So I found the toy fair to be totally overwhelming. I might have been the cold… There were a lot of really creative ideas and a lot of things that were not so creative.
Favorite things:
AR-Drone
“Swimming” fish balloons
Science kit with fuel cell powered car
These are the three creatures that I came up with. After thinking about and sketching them, I really want to make them all!
You can see the homework post here.
1. Explain (in a nutshell) the code; structure, logic, important parts.
Basically the code starts with the arduino playing a set note. This note modulates up and down over a set period of time. The arduino records the brightness of the ambient light using a photo resistor. This value is then added or subtracted from the original note. The addition or subtraction is set to allow the “creature” to either want light or dark. In our code the “creature” is happiest at a lower note and is upset at a higher note. At a set point in the low scale of the code a vibrating motor is triggered to create a “purr” effect.
An important part of the code is calculating the amplitude of the sounds and to control the rate at which the sounds modulate up and down. This is done to create a soothing effect. This helps to represent the mood of the creatures.
2. What did you do that you feel is new, non-obvious, and useful
The nature of the interaction and the way in which the feedback is represented is new and useful. The feedback from the photo resistor is buffered so that sounds don’t change immediately. The notes are completely generative in nature except of the initial starting point and the minimum and maximum settings. The application of a vibrating motor and its placement in the enclosure add a second dimension of sound to the experience.
Here is the link to the LCD setup
I made my arduino talk!
Arduino Speaks from Leif Percifield on Vimeo.
Phrases:
1. Hello
2. Good Bye
3. I’m Happy
4. I’m dying
5. ALERT
6. I understand
Code is available here
In class writing February 3rd:
Did you have any pleasant or not-so-nice surprises when experimenting with “emotive beeps”?
For the most part I found it pretty straight forward to create the emotions that I wanted. There was a little bit of trouble separating the different positive and negative sounds. The positive sounds tended to have a rising tone and the negative sounds had a falling tone. The method that I used to separate them was length and number of total tones.
So this is what my tone project was supposed to sound like (replaced a broken speaker).
Arduino Mario from Leif Percifield on Vimeo.
Code available here
Hello all,
The main interest I have in this computation class is a better understanding of low voltage wireless communication and interaction. I have some experience with Xbee communication but want to work on the embedded systems aspect of Arduino. You can check out some of the work I’ve done with Xbee and Arduino here.
http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?qs=2QQPt9Tj8X%252bNALCpjoYlUQ%3D%3D
Evander Batson
xinhe feng
FluffyLeecy
frankiezek
gaboratparsons
giang063
gracegotlost
lauriewaxman
Siwen Li
Xiaofeng Lin
Yury Gitman
mar28th
Max(TONG WEN)
Soohyun
sabotai
Susan Lin
Making Toys 
Reply