use the barogrpah program sketch for this project, but I was not sure on how to make the best interface for it. I had planned on making a box and filling it with different colorful paper so they would all reflect on each other and just make a nice pretty color combination. But after the incident in Paris this past Friday, I decided I wanted to make my project a tribute piece. Before Friday, I never realized how many people I am actually connected with in France. My supervisor, and one of my really close friends at work are from Northern France. I have met their families, and also built really great friendships through them. Luckily none of their family or our friends were effected by this, but it is still a great tragedy.
To prep for this project, I went out and bought some new materials
I got blue, white and red reflective paper.
And a deep set 8x10 picture frame.
I set the paper to create the French Flag.
I placed it inside the box and built up the sides to enclose it and added a base to hold the wiring. I also rubbed the plastic box with fine sand paper to make it hazy so the lighting would be more diffused.
The LEDs for the barograph sketch are taped to the ends of the cable and bent over the edge of the cardboard then taped to the back of the cardboard to stay in place. Each light corresponds to the flag color. Blue is over blue, white over white and red over red.
Here it is after I first loaded the code into it. It worked fine at first but then the red LED quit working so I had to re-tape it to the cable. It had gotten loose. Same happened to the Blue led. Before taping the LEDs I thought I could solder them all to different tiny soldering boards. I realized after going through all of that work that they need to be connected to the same ground and negative somehow. So I thought taping them like this would be the easiest. I didnt want to solder them because I was having to adjust them a lot.
I added columns to the bottom to lift it up so it could be more at face level. And I think the columns relate to government architecture and give an idea of lifting France up during this time.
The back is left opened so the IR proximity sensor can be placed at the bottom facing the viewer.
As soon as I placed it in the black box and tried to connect it to the 9volt battery, the arduino quit working. My laptop said it was drawing too much energy, so I had to let it rest before plugging it in again.
Final Video
The only issue I have with it is that you have to get really really close for all three to light up. I dont think anyone is going to get THAT close to it. They may put their hand up to it. I wish I would have inscribed something in the plastic box so the viewer would want to get close enough to it. But alas, it is already super glued shut.
We are not sure if this is working correctly. With the serial monitor, the temperature only went up one degree when I placed my fingers on it. We don't know exactly how sensitive it is supposed to be, so placing our fingers on it doesn't seem to make it light more than one LED. We unplugged and replugged in all of the components, switched shift registers, and temperature sensors and made two different circuit boards. This is the best we could get out of it.
