Sensing, not stuff

Reflection

Reflecting on the whole process and the finished project is a tricky process. I was quite happy with some of my earlier thinking and with the finished aesthetic of the project, but the interaction and code part I feel very disappointed with myself. 

Conceptualy, this isn't really a strong finished object. There were a few ideas that I had, that had to be trimmed down to make way for a group assignment. Then again, my coding skills wouldn't have been strong enough to make the weird Mayan solar flare device I was thinking about earlier. Nifty little idea, but my processing and arduino skills just weren't up for it. I was more focused on the aesthetic decisions then I was with any real interaction design. Which is a ral shame because that was sdomwthign I should have explored some more. The idea that I semi went with was mostly about wanting to explore a minor interaction, the transference of movement from one side of the box to the other. This is fine in and of itself, but it didn't really work out. The use of a capacitive sensor doesn't really work with touch, it works best when there is near touch involved with it. This became evident when making the video. When I approached the finished object and waved my hand near it, and then touched the object. It occured to me that there should have been something more useful there. I spent too much time constructing the box, and although the box does look rather nice, and is the domestic scale object that I was hoping for, the interaction component falls very short. I'm not really sure what the purpose of the box should have been. Just a nice looking box that does X interaction isn't really a useful and satisfying conclusion. But then again, looking at the box as it sits here on my desk, it feels like something very appropriate could be made with it, but anything more than a physical If Then statement doesn't seem possible with my knowledge and skills.

Having to skype in definitely made this unit much harder to follow along with. Even though extremely generous measures were made to make me feel included (of which I'm extremely grateful for), it's the nature of long distance and the horrible mess that is Skype made it very hard going for me. On the times that I was in Canberra, things were much easier and I could follow along at the correct pace and grok what was going along. The major problem, and I've felt this for the whole course, is that there isn't enough contact hours. One class every two weeks is just not enough to be introduced to these concepts. Especially not enough to move past basic introductions to the technologies. I've always felt a chasm between what I wanted to be able to do, and the knowledge I had to be able to pursue them. But these are gripes of the course in general, not of this unit. I think more time should have been spent on the final project, and that the decision to do a group project seemed like a waste of time. The introductory lessons should have been more compressed. Yet for me to complain about this is disingenious: I didn't take the time myself to follow up on any of the other exercises, merely rushed through them and ticked them off, instead of attempting to explore the possibilities of it. But this comes down to my level of comfort with Object Oriented Programming. I can never wrap my head around how the code is to be structured, and this has deeply frustrated me from day one of this course. These are issues that I shoiuld have followed up on, practiced at.

I would really like to figure out something more worthwhile with this box. As a design object there is potential there to do something with it. Even just with the Uno I'm pretty sure I could open up the box a bit more and fit in the Uno instead of having wires poking out the end. It was a real shame not being able to have the Teensy to fit in there. This bothered me for a few reason. Having the wires needing to connect to the Uno made the polish that I went to with the box redundant. Time was wasted fiddling around with the Teensy, not spending time on the Uno meant that I had a very short time to get it all working (which I didn't even end up doing). These frustrated me because it feels unfinished, unresolved. The possibility of the project to never be eventuated.

But now that I have an Arduino Uno, a soldering iron, and a basic grasp of how it works, there is future scope for me to explore what can be done with this, even if it's just following the works of others and making minor adjustments along the way. On the other hand, I have this lovely looking box which is sitting on my desk is just begging to be played with in some other fashion, just dying to be stuffed full of interesting interaction use cases.

Do almost nothing Box

  

The idea with this box was to somehow approximate and translate touch and motion from one side of the box to the other side. This was a simple exploration of using touch interaction, but placing it within an object that doesn't have the same vernacular as other arduino tinged objects. 

Unfortunately, my old and dying laptop wasn't able to get the Teensy software to run. This meant having to forego the piezo sound element and try and focus on getting the touch interaction to work. Aaaaaaaaaaand I wasn't even able to get that done in the short time. Which is a real shame. Had I known that the teensy wouldn't work on my letdown of a laptop, I would have put in the hours into trying to get it to work using the Uno. Instead, this video approximates what it was supposed to be doing, using the magic of editing. At the end of the video is a really basic as heck sketch that I pretty much cribbed from online to show that the capacitive sensing was working. The tiny light wasn't enough to be visible from inside the box, so it had to be outside, for extra added bonus disappointment. And then as soon as I started to interact with it, as a physical working object, I realised that there should have been some form of sensitivity to it, just because it makes sense that way.

 

Woodworking

A few progress shots while making the cube. Finicky little thing. Trimming the rough edges off the wood to get it to the beautiful smooth shape that it is now. Drilling out the holes and hollowing out the inside. Might need to thin out the edges a little bit more to fit in the motor. Meanwhile, spent most of Wednesday morning off the bus from Canberra trying to find small motors in the city. No dice. The staff at Jaycar were most rude and unhelpful. I don't understand why no one stocks anything Arduino related. Not at all. Surely there'd be a market for it. 

 

Box interaction sketches

After thinking about it somewhat, and playing around with the servo a little bit, I've decided on a finger push to be the interaction. I will hijack the capacative theremin aspect of the cube, and apply the servo spin on touch. To have the piezo element work from afar (as with the group) but then when the copper plate is pushed, the servo will spin (on the opposite side of the cube). The contrast between the hard surface (with no immediate interaction evident) and the small finger push motion on the other side will play with notions of touch, feel, materiality. 

It's a silly little idea, but a fun one. I'll still be using the wood that I made a few weeks ago. I'll probably be sneaking in a facet or two somewhere. Just to be annoying for myself. 

The  trick will be in having the sound area evident as well as where to touch. PErhaps to have them in the same spot. So that there is a touch side, and an action side. I'll need to muffle the sound of the servo motor somewhat as it gets a little bit too loud for my liking. I enjoy the idea of having 'some' motor sound, as it continues with the tangibility of it, but not too loud. 

 

Final shape sketch

As soon as I got home yesterday after making all of my sawdust I started making some quick sketches to get out my frustrations with not having reconciled anything playing with the wood. I almost immediately came upon a form that I was most interested in. It allows a flat space for the hole to allow connection with the totem pole and the other objects. This leaves the bulk of the shape to be hollowed out and fit in all the electronics.  Because of the nature of my object, and the sheer weight of the wood, I could probably go on the bottom so as to not crush everyone elses work. 

There's clearly not enough scope to allow for much interactivity - the networked connected idea I was initially interested in. Instead, the use of this shape still allows for the quiet interaction I was hoping for. Whatever that ends up being. 

Material exploration

Was finally able to mooch off my friend and use his woodworking machines. Wasn't really sure what to be doing but hoped that just playing around with the basic shapes and angles I could arrive at something. After going around in circles for some time just drawing awkward basic shapes I decided that working with material might bring up some ideas. 

This didn't really pan out as I'd hoped. It takes too long to set it up for a cut, having to lock down the piece of wood before hand, or doing it on the fly and ignoring all manner of safety issues. 

It was an interesting afternoon, mostly because it exposed potential problems in how to constuct the object and what to expect from the cutting process. The block of wood we bought was 10mm too large so every cut had to be done twice, or cut from a different angle. This lead to a large amount of timewasting and umming and ahhhing. 

Despite feeling like I was vaguely flailing around worrying about surface qualities, it did give me some vague information that I needed to work out in physical form first. 

Object types

A few object and shape types leading in to my object. I'll be going in to my friends workshop on Saturday to have a play with all of his massive woodworking tools and machines. These will mostly to play around and see what forms are possible and see what comes of them. Hopefully I'll have some time to do some sketches before hand so I'm not going in completely blind. 

As mentioned in class the other day, I've been interested in the architectural styles of Canberra. Lots of juicy Modernist buildings everywhere, which could form a partial backbone of the device. There's also the referencing of Canberra and it's history. These were all taken from the Canberra Modern flickr stream which can be accessed by clicking on any of the photos. 

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I've also been rabidly interested in old radios. They fit the criteria for being aproachable and they've had some time to be comfortable sitting somewhere almost invisibly in the home. The form suits the domestic space that I'm interested in. 

 

Leading on from those is the Jawbone Jamboox speaker. I desperately crave one of these for my home. Not just for practicality but they lend an aura of demateriality to music. They are completely portable and wireless. The shape they've used mildly references the photos above, a basic rectangle, but the use of the pattern adds the 'tech' vibe needed for such an object. 

 

I spotted these wooden vases online the other week and then came across them at my local florist. They fit in the hand rather nicely, feel nice, and I'm a sucker for faceted objects. They're almost the perfect size for this project, and they're made of wood, so, bonus. And they'd look great on a shelf somewhere, minus the colourful dots. 

I'm also thinking to incorporae some fabric into the object as well. Something to be touched too. A mixture of wood and fabric. A slight reference to the speakers of yore, but with a slight modernist twist to them.  I still need to (very badly) think about the interaction system that I'll be employing.  Something about knocking the wood to get the fabric to move, or touching the fabric and having the conductive copper underneath and then having something respond. Need to pull the sleeves up and really think about that. But it all has to be very quiet and tasteful.  Almost to the point of invisibility when compared to the other projects done by the group. 

End of Days: Domestic Scale

I have been interested in glanceable displays for some time, which has undescored the bulk of work I have done with this course. This typicaly in other projects by other people has consisted of taking simple notification systems and merely making them physical. While these do have a place, I would like to broaden the scope of what can be possible within a peripheral display system.

reaDIYmate - real-time remote control over the Internet

After exploring the idea of domestic scale in a previous post, I would like to explore the possibility of using a much wider idea and notion of what can be considered for the domestic space. After being interested in the ISS notifier at the start of the semester the idea of space has stuck with me throughout the semester. I have done some cursory research into using data collected from Solar flare notification websites as well as exploring the data provided by NASA. 

My proposal for the project would be to create a small wooden object that notifies occupants of a house whenever a particular solar or space evemt is occuring. Possibly a low flying asteroid, or a solar flare. With the supposed end of the world due to either the end of the Mayan calendar, or with a massive solar flare, this topic seems appropriate for the end times that we are in. 

Ugle  

 

This would be a small object that would sit in a domestic space, in an unobtrusive way. The notification system would need to be a quiet method of delivery. No blinking lights, or sound, but perhaps subtle movement to indicate an occurance in the solar system. The use of movement would be an appropriate use of this technology, as the final object should be made of a quiet and earthy material, typically wood. The use of other domestic materials such as cloth would be appropriate.

This object would bring in events from a distance somewhat unimaginable into a small space, collapsing space and time.  By moving the notification system typically found in IoT objects away from the use of lound design interaction systems into something more appropriate for the home, this project would be able to sit on a bookshelf as a piece of kinetic art.

 

Exercise 3

 

Wasn't really sure what to do for this assignment, but when I got to class it seemed as if I should have spent more time mucking about. I presumed it to mean to just do the exercise and bring it to class, which seemed a bit pointless. When really I should have been creatring an actual musical instrument. Felt a bit lazy on my part not really doing any of that. In the end though, mucking about with the knobs and the piezo tunes was very amusing.  There's something interesting about the way that the sound is made, the way it comes out, the limited vocabulary that produces it's own sonic aesthetic. 

Exercise 2

This. This bloody assignment killed me. Drove me up the walls with it's insistance on not working and me banging my head against physics and wondering why oh why are you being so goddamn difficult. And then it turns out to be such a simple problem and then I realise how many more levels of hard playing around with this stuff is going to be than just simple Processing. The dawning that electrons and voltage and currents will all make life that much harder to get something done.