Week 3 - In Class Progress & Sketch One

This week, my group and I did a lot of brainstorming for our Sketch One assignment.
Jinsil and Greg were going around the class asking each team to present their fabrication circuit and explain to them their possible concept for sketch one. While we were waiting for our turn, we began to further brainstorm for our Sketch One assignment. We came up with several ideas such as an interactive lamp, interactive toys, and a pressure force for backpacks.


When Jinsil and Greg came around to talking to us, we first showed them our Mario Mushroom Circuit. They went through it with us in detail and explained what we could do to improve it for future assignments.


After dissecting our Mushroom Circuit, we began talking about our concepts for Sketch One. The concept we felt that was the strongest and has potential for being futher developed was the idea of have pressure sensors on a backpack to determine if an individual is carrying too much weight on their shoulders. There are studies that show that many students, children and even adults have back problems and strain due to the way they carry their backpacks (over one shoulder, or the strap, and the amount of weight they are carrying). So we suggested to create a backpack and attach pressure/force sensors to them to determine whether a person should carry more or less weight in their backpacks. This backpack will help reduce back problems for individuals and relieve tension off their shoulders. There will be some sort of indication on the backpack that will let users know if their backpack is too heavy or if it is still able to carry a certain amount of weight. Jinsil and Greg agreed to this concept and this will be the concept we will be working with for Sketch One.

During week 4, we have begun to create our prototype for Sketch One. We bought some more LEDs, resistors and anti-static foam to act as the pressure sensors that will be stuck onto the straps of our backpack. We have already started to create our programming in Arduino. We are close to where we want to be in terms of making the backpack respond to the pressure sensors and gathering data.
We have also done some research on the technical and conceptually aspect of our design. In our conceptual aspect we have found research studies of people who have had shoulder/back pains due to the heavy overload of carrying backpacks. For our technical aspect, we have found inspiration in creating our pressure sensors from the "instructables" website. We found a resource that was based on creating Conductive Thread Pressure Sensors. This gave us the inspiration to use anti-static foam to create our pressure sensors and the use of conductive tape to get the current going in our circuit.


For our backpack prototype, we obtained a regular backpack and began locating the spots where we want to put our pressure sensors. We discussed and decided to put two on each strap, one below and one just above the shoulders . We are also planning on putting two more on the lower back of the backpack area. We will get our Arduino to take in data of the amount of pressure the backpack is taking and the LEDs will light up according to the weight distribution.


This week, the Arduino programming is just about finished and we are working on implementing the pressure sensors into the backpack. We have also started to create a small presentation for this week, explaining our concept and the research behind it.

Week 2 - In Class Activities & Assignment

This week, we did a couple more activities regarding Arduino. The two main activities we did was a button/toggle and the use of photo resistors. In the first activity, we were to create a button/toggle on the Arduino and breadboard so the LED light would turn on. From following the schematic on the overhead and with some tweaking and small code, we were able turn on the LED light by pressing the button. Below is what our Arduino board looked like when we were able to produce the light.




After the first little exercise, we were then ask to play around with it and change the code. What we did was add a delay to the light when you press and hold the button. So, instead of turning it on and off when you press the button, the LED light will have a blinking pattern (delay) when held and off when you let go. Below is a small recorded video of how we changed our Arduino board and what it does.

After the first activity, we were given a second activity which was to generally to do the same thing but play around with photo resistors. We were given a photo resistor that looks similar to a magnet. What we were asked to do was use the photo resistor to turn on the LED light on the Arduino board. Similar to the first activity, we looked at the schematic, tweaked the board and used some code and was able to get the LED light to blink which was dependant on the photo resistor. Basically, how fast/slow the LED light blinks is dependant on how much light the photo resistor is getting. The less light the photo resistor is getting, the slower the blinking of the light and vice versa. Below is a short video we recorded of our Arduino exercise with the photo resistor.

Next on the list was the homework. Our assignment was to explore the use of fabrics and conductive materials without the need to solder metal parts. We were asked to use different types of fabric to make a system with combination of LEDs, conductive materials and resistors.
We were told to experiment and see what can be wearable on our bodies; testing out flexibility on our bodies with circuits. After our brainstorming, we decided to create a Mario Mushroom patch that is supposedly 'iron-able' onto shirts/sweaters. We decided to complete the circuit under the mushroom so its not visible when the user looks at it. We put 3 LED lights on each of the dots on top of the mushroom. When the user presses the eyes, the conductive material (copper tape) underneath the eyes will touch with another conductive material underneath it (conductive thread and copper tape) and thus the 3 LEDs will light up. We were able to cut up all the fabric and created our base mushroom at the end of our lab. Below is a photo of what we created in class.

Week 1 - Lab Studio Brainstorming

In the first week of our studio lab, we did a sense experience activity where we select one input (yellow card) and one output (blue card) from Jinsil and Greg. With these two cards, we were to come up with 3 examples of application or objects that uses these input and outputs together.

The input that I had was, "brain waves" and the output, "fire". It was time to do some brainstorming and be creative.

The first thought/idea that came to my mind was the "human torch". If you've watched the movie, "Fantastic Four", you'll recall that one of the superheroes was called the human torch where he would light on fire by instinct or in this case "brain waves". This idea was just for laughs/comedy. A good start I would say even if it was a little unpractical.

My second idea was to use brainwaves to turn on a fireplace. If someone wanted their fireplace turned on, all they would have to do is think it and use their 'brain waves' to turn it on. This would be quite intense.

From the help of my first thought and second idea, I came up with a third example/idea. This idea is an installation or toy that uses brainwaves to emit the amount of stress of a person by the display of a volcano (not real of course). Remember those highschool science fairs where students would make volcano projects and they would erupt? Similar idea; a display of a volcano where there is a sensor/wire attached to it with two ends, a person can put the other end of the wire/sensor on their head/near their brain where the brainwaves will emit the amount of stress of a person. The volcano will erupted (high or low) based on the individual's stress level sent out by the brainwaves. This would be a cool toy/installation to play around with.

Below is just a photo of the brainstorming I did on paper. It also includes the group sense experience as well under it.


After our own individual sense experience, we were to get into groups of two or three to come up with something that suited all the inputs and outputs. In the end, we ended up getting 3 inputs and 3 outputs. Our inputs were direction, location and movement and our outputs were fire, water and dancing. What we came up with was a sort of treading water exercise object that lets swimmers exercise/practice treading water. We thought about a pool that obviously has water. Located at the bottom of these pools are sensors. These sensors sense the movement of a person when they are dancing, or in this case, treading water. When a person decides to stop treading water and stand in the pool, depending on how long they stand in the water, the pool will begin to heat up to notify the person that they are standing for too long and should go back to exercising/practice treading water.

After our sense experience exercise, we began to have an overview of Arduino. I never took IAT 267, so it was new to me, but doing the exercise that was assigned to us was pretty easy for me. I think my basic knowledge in programming was able to help me with it. Arduino seems pretty easy to grasp onto so I should be fine when we're using it for projects. I was able to get my LED light to blink and then able to connect 2 others to light up as well (using resistors). I then, changed a bit of the existing program to deal with the delays to get a different reaction from the lights.