DC Motor Lab: A failure

Midterm Project: Observations

For our midterm observation assignment, we got a few Guatemalan Worry Dolls an handed them out to our fellow ITP classmates. Everyone had their own way of interacting with the dolls, but one common thing was that people preferred to talk to them with their minds, not out loud. Here are some interesting and fun pictures:

































After we were done with our prototype, we gave it to Ozge, and she basically refused to give it back to us! Here is how she interacted with it:

Lab 5: Serial Lab II

This week, we took the serial lab we did last week one step forward and made a serial communication between arduino and processing using a circuit that has two analogue and one digital input.

For my lab, I used a digital push-switch, a potentiameter and a force sensor. Here is the picture of the circuit:












I wrote the code in arduino to read and send the serial data for all three sensors and here is how it looked:
















After trying that, I wrote the code to be able to see the values more clearly for each sensor using the Punctuation Method and here is what I got:
















And finally, using the Handshaking method, the visualization image I got on processing is below. It was very fun to play with the ball in the screen!

Lab 4: Serial Lab

This week, our lab was about making a serial connection between arduino and processing. The idea is to make a them communicate so that the values we get from an analogue input connected to our arduino are visually translated in processing.

Here is the circuit I made using a potentiameter:











After that, I wrote the serial code for it on processing and here is a visualization image I got using the pot:











After trying this, I replaced the pot with a force sensor and the result was below:

Midterm Project: Brainstorming

The members of our group are Li Li, Marco Antonio Castro Cosio and me, Asli Sevinc.

We came to realize that we are all interested in the idea that technology can be used to improve quality of life, to calm the body down, to evoke peaceful emotions.

During our first brainstorming session, we talked about our fascination with light, the sun and things that calms us down, things that has memories, things that trigger memories, materials and objects having meanings.


The idea that technological objects don't necessarily have to be high-tech looking, but they could be serene, emotion-provoking or just give you a warm smile was something we touched on quiet regularly.

The fast pace of school, New York and living in a period of everything-fast -- these are some of the reasons why we want to make something slow, personal, soothing, touching to the soul.

Li brought a design catalogue for inspiration and a Sun Jar, a jar with a built in solar charger and a LED that lights up at night with the power generated by the solar charger. We are all very interested in sustainability, D.I.Y. art and technology as well as using materials that have a history, that were used for something else before. Therefore we were very excited about using a solar charger for our project, whatever it was going to be.

Marco told us that he has a small room that doesn't have wall space, but big windows. If we are to create something interactive/decorative, could we do something with curtains?

Ideas were flying around in the Peanut Butter & Co sandwich shop Marco took us.

- Time capsule
- Photo booth == confession booth == emotional outlet
- Sensor coaster
- Lights triggering/manipulating mood
- Voicebox of your loved ones with nice/inspiring messages
- Snow globe with screaming people

We shared some of our inspirations: Linda Stone's talk on the importance of breathing and quality of life, The Design of Everyday Things, distancelab, cube ecraft, many photos Li showed us of Japanese design objects, instructables, post secrets, Jonathan Harris, the fold school; just to name a few.

On Thursday afternoon, we met again to see if we can go somewhere with all these ideas.

What we decided is that we want to create something that uses input from the body and produces a different output depending on the different input it receives.

Something that uses heart rate as input? Something that uses heat? Something that processes touch? Light? Sound?

Marco brought up Guatemelan Worry Dolls, which we thought was very interesting. Here is what is written about them on wikipedia:

A person (usually a child) who cannot sleep due to worrying can express their worries to a doll and place it under their pillow before going to sleep.

According to folklore, the doll is thought to worry in the person's place, thereby permitting the person to sleep peacefully. The person will wake up without their worries, which have been taken away by the dolls during the night.

The idea of a interactive journal within a worry doll that will react depending on your audio stories fascinated us immediately. We started thinking about how they could react to the sound: would they give off light? Would they talk back to you?

And then we started wondering about all these following questions:

What kind of sensors are we going to use? How are we going to make the dolls? Can we make them D.I.Y? Can we make a website? Where are we going to put them at night? How are we going to get audio interactivity? How are we going to incorporate solar chargers/sustainability?

I am very excited about our dolls!!! I can't wait to explore the possible solutions to all the challenges that await us!

Lab 3

For the third Lab assignment, we had to create parallel and series circuits using a voltage regulator, DC power jack and a digital switch.

Here is circuit I made with a digital switch and the regulator. When the switch is off, the LED is off.











When the switch is pushed, the LED light goes on.












The second task was to build a parallel circuit, where all the LED lights are using the same power. Here is the result.












Lastly, the LEDs are connected in a series circuit, where they are sharing the power among each other and here is what I got.












I used the multimeter to measure the voltage and the current, but somehow did not get it to work. I should ask it in the class.

Observation Assignment

For our observation assignment, Peter and I met at the corner of Manhattan and Norman Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on Saturday. It was such a beautiful day that we ended up walking around for two hours and did not take the bus or the subway. We decided that we'd observe people with devices in the subway or the bus on our own.

The areas we covered are Greenpoint and Williamsburg. The wide variety of people we watched span from Polish Americans to hipsters, from tourists to street vendors. We saw people in relationship with their laptops, cellphones, iPhones (as it deserves to be a seperate category), ATM machines, SLR cameras, digital cameras, Blackberrys, phone cameras, headphones, Bluetooth devices, registers, scales and DV cameras. All and all, it was an interesting task to watch and report on people who were doing not so extraordinary, daily tasks that I don't think any of them would think that they were worth observing or reported on.

In the interest of being readable, I will write down the observations we made in a list form, and then add our comments that we made while watching them in the end.

REGISTER: 1.45 | Lite Bites Cafe | Manhattan & Norman Avenue
Takes 5 seconds. Cashier uses only one hand. She punches numbers with index finger. Very intuitive. No thinking involved.

iPHONE: 1.46 | Manhattan & Norman Avenue
Woman walks past with iPhone. She first dials a number with right thumb, then lifts the phone to her ear to listen to the dialing tone.

CELL PHONE: 1.50 | McCarren Park
Woman talking to her cell phone, while she's holding her bike. She uses one hand and looks around as she is talking. Takes a few minutes.

SCALE: 1.55 | Farmer's Market | McCarren Park
Takes 6 seconds to weigh one eggplant. Intuitive to use. Uses right hand to place the eggplant, punches a button with index finger, gets the info. There is no thinking involved.

BLUETOOTH: 2.03 | Bedford Avenue and N11th
Guy walking and talking on his bluetooth device. Shocking to observe. Looks like he is a crazy person, talking to himself.

SLR CAMERA: 2.04 | Bedford Avenue and N11th
Tourist taking a picture of who knows what. He stands still, holds up the camera with two hands to his eye-level, pauses and pushes the button with index finger. He has a camera "stance." Looks around to see if anyone's watching.

DV CAMERA: 2.10 | Bedford Avenue
Guy standing and holding camera with two hands at belly-level, recording two women who are sitting at a bench. Women are speaking to him, not to the camera. They have a camera persona; more composed, less gestural. When the camera is not pointing at them, they fix their hair, look more natural, more in real life. Takes about 6 minutes.

BLACKBERRY: 2.15 | Bedford Avenue
Guy uses both hands and two fingers to type the letters. Moves around in a circle. Places the phone that is tied to his keychain in his pocket.

BLACKBERRY: 2.20 | N9th Street
Street vendor is sitting and checking something on Blackberry. At a point when she is writing something, her hands are cuffed around it, using two thumbs. She smiles. Switches to one hand. Probably uses internet now, while she strokes her dog with her free hand. Says hello to people passing by in the meantime. Takes her about 8 minutes.

BLACKBERRY: 2.22 | N9th Street
A guy standing 10 meters away from the vendor. His hand is cupped, leaning against a shop window. He is just inspired to check his email. He has a pose. He is rolling the side button. It's something to do in public, like holding a drink at a party, when you are standing alone and don't have anything to do. While he is using his Blackberry, he takes a moment to check out the hot girl passing by. Implicit communication.

iPHONE: 2.40 | Bedford Avenue
A guy biking against the traffic AND checking his iPhone with his right hand!

CELL PHONE CAMERA: 2.41 | Bedford Avenue
Two tourists take picture together with cell phone camera. They check the picture together, takes about 15 seconds. They maintain active conversation for a few more minutes. Phone is like a 3rd party. Gets referred to every once in while. Conversation takes 5 minutes. They hug each other and part ways.

iPHONE CAMERA: 2.45 | Bedford Avenue
A guy photographs books on the table with iPhone. He uses one hand, the other hand holds his coffee. He has to raise the phone up to get a top-down (bird's eye view!) shot of the books on the stall. Takes about 20 seconds.

ATM Machine: 2.55 | Bedford Avenue
A guy is using a nameless ATM Machine on the street. Uses index finger to push buttons. Waits for the cash to come out. Waits for about a minute. He looks very bored and unhappy. Nothing comes out (maybe he wasn't trying to withdraw cash?), he steps away and stands about a foot away from the machine after interaction. Still looking bored and unhappy.

LAPTOP: 2.58 | A Cafe at Bedford Avenue
A girl is sitting at the bar by the window with her laptop. She is facing the street. She creates limited social area, there is wall between others. She is using both hands, static but less focused on device than mobile users. Not that interesting to watch. She pauses, sips coffee, looks around, goes back to computer, writes.

DIGITAL CAMERA: 3.15 | McCarren Park
The father is standing and holding the baby while the mom is sitting and holding to camera to get a good picture. Angling camera around, uses her upper body to catch a good one. Shows the result to her husband. They smile. Takes 2 minutes.

Our overall observation was that cellphones are the most commonly used devices. Talking on the phone doesn't hinder one's physical actions, that's one reason why people uses cellphones a lot. Another pattern we saw was people who have iPhones tend to hold their phones in their hands; after a while, it looks like the phones are a body ppart. They use their iPhones for instant reference, for getting information, entertainment, communication, to take a picture, to spend time...