David Phillips » physical

PComp – Potentiometer

admin — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:28:03 +0000

Alright, well, I didn’t have many problems, it all worked like it should, which is phenomenal. I spent too much time (conceptualizing) on my Fantasy Device, otherwise I would have worked on other analog resistors. Next time I need to spend more time on the physical, and not on the conceptual, would be my guess.

Sensor Walk

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:07:58 +0000

Alright, so I went through my neighborhood to try and find some interesting items. Here are the top three:

I think of it as low level, but one could argue that it's high level. It listens/reads the information I give it, comprehends it to know I have paid my money, and then in turn lets me through the turnstile. However, the conversation was rather boorish.

The callbox:

I love this thing. It's another low level interactive piece. You press a button and it supposedly dials out to the respective room. However, if you notice above the callbox is a regular doorbell, presumably cuz the callbox has what I call FAIL.

The Landlord

This is the result of my interactive experience with my super. He is incredibly nice, but when I mentioned to him that a brick was holding up my cabinets, he promtply came in, leaned on it, rushed out and got ANOTHER brick with pieces of tile. After shoving the second set of textiles in, he said, "There, shouldn't budge." The information was listened to, thought about, but the response was not at all in cooperation with my meaning.

Week One – Arduino and the Switch

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:43:58 +0000

This assignment was for Week One of my Intro to Physical Computing course. I went in three passes in the hopes of understanding my arduino better. I ran into several issues, but since this is the first time I’m fully using electronics, I am not going to beat myself up.

PASS ONE:
Components:
Four Cables
Arduino
NO code.

I ran a simple through line from Arduino to red cable to green cable to LED to orange cable to yellow cable to ground. I was just excited about getting the LED to light up!

Mistakes: forgot resistor

PASS 2 – Using the Blinkie code.

Added Components:
220Ω Resistor
Arduino code

I added the resistor, after feeling foolish. I will be going back and writing in the code myself (as was suggested by the Resident Help). I gave the Arduino power, gave it code and…nothing.

Yay resistors! Boo not working!

It refused to light up. I showed it to a classmate, who had previous Arduino experience. “Why do you have so many cables?” he asked. We pulled all of the wires out and started over with as little as possible. This time, it worked.

Mistakes: Not reading instructions, only use what you need.

PASS 3

Added Components:
New Arduino Code – Switch
Two 220Ω Resistors
One 10kΩ Resistor
(Note: I actually used Three 220 resistors, but the issues that arise will unfold in good time.)

For the sake of time, I just copied and pasted the code, at the behest of a friend. That wasn’t so bright, so I’ll need to go back and do it again, and figure out how it correlates with the hardware. I decided to go sans switch, in order to simplify the situation and then later I’ll experiment with switch.

The light wasn’t switching very easily. As it turned out, I used the wrong level resistor, cuz I didn’t read the directions.

But after I continuously rubbed the switch wires together, I got the 2nd light to turn on and take a picture.

Mistakes: Incorrect resistor.

If anyone would like has any suggestions for how to make this documentation less boring or more effective, please comment! Thanks!