Ben Yee @ ITP

on the bright side, the aesthetic elements of duStroke are (beyond) complete once we tuck the breadboard and arduino under the stool.

however, we have had a number of difficulties/delays. although we conversed over email during the break, we did not physically meet until monday and tuesday of this week, which were long and intense hours, but not as productive as we hoped. our schedules have been far from compatible — i work during the day during weekdays and dave and bob have commitments including classes of course. over the weekend, bob could not meet sat and i could not sunday. dave did not weigh in on the emails. our collaborative styles are not aligned either.

back to the project itself… dave retrieved a new wheel/ants and bob scuplted 13 3-d eyeballs. both focused on the aesthetic and physical construction of the piece. we added ants to the scupltures and painted and taped the exterior of the wheel for reflective enhancement. i believe we are all relatively happy with the visual impression of the piece. i received the 1-watt leds and spent the hours attempting to handle the technical side of the project (not my strength) with partial success. the IR emitter/detector pair works, but not as rapidly as we expected. we can light a standard led based on pointing the pair at the exterior of our wheel which is equipped with reflective tape. our issue is mainly lighting 1-watt leds with enough voltage …in response to the IR pair with proper timing.

our solution to the issue rested with my online research and reaching out to fellow ITP’ers and interns (who were not available while i was on the floor). the communication between each other and to outside help on our issue was not ideal. after reading and asking around the shop, my opinion is that we have two options 1) use a transistor (tip120) as an amplifier to power our 1-watt leds from the arduino, or 2) power the leds directly from a 12v power source using regulators and resistors. an initial frustration we faced was basic — we couldn’t translate the data sheet for the 1-watt leds into ohms law. now, by experimenting with a multimeter and potentiameter, it is clear we should provide approx 3.4 volts to each led. unfortunately, we have yet to build a working circuit to allow our project to function and my motivation to complete this assignment is no longer…

other class journals this semester

possible names… spokesperson, duchampimation, strobe-a-spoke, duSTROKE (yes! get it? duchamp/spoke/strobe/do stroke/invite to interact)

so on monday the 5th, dave, bob and i got together for most of the day and got our prototype goin. we have the wheel and stool assembled, as wheel as an initial light/strobe system setup. dave and bob focused on the construction and animation. i concentrated on the coding and infrared system. i found that the coding was much simpler than i was making it. the infrared emitter/detector pair gave us some trouble, but it turns out our emitter was not working. rory came to the rescue on that. thanks, rory. we ordered some super bright leds and we’re thinking of animating a 3d object made of clay, and we have materials for that already. presentation today in a few minutes… the feedback from people in the lab on monday was positive, but i hope today is the same.


video 1
video 2

//dave, bob, ben

int irSensor = 0; //analog ir sensor pin
int irValue = 0; //analog ir sensor value
int LED = 7; //LED

void setup()
{
Serial.begin(9600);// start serial port at 9600 bps:
pinMode(LED, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
//read analog value from the IR detector
irValue = analogRead(irSensor);
Serial.println(irValue, DEC); // Print the DEC of sensor
delay(100);
//analogWrite(LED, irValue);
if (irValue > 300) {
digitalWrite(LED, HIGH);
}
else {
digitalWrite(LED, LOW);
}
}