Man, if you missed out on this soldering competition, I highly suggest you catch up on the mad speed action! (Courtesy of Make: Ignite NYC soldering competition)

This was a really fun event! M1-5 must be pretty cool to host 300+ nerds in one room, I must say.  The catch words of the evening were most definitely:

• Angel investors
• Guerrilla knitting
• Celebrachauns

Can’t wait for the next one!  I hear one is due for Philly…?

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AHHHH, it’s that time when being a mildly-responsible adult seems to step in and something says “HEY!  You can’t just start four or so concurrent projects on top of your thesis studies and expect them to get done without some… ACCOUNTABILITY!”

So it hit me… BAM!  In the face!  Granted, the remnants of Kinaudio are tucked nicely into a box until I’m inspired to pick it up again, but in the meantime, these are my current electronics projects:

[COMPLETED]

• I made a convincing-looking car alarm out of: an Altoids tin, black electrical tape, a blinking red LED with a mount, and a few AA batteries!  The tape was for making it look black like the interior of my car because I didn’t have black spray paint or a [real] bench.  At least I have the spray paint now.

[ON THE WAY]

• Before I get ahead of myself and all this soldering in my apartment, I really think I need to make a fume extractor as per the folks over at MAKE. My [fake] bench is located in the center of my apartment because the window areas don’t have much room for a bench of my caliber, so this would be awesome… I also have my Dad’s old, real, lead solder.  I <3s it, but it’s probably a little more poisonous than I think it is.
• SECRET ROBOT [TOY] PLAN.  This idea is so good that it will need a patent!
• SECRET NOT-ROBOT PLAN.  Also incredibly good, but more on the stealthy side… thin and unsuspecting.
• Therry the Theremin  is on his way to being born!  I got the perfect lunchbox for him off of Craig’s List, and all of his parts are still together, but I think I need a Dremel tool for making the control board on the inside and mounting it… but I’m not sure yet.  Current status:

1.  Need to plan out  how the space inside the lunchbox will be used, including extending antennae, power, controls, and mounts to the box.
2. Need a better soldering iron, preferrably with temp settings.

Well, that’s all of the personal responsibility I can handle for today!  Now… how to finish these by the end of the summer while moving and holding down a full-time job… hmmm.  Feel free to post a comment of non-procrastination.

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HOKAY!  So sorry for taking a little long with shipping the box!  The post office near me CLOSED beyond all sense of reasonable convenience, so it’s up to me to find a place to mail this beast of a box on my commute tomorrow morning!  Ha!

Click here for the birth of this particular box, Big Box of Electronic Booty!

There were IMMENSE GOODIES in this box, but I told myself only to take what I really might use (or that whole box would go nowhere but my bench!).  The lightsaber spoon is by far the funnest catch, but I’m also getting major kicks out of the button pads, travel speakers, and battery clips (SOOOO WHAT I NEED, TOO).  Well done!

I gave up some shiggity-shweet mics that probably work but I dunno ’cause I don’t have all that much patience to work them out, but I think one of them should be OK.  The bi-directional one is definitely wonky but looks ubercool, like the device that Egon had to check for ghosts in Ghostbusters.  I also threw in some clips and ties because everybody needs some, sometimes.

Yay for TGIMBOEJ!  I wasn’t sure a box would ever come around to me, but I lucked out!

Click here to check out the home of these great boxes of shared junk!

Posted in Uncategorized ~ No Comments

This is the site where KINAUDIO now lives. Thank you.

EDIT: Arduino code is now up!  Thank my lucky stars for that one!

Posted in Final Project ~ No Comments

Synesthesia is the phenomenon of experiencing one sense through another involuntarily, such as seeing a set of numbers and immediately conjuring a scent of cheddar. I want my project to invoke this connection in a portable device that picks up sound and transforms in into something tactile and responsive. I’m currently dubbing it “Kinaudio,” a combination of kinetic and audio.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of research into previous work. There is a large amount of talk in the field of haptics and technology - devices that give you some kind of force-feedback dependent on the interactivity. The Phantom, for example, helps artists sculpt in 3D, giving physical feedback to the shaping of the object through the mounted pen-like controller. In the video game world, we have plenty of controllers that give rumble feedback to your hands dependent on the activity in the game: scripted rumbles, per se.

Finding something more specific to Kinaudio is not so easy. The primary influence of the field is for devices that you touch to create audio feedback, while my idea is the complete reverse.

Some fascinating arguments/input from real people:

• What are the emotional connections?
• Ranges of textures: just fabrics, or sand paper
• Wet vs. dry materials
• Should pain be included in the possible sensations available?
• Can it be reverse-sensitive? As in, you push BACK on the texture area and additional sound comes out?

The range of responses I received definitely weren’t things I imagined previously at all. I assumed, because of the portable nature, it would need to be dry, possible a cloth or something that is durable, perhaps can detach for cleaning. (Because people are grubby.)

Technically, the biggest inspiration so far has been a project on ELM which creates a spectrograph on an LCD in realtime using the FFT. The circuitry diagram helps clear up my ideas on how to organize everything logic-wise.  I find this idea waaay more attractive than mapping loudness, since you have so much more information, but that is also the crux of what makes this so complex to undergo.

My current idea for a prototype is:

Microphone input -> Arduino, which does an FFT based on time responsiveness -> interpolates the signal data across a matrix -> solenoids push up on thick fabric

This is still where I started, though. I’m not keen on gearboxes and motors in general… I keep thinking there is some other way to achieve this, some other device that could be hacked up for this… but I’m coming up empty at the moment. The biggest hurdles are:

1. Identifying the interpolation regime that the audio data undergoes to become something interesting in a matrix
2. Identifying whether little, sort-of-cheap solenoids, other motors, or other means entirely are the way to go for the texture feedback
3. Identifying the fabric/material of choice for touch contact
4. Finding microphones that will pick up outside sounds, not the vibrations of the box itself (many microphones are susceptible to this without some kind of shock mount, but how to do this effectively on the small scale…?)

Helpful Links:
The Effective Combination of Haptic and Auditory Textural Information
Not Hyper, Not Meta, Not Cyber But Infra-Instruments
Arduino Forum: alternating current interpretation
New Interfaces for Musical Expression @ ITP
eBrary: How The Body Shapes the Way We Think
eBrary: Audio Anecdotes (someone did a thesis on haptic audio synchronicity!)
Books24×7: Encyclopedia of Human Interaction

Posted in Final Project, Observation ~ No Comments

Phantom limbs… a strange concept I haven’t thought of since my old studies in meditation and the supernatural. The idea that your brain has such a part in conceiving senses as opposed to a direct route of feeling from what you to touch to what you know is definitely a disturbing thought. It all seems to happen too quickly for that to be true.

The “bunny taps” really got me.  The premise is that you can tap two points across a distance on your body - say your arm - and feel a tap between those points, as if the sensation “hopped” across the distance.  This happens with fairly quick taps.  It’s a fascinating phenomenon of sensation.

Posted in Reading ~ No Comments

DC MOTOR, AH.

So, my original attempt used a small 1.5 volt vibrating motor, like the ones in cell phones and small toys, and I tried to charge it with a single AA battery. This didn’t work out, much to my extensive troubleshooting, because the H-bridge is only compatible with 4.5V to 36V. HA! I had to have an extra set of eyes (my Dad, who is totally rippin’ with electronics) figure out what was up. It’s now happy and working!

Your eyes do not deceive you: in troubleshooting, I switched the logic to the other side of the H-bridge because I thought there might’ve been a problem with the chip. Although that was not the case, it was a neat lesson in how to utilize hardware from a totally different angle.

He also made two awesome suggestions:

1. Print out the schematic and use a highlighter as you make connections so you are positive that every is set before connecting power.
2. Tin your connections before putting them in the breadboard, especially if you’re trying to jammed that stranded AWG22 and it doesn’t want to go in. (I left my solid black wire at school, duh!)

Originally, I wanted to use the gearbox kit that comes with the lab kit, but I got one of the gears on in the wrong direction and now it does not want to come off, not for anything. My little girl hands can’t grip it tight enough, and even needlenose pliers don’t help my cause. It’s a shame because I’m sure it’s useful… perhaps it’s because the kit is rudimentary? Input totally welcome.

The Lab Page, with Fellow Classmates and Walkthrough

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At first, I was going to do a cover of Bill Vorn and his robotic life and death… but I switched tracks to something that hits home. If you want a new, more “traditional” interactive artist, feel free to click the above link…
Reactable is a table that, based on the objects placed and the positioning of them, creates sound objects, filters, metronomes… all of the interactive sound bits you could want in a tangible mix with each object up for grabs! Using a software system called reacTIVision, it tracks the objects and their rotation on a back lit table. This was developed in 2003-2007 by the Music Technology Group at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.

How it works

Basic Demo 1

Live in Berlin

Hey, even Bjork is doing it, so it must be a cool idea.

Other versions incorporating a similar Tangible User Interface (TUI):
chessynthesis
i_AM: interactive audiovisual media installation (Video)
TangibleTable
Scoop
BLINKS
Tequila Sunset
AudioPad
sandspuren
Gullivers Welt
Beat Jigsaw

floating.numbers
Microsoft Surface

Posted in Reflection ~ No Comments

Attractive Things Work Better! (Emotional Design - Don Norman)
Teapots. Lots of teapots. The conflict between aesthetic and usability… but why is there such a disjunct? I keep thinking of iPods as I read this. I think we need smarter designers; with that, I think many “manufacturing” gripes could be overcome. I loved the analogy to color monitors - that color satisfies an emotional response. I wonder how relevant this is to seeing a more vivid emulation of our reality - our world is color. (I wonder what it’s like for color blind people, but that’s too far from the path here.)

The science of “affect” is fascinating. I think of it as “emotional perception” - that which makes my Digital Signal Theory homework seem much more unattainable than a little studying could cure. Something poignant from this chapter: “In other words, the principles of good human-centered design are especially important in stressful situations.” This absolutely holds true in my observation work with Tom at Whole Foods: people who were in a hurry were most likely to bypass the entire waiting system altogether.

Design of Everyday Things (Don Norman)
As an IT support technician, I can relate to this article without question. There was a lot of food for thought about design as an effortless, thoughtless system with simple cause-response relationships that are logical (mapping), especially in a natural sense. I tend to walk into doors constantly, and I agree that it seems strange that we, this super-advanced culture of wealth and possibility, keep forgetting about the people who use what we make.

• Visibility: highly intuitive design that is visually approachable and immediately interpreted correctly by anyone who encounters it
• Mappings: the connection between what you’re doing and what you want to happen
• If we keep buying poorly designed products, they will keep being made!
• Affordances: the perceived and actual properties of a thing, like wood’s ability to be flat and porous, therefore good for writing on, lying things flat, and etching into (”a psychology of materials”)
• Conceptual Model: the suggested model you come up with of how a device operates based on its controls
  • If the conceptual model doesn’t match up with the actual device, you’ll have problems. BIG ones.
• Mental Models: the simulations your mind perceives of how devices work
• Controls vs. Functions: the more functions you have, the more difficult it is to get to them with less controls without appropriate feedback
• Visible, natural relationships are the most intuitive to figure out
  • If you can work with the natural mappings of the senses, like pitch and smell, then you have a vocabulary of patterns and feedback systems at your fingertips, right from Mother Nature
• Feedback: response from a system to your input
• Many products need more redesigns than business allows, allowing for lots of products that have good concepts but poor implementation

Responsive Environments (Myron Krueger)
This seemed a bit too repetitive for my taste, actually, but the basic content of interaction over space was intriguing. To create a situation where a person is engaged without having the satisfaction of completion (as from the maze example) seems strangely nonintuitive… as in, how can a person be satisfied and essentially “lose”? I guess it’s in the interpretation of the game. Personally, if I found myself in that space and saw the walls reorganize as I entered the “finish” proximity, AND the beacon of myself was not allowed to escape… being trapped in a situation like that and forcing the person to focus on the experience for satisfaction just doesn’t seem to always be effective. I imagine more of it lies in the person’s own cultural and age backgrounds than just the event itself.

The Bandwidth of Consciousness (Nørretranders)
I had to sit with this read for quite a bit to grasp all of the points of how we pick up information, how much we process, how much we don’t give a damn about… and it seems that we don’t care much about a LOT.

• Consciousness consists of information, but it is chosen selectivity.
• We sense more than we allow to enter consciousness.
• We can only really sense one thing at a time - consciousness is a funnel of one, in a way.
• Seven objects is the maximum “chunk” of info we can take at once as being a cohesive group of info.
• Good outlines are “macrostates” that allow us to fill in the “microstates” : I draw an analogy to PowerPoint presentations that don’t spell out everything - just key points - as a prime example.
• Saying a lot with a few words or a single gesture is a fantastic vehicle of human impression and expression.
• The article measures consciousness in “bits,” paralleling us to computer ports, I feel. Some semse
  • Some sense can provide more bits than others, like visual stimuli over olfactory stimuli.
• We are at the height of our “perceptive abilities” at late adolescence, and become steadily slower from there. (Yikes!)
• Perhaps we “smear” bits together to see our world and perception as continuous!
• I love how events are termed by what they do to us - like a child being read a story, they are gauging the effects of the fairytale on the parent to understand interpretation, not just understanding straight-up words. The analogy to dating is particularly effective, as you go out to see if someone’s thought tree in reacting to a shared experience is similar to you, regardless of how fun or junky the experience is.
• People don’t like to think of consciousness beyond the words we use, although there is a huge spectrum of subtext in nonverbal communication.
• Lying is crap. It’s a “complex bit-shift” in a sense, and you can really mess up kids by saying one thing and meaning another, over and over again. The kid has the conflict of rationalizing the action vs. the words - either Mom cares about me and wants me to go to bed for my sake, or she is tired and wants to go to bed herself soon.

Posted in Reading, Reflection ~ No Comments

Tom, Heather, and I worked on a Physical Away Message - a new means of alerting those about to interrupt you of your approachability “status.” In the first two group prototypes, we used green LEDs to denote a positive status and red LEDs for a “do not come near me!” status.

FINAL DOCUMENTATION SITE IS RIGHT HERE!

FIRST PROTOTYPE
Using tubing, white wire, and sanded-down LEDs, this prototype worked via a plastic, grip-able slider that pushed together ball bearing contacts that slightly protruded from the latex tubing, creating switches that gave power to the LEDs. Tom did all of the [crazy] soldering and while Heather sewed up the battery holder and sanded down the LEDs. Jen made the plastic slider and worked on writing out the schematic and demoing the circuit before it was implemented.

Pros:

• Near-translucent design
• Relatively sturdy because of the tubing: no exposed LEDs or circuitry for the most part

Cons:

• LEDs were difficult to see through the tubing
• The ball bearings did not always make contact, or worse - one row would or another wouldn’t when all of the row contacts were needed for only red to show.
• Only a few LEDs on both sides, so they weren’t always visible depending on one’s haircut, clothes, etc.
• Difficult for strangers to discern meaning of the LEDs without an explanation
• Battery holder was a little bit awkward

SECOND PROTOTYPE
We then ventured into the e-wearable world, sewing the circuitry into lace trim via conductive thread and sewing it over. We realized that there was an error in our circuitry logic, however, and had to add an additional power supply to make it work. Again, Tom was the super-production guy, using his skills to sew up the lace just right and get the LEDs onto copper mesh so they would stay put. Heather worked on the zipper. Jen examined this prototype and began work on an additional version with a modified aesthetic and structure.

Pros:

• Super-sheer design is totally sleek and stylish! The LEDs peer through the lace without being an “I’M A PHYSCOMP PROJECT” statement
• Zipper is a much more intuitive control mechanism - nearly subconscious
• Can be repaired on the fly by sewing because components are exposed

Cons:

• Circuitry is totally exposed and subject to the wear and tear of the lace.
• The zipper contacts can be touchy due to the conductive thread and the conductivity of the zipper itself
• The LEDs were smaller, but also a bit more concealed in the lace at times. Sometimes difficult to judge from a distance.

PROTOTYPE JEN
This version used solid trim, black stranded wire, and hot glue to make a more solid necklace with protruding LEDs for extra luminosity. Jen had difficulty working with the conductive thread, but in the end it was a learning process in e-wearables.

The Creation Process:

1. I sanded down some LEDs so they would look more interesting and have less chance of catching on one’s clothes.
2. I got the circuitry soldered and happy by itself and made sure the connections were good before…
3. …gluing the two sides of the circuit to the trim, which was an adventure in itself! The hot glue was occasionally enough to melt the solder, so I had to keep away from the LEDs whenever possible.
4. I sewed the zipper connections by hand, moving the middle “no light” state up towards red because there was space at the very bottom of the zipper, below the green switch, for being in an off/non-power-drawing state. I sewed big loops toward the outside of the zipper for the wire to hook onto.
5. Carefully, I looped the side circuits into the loops and glued up the rest, leaving ample wire for the connections to the batteries.
6. I taped two small button cell batteries (that I happened to have a pre-existing supply of) for each side, and then picked up some crimp connectors from RadioShack to make the connections onto the batteries. Then, a few loops of magnetic tape made the package compact and fairly easy to take apart for battery switch-ups.
7. I looped some wire through the zipper pull and wound magnetic tape around it for a stylish, larger pull. In testing the zipper on the circuit, it seemed that a big pull was most comfort and afforded the least zipping resistance.

Pros:

• LEDs are not obscured by anything for higher visibility
• More LEDs increase the odds of being visible despite hairstyle or clothing attire differences
• Circuitry is contained and concealed within the solid trim
• Same zipper circuitry for intuitive motion

Cons:

• Difficult to repair because the trim is glued together - everything is totally concealed after the hot glue
• Sewing the zipper was difficult until Mouna hooked us up with better conductive thread
• The zipper is a little stiff at first - it needs a bunch of runs to smooth out

User Feedback

• Some people felt it was comfortable (the premade trim), but there were complaints about the LEDs getting in the way with a strong suggestion to use surface mount LEDs instead.
• They generally liked the materials use, but the loop seemed too obviously like magnetic tape - it would have been better with a cloth loop that matched the braid.
• The signals that people got from it were that it had two states, but no idea of what it signified. One person said that it reminded him of sailing: at night, red and green signals are used for sailboats to know to turn left or right.
• Most said it was aesthetically appealing in some way: there was an admiration for the hidden circuitry and a comment that it reminded one person of S & M.
• I have yet to encounter a person who interprets the device as a physical away message without being told that it is.
• Most said they would respect the signal that was given by the device (ex. if someone did not want to be disturbed), but a few said they would use it as a point of ridicule (ex. OH, you’re red, you can’t talk to me right now? *heavy sarcasm*)
• I asked if people felt that the device changed interpersonal relationships, and most said no. One person specifically stated that the folks at ITP were not always apt to pick up on basic social cues as it is (because of their immersion in projects), so a device like this would be an extra step up from that.

This project was an interesting exercise in teamwork, production, and social computing. I think the main difficulty was getting our work to make sense without explanation, which is a goal we never quite achieved. At first, it was difficult dividing the work between the three of us on the first prototype because it is such a small project (and we have good-sized people hands), so we divided the jobs that we could and did our best to spend our time on other prototypes instead. I think the multi-prototype approach was successful because we each had a personal approach to the style of the piece, and this project is essentially something one would wear as part of their attire. Style is so very personal, and the final prototypes really enforce that. However, as a “physical away message,” I believe some sort of swift fad would be needed for many people to catch on and know what the use was intended for.

Posted in Midterm ~ 1 Comment