So we were paired up with another classmate to do the pcomp midterm, so much for my plans to overlap my cooking with sound midterm with my pcomp midterm. C’est la vie. Anyway Serena is pretty cool and she is great at P5.js so that is going to be a huge benefit to me, since I am not.
We decided that we would make an abstract jellyfish to manipulate with a photo sensor for our project. Here’s a little sketch of what we are trying to create with a little pseudo code to describe the interaction
As a response to the challenge to consider how the user would interact with the jellyfish we are going to use a photosensor and put it in a clear acrylic enclosure. The user will be able to wave their hand over the box and interact with the jellyfish, without touching of course (they might get stung).
Here is what the illustrator file is going to look like.
There will be two of these laser cut from acrylic with the arduino and the breadboard sandwiched in between, using standoffs will provide the height necessary to put the boards in between.
While working on the serial side of things I was having problems with the sensor outputting data. I ended up figuring out it was my wiring on the board. I was wired to the rx and tx of the arduino, among other things, thanks Aaron.
UPDATE: As you can see in the video, there was a logistical problem that caused me to have to check out an arduino micro from the ER and use a larger breadboard (the only one I have left), my uno and small breadboard are tied up with my Cooking with Sound Midterm and Serena and I have different schedules which is making it difficult to meet in person. Not to worry though, we have been communicating by email and text to be able to stay in front of the midterm and on track with Serena who has been working diligently on the P5.js code for the jelly fish. I also needed to make a new illustrator file for the enclosure to accommodate the changes in accessories.
This will have to accommodate just the breadboard and a micro which will reside on the breadboard, so no worries.
Nothing left to do but cut the acrylic and add the breadboard to it. I will get to that tomorrow. Serena has gotten the arduino and the P5 sketch talking properly today and we will be done hopefully with about 24 hours to spare. Yay!
In the end the project was successful, the girl in the video testing it even said “Oh its a jellyfish!”
There were some aesthetic things that could have been straightened out, but over all I was pleased with the response we got from the class.