Zany Kooky Smatterings.....

Flash code...

2008-05-22T17:27:00.001-07:00

I forgot to submit my flash code for the mentioned project

There is un-exciting (its code! :-) and long to just post it here so i am going to link them

New direction...

2008-05-22T15:24:00.001-07:00

Ok, so capacitance sensing isn't working so well, (aka, at all) so we can try a parallel route: light sensing!

This could work by having 2 sensors, and using the analog input change the speed!

I think this will be a better option than hacking firmata and AS3 glue.

Forward progress...

2008-05-22T13:53:00.000-07:00

Still having problems with the capacitance testing, but i did find the reason why my faked microphone input (via a potentiometer) wasn't working.
It seems i was taking in 2 inputs, one for the slider that i used to build it with initially and then another from the potentiometer.

The problem with my capacitance code is one little delay. Here is the stripped down Arduino code that i found will work. (Anything less than this won't work)

y = 0; // clear out variables

// LOW-to-HIGH transition
digitalWrite(sensorPin - 1, HIGH);
delay(1);

// HIGH-to-LOW transition
digitalWrite(sensorPin - 1, LOW);

if(digitalRead(sensorPin) != LOW ) y++;

Serial.println()(y)

It is ugly an un-optimized code, but it will work.

My issue is that I can't get flash to wait for one millisecond. In the arduino code it is the delay(1) part of the code

Final project....

2008-05-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

It wasn't clear during my final presentation, so here was the intent of my project

Have capacitence sensors on either side of my monitor that would make your avatar react when you touch them. There was one on the left and the right. (Right now it is being faked by arrow keys)
Have a microphone that took input and made the avatar's mouth open in a loud Operatic note. LLaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!! This will cause the bouncing balls to be gently removed from the stage.
When the avatar crossed the bouncing balls and it wasn't in its "singing state" send the vibrating motor on so that it would vibrate the back of your shirt to simulate that you have bumped into another object

Even though i am mostly pleased with my outcome, I fell short of what i intended. That part was pretty frustrating.

The major issues I ran into: (Luckily just two)

Over focusing on one solution: Instead of going out and buying a mircophone I kept trying to build one from scratch. (How hard can it be? Was my crazy little mantra). No matter how I made it, I couldn't get anything besides random noise as output. When i realized that I should switch strategy, i just talked myself back into it with more "how hard can it be" fixative silliness.
Flash doesn't do capacitance sensing very well. I needed to send a guard pin high and take a digital reading (to fight impedance) in a while loop. The while loop depended on a swift and timely relay of info back from arduino, which didn't happen. Since you can't do threads in Arduino, it chooooocked.

Ideas for resolving them:

Paul, just buy a silly microphone you silly putz!
I read somewhere that we didn't need to take an average of the capacitence sensor in order to get a proper reading. (I tried this but at the moment, am not savvy enough to pull it off)

Final thoughts: this was a fun project.

It seemed to be a frustrating and recurring thing that I arrived short of my intended targets on both my projects. Usually I am pretty good at picking things up, so doing something that doesn't come easy for me is tough but also character building (lol, i am going to be much more of a character now :-) .

It became part of my process to remind myself that I didn't need to talented in this domain yet. That it was ok to be not so talented and just enjoy the process.

It was eye opening to see all the ability that we had in our class. "Bull Rider" and "Dancing Muppet" were my favorites from this class.

As far as the issues i ran into, i think i need to check out a basic electronics book from the library to become more savvy so i can tweak electronics more.

capcitence and flash...

2008-05-18T08:32:00.001-07:00

Running into problems porting the capacitance sensing code from arduino to flash :-(
It should be working correctly, but because of the delay in the callbacks with flash, my app is just locking up. Also there is an issue with interference. I have to send the gaurd pin high to get a clear reading on the input pins for my left and right sensors.

There must be a secret somewhere. Just have to delve more.

On the up side, with Michelles help i figured out that the reason i wasn't getting any data into the arduino for capacietence was because I wasn't using a strong enough resistor. I needed to use 1000000 ohms

Capacitence is my freind!

2008-05-14T08:22:00.001-07:00

Its true,

Michelle gave me a hand.
I was using a 10,000 ohm resitstor instead of a 1,000,000 ohm resistor.

It makes a huge difference.

Here is the code too


/* 
 CapSense.pde
 Paul Badger 2007

 Fun with capacitive sensing and some AVR port manipulation code 
 for the Arduino (or Wiring Boards).
 Note that the AVR code is based on Arduino 
 and will probably require some changes for Wiring Board

 How It Works
 The physical setup includes a high value (1-10M) resistor 
 between an output pin and an input pin. When the output pin changes
 state, it will eventually change the state of the input pin
 in a time constant determined by R * C, where R is the resistor
 and C is the capacitance of the pin, plus any other capacitance 
 (e.g. human body interaction) present at the sensor (input) pin.

 It is possible when using this setup to see some variation in 
 capacitance when one's hand is 3 to 4 inches from the sensors
 Experiment with larger resistor values and large sensor plates for 
 more sensitivity. Lower values of R will probably yield higher reliability.
 Use 1 M resistor (or less maybe) for absolute touch to activate.
 With a 10 M resistor the sensor will start to respond 1-2 inches away

 Setup
 Connect a 10M resistor between pins 8 and 9 on the Arduino Board
 Connect a small piece of aluminum or copper foil to a short wire as a
 sensor and also connect it to pin 9 (the sensor pin). There is nothing
 special about pins 8 & 9 and they can be any Arduino digital pins.

 When using this technique in an installation or device it's going to be
 important to use shielded cable if the wire between the sensor is  
 more than a few inches long, or it runs by anything that is not supposed
 to be sensed. 

 Calibration may be an issue, and may vary somewhat with humidity or other factors.
 Instead of "hard wiring" threshold values - store the "non touched" values
 in a variable on startup - and then compare to a "difference" value.
 If your sensed object is many feet from the Arduino Board 
 you're probably going to be better off using the Quantum cap sensors.

 AVR port-manipulation code from a forum post by ARP
 http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1169088394/0#0
*/ 


int  i;
unsigned int x, y;
int sensorPin = 9;
float accum, fout;  // these are variables for a simple low-pass (smoothing) filter
float fval = .2;         // fval of 1 = no filter - .0001 = max filter

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);

  //  Arduino pin sensorPin input, sensorPin-1 output, sensorPin+1 output for "guard pin" (optional)
  pinMode(sensorPin - 1, OUTPUT);     // output pin
  pinMode(sensorPin, INPUT);      // input pin
  pinMode(sensorPin + 1, OUTPUT);    // guard pin used to shield high impedance input 
  digitalWrite(sensorPin + 1, LOW);  // guard pin low
}

void loop() {
  y = 0;        // clear out variables
  x = 0;

  
  for (i=0; i < 4 ; i++ ){       // do it four times to build up an average
                                 // not really necessary but takes out some jitter

    // LOW-to-HIGH transition
    digitalWrite(sensorPin - 1, HIGH);    
    while (digitalRead(sensorPin) != HIGH) {                
     x++;
    }
    delay(1);

    //  HIGH-to-LOW transition
    digitalWrite(sensorPin - 1, LOW);              
    while(digitalRead(sensorPin) != LOW ) {
     y++;  
    }

    delay(1);
  }

  // Easy smoothing filter "fval" determines amount of new data in fout
  fout =  (fval * (float)x) + ((1-fval) * accum);
  accum = fout;    

  Serial.print((long)x, DEC);    // raw data - Low to High
  Serial.print( "   ");
  Serial.print((long)y, DEC);    // raw data - High to Low
  Serial.print( "   ");
  Serial.println( (long)fout, DEC); // Smoothed Low to High

}

Meager progress :-(

2008-05-13T15:13:00.001-07:00

I attached the avatar controller, and it is ready for the capacitence testing if i can get it working

The Anti-king Midas....

2008-05-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

Everything i touch, turns to poo!

Ok, thats not really true, but i am striking out on all things electronic. The first one was my microphone, and now simple capacitence is not working.

I will call it a day for now :-(

Progress...

2008-05-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

So my next move is to add my capacitance sensors and finish up the microphone input.
I have the flash code mostly finished. I added ball targets bouncing and reacting to my avatar. When it yells the balls are removed.

Next step for coding with flash is to add "predator" that the user will have to avoid using the capacitance sensors.

Arduino and my project are working!

2008-05-10T15:30:00.000-07:00

At first it didn't look like it was because the pot i was using was 10k and wasn't even leaving a blip as an analog signal in. I kept thinking it was my code!

Lolz

i go!

New direction for final project....

2008-05-09T08:14:00.000-07:00

So microphone doesn't work :-(

So my idea of using decibel level to interact with a virtual environment.

My concept was to have a bouncing avatar you could bounce with capacitance sensors, and use decibels to clear barriers that you run into. If you didn't yell to move the barriers you would crash into them and they would rattle the back of your neck .

It would be sort of startling, but need to be able to interact with a 2d environment.

So, need to float around laterally and find some new directions.

Here is the flash interface i developed so far complete with code.

(The slider is set up to simulate the microphone input until i figure that part out)

Document Class

Here is my document class that loads the avatar.


package YellingDubaPack{
 import flash.display.*;
 import flash.events.*;
 import flash.text.*;
  
 public class YellingDubaAppManager extends MovieClip
 {
  private var thisDuba:YellingDuba;
  private var thisSpinner:SpinningThing;
  private var thisDuba_starting_x = 150;
  private var thisDuba_starting_y = 330;
  private var pXMLLoader:XMLLoader;
  private var currDecibel:Number = 1.0;
  private var thisSlider:Slider;
  private var stayCentered:Boolean = true; // this is a bool that will alternate random number generation
  
  
  
  public function YellingDubaAppManager()
  {
   trace("Screaming App Manager created...");
   
    //ADD DUBA
    
    
    
    
    trace("Spinning Thing created...");
    thisSpinner = new SpinningThing();
    thisSpinner.scaleX = 1.2;
    thisSpinner.scaleY = 1.2;
    thisSpinner.x = thisDuba_starting_x;
    thisSpinner.y = thisDuba_starting_y;
    thisSpinner.setSpinning(true);
    this.addChild(thisSpinner);
    //thisDuba.addChild(thisSpinner);
    
    trace("Duba added...");
    thisDuba = new YellingDuba(4,4);
    thisDuba.x = thisSpinner.x;
    thisDuba.y = thisSpinner.y + 50;
    thisDuba.scaleX = .5;
    thisDuba.scaleY = .5;
    //thisSpinner.addChild(thisDuba);
    this.addChild(thisDuba);
    trace("Duba added...");
   
   // ADD SLIDER
    thisSlider = new Slider();
    thisSlider.x = 400;
    thisSlider.y = 300;
    this.addChild(thisSlider);
    trace("Slider added...");
   
   // ADD ACTION LISTENERS
    addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, onEnterFrame);
   
  }
  public function LoadLevel()
  {
      
  }
  public function onEnterFrame(evt:Event):void
  {
   // GET INPUT, and set the Duba to that frame    
    currDecibel = thisSlider.getRatio();
   // SET DUBA
    thisDuba.setFrame(Math.round(currDecibel*thisDuba.maxFrames));
   // CHECK TO SEE IF DUBA IS AT MAXIMUM, and if so then vary its X and Y
    if(Math.round(currDecibel*thisDuba.maxFrames) + 3 >= thisDuba.maxFrames  )
    {
     if(stayCentered)  //THIS WILL TRY AND CENTER THE RANDOMNESS A LITLE BIT BY ALTERNATING THE SEEDS
     {
      thisSpinner.x += getNegOrPosRanNum(-1.2);
      thisSpinner.y += getNegOrPosRanNum(1);
      stayCentered = false;
     } else {
      thisSpinner.x += getNegOrPosRanNum(2.6);
      thisSpinner.y += getNegOrPosRanNum(1);
      stayCentered = true;
     }
     thisDuba.blinkEye() // BLINK YER EYES
     //thisDuba.x = thisSpinner.x;
     //thisDuba.y = thisSpinner.y + 25;
     thisSpinner.x = thisDuba.x;
     thisSpinner.y = thisDuba.y - 25;
     thisSpinner.setSpinning(true);
     thisSpinner.fadeSpinSpeed(.2);  // FADE IN SPEED
     thisSpinner.fadeOpacity(.2); // FADE OUT SPEED
    }else{
     thisDuba.openEye() // BLINK YER EYES
     thisSpinner.fadeSpinSpeed(-.1); // FADE IN SPEED
     thisSpinner.fadeOpacity(-.1); // FADE OUT SPEED
    }
  }
  private function getNegOrPosRanNum(seed:Number):Number
  {
   var ranNum =  Math.random() * seed;
   var isNeg =  Math.random() * 100;
   
   if(isNeg >50)
   {
    ranNum += -1;
   }
   return ranNum;
  }
  
  
 }
 
}

Avatar Class (Yelling Duba)

Here is my avatar class.


package YellingDubaPack{
 import flash.display.*;
 import flash.events.*;
 import flash.text.*;
 import flash.utils.Timer;
    import flash.events.TimerEvent;
  
 public class YellingDuba extends MovieClip
 {
  public const maxFrames:int = 20;
  public var blinkInterval:Number;
  private var mySetInterval
  private var delay:uint = 3000;
        private var repeat:uint = 80;
        private var myTimer:Timer = new Timer(delay, repeat);
  
  //BOUNCE ATTRIBUTES
   private var xSpeed:Number;
   private var ySpeed:Number;
   private var isDead:Boolean = false;
   
   
   public function Added(anEvent:Event):void{
    x = Math.random()*(stage.stageWidth - width) + stage.x + width/2;
    y = Math.random()*(stage.stageHeight - height) + stage.y + height/2;
    
    addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, OnEnterFrame);
    addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, onClick);
   }
   public function Removed(anEvent:Event):void{
    removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, OnEnterFrame);
   }
   
   public function OnEnterFrame(anEvent:Event):void{
    x += xSpeed;
    y += ySpeed;
    
    if( x < stage.x + width/2 || x > stage.stageWidth - width/2){
     xSpeed = - xSpeed;
    }
    if( y < stage.y + height/2 || y > stage.stageHeight - height/2){
     ySpeed = - ySpeed;
    }
    
    /*if(currentFrame == totalFrames && isDead == true){
     (parent as GameApp1).killBall(this);
    }*/
   }
   
   public function onClick(anEvent:MouseEvent):void{
    PopBall();
   }
   
   public function PopBall():void{
    play();
    isDead = true;
   }
  // -------------------------------------------------------- 
  //   REGULAR METHODS
  // -------------------------------------------------------
  
   public function setFrame(frame:int):void
   {
    gotoAndStop(frame);
   }
   public function blinkEye():void
   {
    duba_eyez.gotoAndStop(2);
   }
   public function openEye():void
   {
    duba_eyez.gotoAndStop(1);
   }
   public function setBlinkInterval(inteval:Number):void
   {
    blinkInterval = inteval;
   }
   private function timerHandler(e:TimerEvent):void{
    repeat--;
    blinkEye();
   }
 
   private function completeHandler(e:TimerEvent):void {
    trace("completeHandler()... Times Up.");   
   }
   
   public function YellingDuba(argXspeed:Number, argYspeed:Number)
   {
    
    xSpeed = argXspeed;
    ySpeed = argYspeed;
    
    addEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, Added);
    addEventListener(Event.REMOVED_FROM_STAGE, Removed);
    
    
    trace("Yelling Duba created...");
    myTimer.start(); 
    myTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, timerHandler);
    myTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER_COMPLETE, completeHandler);
    trace("Timer started");
    blinkEye();
    //var thisInterval = setInterval("blinkEye", 1000);
    
   }
 }
 
}

Spinning background


package YellingDubaPack{
 import flash.display.*;
 import flash.events.*;
 import flash.text.*;
  
 public class SpinningThing extends MovieClip
 {
  private var isSpinning:Boolean = false;
  private var rotationSpeed:Number = 1;
  private var rotationSpeedMax:Number = 2;
  
  public function SpinningThing()
  {
   
   trace("SpinningThing created...");
   trace("SpinningThing opacity dropped...");
   this.alpha = 0;
   addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, onEnterFrame);
   
  }
  public function setSpinning(spin:Boolean):void
  {
   isSpinning = spin;
  }
  public function setSpinningSpeed(spinSpeed:int):void
  {
   rotationSpeed = spinSpeed;
  }
  public function fadeOpacity(opace:Number):void 
  {
   var alphaMax = .3
   
   
   if(this.alpha > alphaMax)
   {
    this.alpha = alphaMax;
   }
   else if(this.alpha < 0)
   {
    this.alpha = 0;
    rotationSpeed = 0 ;
   }
   
   this.alpha += opace;  
  }
  public function fadeSpinSpeed(spinVelocity:Number):void 
  {   
   if(this.alpha > rotationSpeedMax)
   {
    rotationSpeed += rotationSpeedMax;
   }
   else if(this.alpha < 0)
   {
    rotationSpeed += 0;
   }
   
   rotationSpeed += spinVelocity; 
  }
  
  public function onEnterFrame(evt:Event):void
  {
   // IF TRUE THEN SPIN BABY!
   if(isSpinning)
   {
    spinner.rotation +=rotationSpeed;
    //trace("spining");
   }
   
  }
  
 }
 
}

Mini axe for my mini amp...

2008-05-09T07:12:00.000-07:00

Troubles with my mini amplifier, it sends random output to arduino. I am not able to get a fix on how loud an incoming sound is.

Soo, i am going to look for computer microphones to plug in.

The switch on the far right side is left over from a previous project, and is not needed

Firmata's deep dark secrets...

2008-05-01T15:59:00.001-07:00

Ok, so it isn't really deep and dark, thanks to Joe.

It does just what it advertises. It moves the processing from Arduino to which ever platform you are using. In this case it is Flash.

So as an exercise i got analog and digital input, as well as digital output controlled by Flash.

Thanks again to Joe for esplaining and helping me on my way.

That is all. Just a short post.

Disco shirt road block...

2008-04-29T09:52:00.000-07:00

So reporting about what I discovered last weekend, that my disco shirt design can't go forward. After it gets to the integrated circuit, the voltage drops to low to trigger my NPN transistor to allow power through that central circle.

Time for a new approach. This time I am going ignore the interconnectivity and just have them as separate units.

Circuit Diagram

So the arms of this disco shirt are the outer parts of the diagram. The inner part of the diagram represents the center of the shirt. I used beading wire sewn into the shirt to conduct voltage and hold the leds on them.

The idea was that when an arm flexed, the cumulative circuit would turn on depending on the angle of the bend. When both arms bent up, it would trigger a transistor (by way of a IC AND or NOR gate) and the chest would light up.

Cumulative circuit for the arms (flex "sensor")

So I have to say this was very home-made. Not regular at all. But it worked well. There was one problem with fabricating them is that one of the "flex" sensors (the big plastic thing in the picture) was warped so the connection wasn't steady the whole way through the arm flex.

I have really developed a fondness for soldering. Very nice!
My skill needs to improve quite a bit though.

I used striped out wire for the connections, and an old CPU cover for the plastic.

I am using tin foil to make sure the connection is constant. It sort of "billows" up and has more surface area to allow the circuit to be more continuous.

Mike wearing the mostly completed disco shirt

As you can see there is beading wire that carries the voltage. Also what is a little harder to see is that there are corresponding circuits on the arms that mirror the cumulative circtuit on the home-made flex "sensors"

Putting numbers on them was also really handy to know what wire went to what corresponding sewn in circuit

Also what is not apparent is that my sewning skills started extremely bad and then got quite a bit better.

Tetris plus arm-wrestling...

2008-04-29T09:44:00.001-07:00

Found this on Boingboing.net

Its a tetris app that you play by arm wrestling

Arduino to flash....first successful attempt

2008-04-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

So I had trouble figuring out what to do with AS3 glue, and serial proxy. I couldn't figure out how to make them play nicely. So I went digging a little and came up with some old jar files from Java's discontinued RxTx jars for windows. Linux and Unix have current versions of these jars, but Windows doesn't seem to.

Also Joe doesn't know it yet, but i am going to ask him to help me figure it out because he and james made such a nice interactive peice for Project Run way.

In the meantime here is the skinny on the old way to do it.

But i found an old example HERE at http://file-error.net/1o1o1o1o1/

Here is the .pde i took from using for arduino

int firstSensor = 0; // first analog sensor
void setup()
{

Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop()
{
firstSensor = analogRead(0)/4;
delay(10);
Serial.print(firstSensor, DEC);
Serial.print(0, BYTE);

delay (50);
}

Here is the action script code taken from that site mentioned above:

createSocket ();

function createSocket () {
_root.createTextField("inputlabel",4,50,100,50,20);
inputlabel.text = "Input:";
_root.createTextField("outputlabel",5,50,300,50,20);
Outputlabel.text = "Output:";
_root.createTextField("inputer",3,100,100,200,20);
_root.createTextField("outputer",2,100,300,200,20);
outputer.type = "input";
outputer.border = true;
inputer.border = true;
serialServer = new XMLSocket ();
trace ("made it" + serialServer);
//127.0.0.1 is the same as "localhost" ie an alias to your local machine
//it is concievable to that you would want to connect from another machine and you would change this
serialServer.connect ("127.0.0.1", 9001);
serialServer.onConnect = function (success) {
trace ("connected " + success);
serialServer.send ("HOWDY FROM FLASH" + new Date().toString());
};
serialServer.onClose = function () {
trace ("closed");
};
serialServer.onData = function (data) {
//trace ("incoming" + data);
inputer.text = inputer.text + data;

mcpos = Math.round(data / 100 *2);
mc1.gotoAndStop(mcpos);
trace (mcpos);
};

}

Lastly i used this small java app to act as the go between.
It is called "Serial Server and can be found here: http://itp.nyu.edu/%7Edbo3/SerialServer/SerialServer.html

Here is the swf showing what it looks like:

Note for paul...

2008-04-24T18:41:00.000-07:00

Post your pictures of your shirt so far!

NPN puzzle peice solved....

2008-04-24T18:30:00.000-07:00

So my transistor saga continues and apparently it is an issue with the voltage. (http://www.mayothi.com/transistors.html)

It has to be high enough to the base to trigger a reaction.

I was only getting voltage less than 2 out of my NOR chip despite putting 5 volts into it and so it was a cascading problem.

The transistor works great as a switch when it has enough juice

So that is the next step, to see what is causing that voltage drop from the power supply through the IC.

Make sure it is grounded....!@##$$#

2008-04-24T17:36:00.000-07:00

So i answered one question as to why that I couldn't get my AND gate working recently. I had success on that first one before i fried its insides with soldering.

So my personal discovery was that I have to ground a pin to make it low, as well as send power to make it go high. It was the grounding that was messing me up.

So i have moved on to part two of my disco shirt which will hopefully be fully functional by next saturday: a transistor switch. So far it is allowing power to be sent regardless of the voltage coming into the base. I am even grounding it via a resistor, but that silly bill just wont budge.

I read on the datasheet that the voltage to the base of a NPN transitstor type has to be near zero in order to have the circuit "saturate" (I think i got that right). But so far no success

So after that...to soldering with a heat sink!

So rad....even if slow...i am moving forward :-)

Skittering little beastie....

2008-04-18T13:36:00.001-07:00

So i made a little electrical bug.

His engine is made from a little 3 volt vibrating motor. He has 2 front legs made out of beading wire. His back let is also made out of beading wire but is sturdier because i twisted it together. His power supply is from 2 peices of electrically condusive thread.

Initially i had the motor pointed stright back, but as physics show me that wasn't the way to configure it, so i put its motor to the side, and it works much better.

It reminds me of those little water bugs that skate on the surface.

This weekend's endevor is to harness some communication power with these motors via serial ports.

Disco shirt extravaganza....

2008-04-10T14:11:00.000-07:00

Made a shirt that has flex sensors in the arms. The more you flex your arms, the more the leds light up on the sleeves (via a quad cumulative circuit, with each threshold at a different angle) when both sleeves are flexed and their angles are acute, then it sends power to a component on the chest (through a AND gate to a transitor).

Here is the circuit diagram.

Here is the shirt

Here is the component to control the chest

Here is it working in the dark

Integrated circuit ...

2008-03-31T08:56:00.000-07:00

So my findings about 4 quad nand chip.

It was a bit confusing at first.

My list of faux-pas

I guess i didn't put power to the vcc at first and was wondering why with the 2 inputs that it didn't work.
when i did connect the power and the ground connections to the IC chip, i didn't use a resistor, i just connected it to ground which didn't allow for the reactions i was looking for. the electricity was going directly to ground and by-passing my circuit. When i disconnected the ground, all the juice moved through my led.
At one point windows turned off my connection to the Arduino board because grounding issues

I got it though. Now it is working.

Next i am wondering just out of curiosity if it would be possible to invert the signal for the NAND gate, or is it just easier to use an AND gate.

Pictures as promised....

2008-03-30T07:57:00.000-07:00

Hi guys,
here is the picture, as promised, of my 555 timer in action
- Paul

Accelerometer problems....

2008-03-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

So I am proceding with this project as planned, but i am a little worried why the 3 axis aren't more accurate....

So on the arduino side of things everthing works well, every reading of the x,y, or z axis come through everytime but when i am using processing to collect the data via the serial port it is becoming highly inconsistant.

My read on this is that the data is there, but perhaps there is something funny while it is sending on the serial port.

On the up side though, i did stumble across a rich blog about DIY stuff with arduino at http://todbot.com/blog/

Here are my codes so far:

int stageWidth = 200;
int stageHeight = 200;
String val;

import processing.serial.*;

Serial port; // Create object from Serial class
int x, y, z; // Data received from the serial port
String[] result;

void setup()
{

size(stageWidth + 10, stageHeight + 1);
frameRate(60);
port = new Serial(this, "COM5", 9600); //PORT NEEDS TO BE BELOW THE APPLET call
x = 1; //initialize inputs
y = 1;
z = 1;
background(255); // Set background to white
}

void draw()
{
System.out.println(port.readString());
if (0 < port.available()) { // If data is available,
val = port.readString(); // read it and store it in val
result = val.split(",");
//System.out.println("x: " +result[0] );

try{
x = Integer.parseInt(result[0]);
if( x < 1 ){ x = 1;}

}
catch (Exception exp){
//System.out.println("Exception reading X: " + exp);

}
try{
y = Integer.parseInt(result[1]);
if( y < 1 ) {y = 1;}
}
catch (Exception exp){
//System.out.println("Exception reading Y: " + exp);
}
try{
z = Integer.parseInt(result[2]);
if( z < 1 ){ z = 1;}
}
catch (Exception exp){
//System.out.println("Exception reading Z: " + exp);
}

}

//rect(0, (stageHeight * .2), (stageWidth /x), (stageHeight / 8)); // draw x input
rect(0, (stageHeight * .4), (stageWidth /y),(stageHeight / 8)); // draw y input
//rect(0, (stageHeight * .6), (stageWidth /z), (stageHeight / 8)); // draw z input

/*if (val == 0) { // If the serial value is 0,
fill(0); // set fill to black
}
else { // If the serial value is not 0,
fill(204); // set fill to light gray
}*/

}

/*

// Wiring / Arduino Code
// Code for sensing a switch status and writing the value to the serial port.

int switchPin = 4; // Switch connected to pin 4

void setup() {
pinMode(switchPin, INPUT); // Set pin 0 as an input
Serial.begin(9600); // Start serial communication at 9600 bps
}

void loop() {
if (digitalRead(switchPin) == HIGH) { // If switch is ON,
Serial.print(1, BYTE); // send 1 to Processing
} else { // If the switch is not ON,
Serial.print(0, BYTE); // send 0 to Processing
}
delay(100); // Wait 100 milliseconds
}

*/

And here is my Arduino Code:

void setup()
{
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop()
{
Serial.print(analogRead(0)); //x axis
Serial.print(", ");
Serial.print(analogRead(1)); //y axis
Serial.print(", ");
Serial.println(analogRead(2)); //z axis
}

Don't Panic !

2008-03-27T08:27:00.001-07:00

So i have to admit, i was overwhelmed.

Mostly its just that i haven't seen circuit diagrams before and wasn't sure how to use them. Stress level was a bit high. But no more! I completed a 555 led timer by just leaving it for a day and coming back to it when i was calmer.

For all of you'se guys that are into electronics i guess you won't relate to a newbie reaction like that

So when this was finally completed, i didn't calculate the blink rate, so at first i thought it didn't work as it was on for a long time. What i didn't realize is that it blinks really fast, it is off for .5 seconds and on for 3.

Here is my progress so far! (Pics to be posted later)

Digging into class structures.....

2008-03-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

Time to start digging:

here is the link to the Processing Docs: http://dev.processing.org/reference/everything/javadoc/index.html

So from what i am following so far, every sketch we make is using the extends the PApplet class. So it seems we might be able to just interact with it like we would with java.

javascript:void(0)
Publish Post

Accelerometers....

2008-03-23T12:07:00.001-07:00

So our new project is to work with accelerometers, and Processing to read in input off the board and display it visually.

So far Jeremiah and I are running into issues with Serial port clean-ups. We deploy our Arduino code to the board, then close the port via the Arduino interface, but then when we access the controller with our Processing code we are having problems with Garbage clean up.

When the code exits, there isn't an opportunity for us to close the Serial port. I was thinking that there would be an event like onClose that would be fired by Processing where we could do the clean up (Serial.close()) but so far we haven't found anything yet.

here is the arduino code we are working with:


int xPin = 1;
int yPin = 2;
int zPin = 3;

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode(xPin, INPUT);
  pinMode(yPin, INPUT);
  pinMode(zPin, INPUT);  
}

void loop()
{
  Serial.print(analogRead(xPin));
  Serial.print(", ");
  Serial.print(analogRead(yPin));
  Serial.print(", ");
  Serial.println(analogRead(zPin)); 
}

Blink !

2008-03-20T08:33:00.000-07:00

Oh hai guys, its me again.

This post is an addendum to the Blink project that i mentioned earlier: pictures, a diagram, and my code.

First my pics:

Next the diagram:Next, the code:

// Fading LED
// by Paul Walter
//

int value = 0; // variable to keep the actual value
int ledpinOne = 9; // light connected to digital pin 9
int ledpinTwo = 10; // light connected to digital pin 9
int ledpinThree = 11; // light connected to digital pin 9
int timePin = 0; // analog input that will control the timing
int brightPin = 1; // offset that will control what interval the light will adjusted.

double delayTime = 0;
double brightnessOffset = 0; //offset that will control what interval the light will adjusted.

void setup()
{
// nothing for setup
Serial.begin(9600); //make sure the serial port is open for sending messages back
}

void loop()
{

getMeasurements();
fade(ledpinOne);
getMeasurements();
fade(ledpinTwo);
getMeasurements();
fade(ledpinThree);

}

void fade(int aledPin)
{

//FADE IN
for(int counter = 0 ; counter <= delayTime; counter++) // fade in (from min to max) { value +=brightnessOffset; if(value > 254 )
{
value = 254; //make sure there isn't too much juice
}
analogWrite(aledPin, value); // sets the value (range from 0 to 255)
delay(delayTime); // wait to see the fx
}

// FADE OUT
for(int counter = delayTime; counter >=0; counter--) // fade out (from max to min)
{
value-=brightnessOffset;
if(value < value =" 0;" delaytime =" analogRead(timePin);" delaytime =" delayTime" brightnessoffset =" analogRead(brightPin);" brightnessoffset =" ((brightnessOffset">

Growing my ideas like a garden....

2008-03-18T18:59:00.000-07:00

I think its will be an important asset to start outlining personal motivations to facilitate my idea generation, because more naturally my ideas will be an effortless extension and exploration into me

Almost like riding the winds like a sailboat

also it gives me free license to get on my high horse and ride it around!

Greater suffering...

2008-03-18T17:30:00.000-07:00

I am not really sure what it says about me as an individual, but lately I have been fascinated games involving a certain about of pain.

Lately it occurred to me that a game based on Russian Roulette, whereby the participants take part in a game of chance that result in electric shock to one of the participants would be hilarious to implement. Riffing off of another discussion there was another idea of an electrified paper, rock, scissors the same lines which also was appealing.

I guess I am fascinated by the idea of shared experience through ordeal. Sort of like the Greek tragedy where everything is a catastrophe and at the end you feel a cathartic release because your life is not as bad as what you saw in the play.

There is something to be said of sharing and witnessing the experience of another that validates that person and can strengthen the empathy and bonds between.

Alternately experiences like this help us to have a robust sense of humor about and greater capacity for suffering. We are all dying, we are all imperfect. It is an arguable opinion but something horrible awaits us all before we finally die. It is important to combat the suffering of others with understanding and not to pity, as we will all soon be there.

When my time comes as it has for a few of my friends and family, i am planning to enjoy it. I am going to enjoy my last grating, screaming, shreds of life, and i am planning to throw folks out of the room who end up just being pitying stick-in-the-muds.

Lol, I have gone way off topic, but not a bad rambling post

New widget....

2008-03-18T17:23:00.000-07:00

So i made a new one.

It has 2 analog inputs which control the timing and "light strength" of of 3 leds that blink in sequence.

The "light strength" is actually an offset that the led uses when it is incrementing or decrementing the led's light level.

2008-03-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

glenwood electronics

jay st. exit on 490

Widgets so far....

2008-03-14T07:28:00.000-07:00

I am using the Arduino open source microcontroller (www.arduino.cc/en)

Last night i was following Arduino tutorial and now i have configured the microcontroller to tell me what the analog input value of a light sensor. A nice first step.

This will be quite useful for growing my master project ideas

Physical Computing!

2008-03-12T14:22:00.000-07:00

I am so curious.

So intrigued.

I guess i just figured that electronics always needed to be serious; that the realm of art and personal whim just weren't compatible with computers and electronics (begining to learn).

It seems such an attractive foot in the door for learning more about electronics in the future.

But enough about the future, here is what i have done now: bought a Arduino microcontroller, a A/B usb cable, a pretty rad book...hrmm, oh yes, i have also bought a breadboard (soderless)

Things that i still need to do: write up my independent study proposal for the class as i am a grad taking an undergrad seminar.

I think that covers it and makes for a decent first post.

I go!