Experience
When I look at how I have worked in the past eight weeks, it is different than I normally do at CMD. At CMD you mainly do research on the internet, you create scenarios, you do interviews, you create an experience map and you use other methods. In the minor I do research by making and trying physical things. You think about the material you use and how you use it. In times like quarantine, the materials are scarce and you think about it more than usual.
In “Back to the Basics: Or Why Education Is Going Back to Making” I see more similarities within CMD than in the minor. Except for the fact that we have to think about designing for a contemporary context and understand how the materials work.
Think about what you are going to make and what you need. Write or sketch all your ideas and materials that you may want to use for that. Think about where your material comes from and whether you are doing well to work with it (what your contribution to the environment is, for example). Then choose an idea and continue with it.
What will your idea look like? Design it on paper or on your computer. Optionally make a prototype of paper. If you are going to work with equipment that needs a file, design it immediately.
Make everything as you have thought and makes sense to you. Fail it? Do not throw it away, keep it and try another way. There is also a lot of improvisation involved.
This week I've worked with Arduino again. I've learned how to work with a common cathode RGB LED, I've never done this before and it was easy to learn. In this weeks assignment I wanted a bigger challenge and I challenged myself to work with Processing. For me, Processing was another new world that opened up. When i had time left I've tried to make an audio visualizer in Processing, but that was a bit too much for me.
It was nice that I could make something in Processing that will fit in the serie of Loes. I've used the analog sensor I made from week 6 as an input and Processing as output. I did not consider how technical all this was and how much I learned about it in a short time.
For further application I want to see if it is possible to get Processing working in a website and to process that in my own website.
For this assignment i'm trying out a RGB LED. I've worked before with a Neopixel and RGB LED module, but not yet with a common cathode RGB LED.
I've looked on the internet for a tutorial which explains how to connect it and how to refer it in your Arduino code. I came across a tutorial that helped me a lot.
After everything set up i changed the code so it matched the pins on my NodeMCU. For each color pin you have to use a 220 ohm resistor.
And the result:
Now i want to try changing the RGB color by using a LDR light sensor. I haven't worked with a LDR for a few months now so I copied the code from a previous project where i used it. I connected the LDR with a 100k ohm resistor on the breadboard.
I combined the code from LDR and RGB LED so it will change color as soon as i hold my hand above the LDR so it gets darker.
In this assignment I'm going to make a virtual swatch with Processing and Arduino by using the analog sensor I've made in week 6.
Arduino
Processing
Breadboard
100K ohm resistor
NodeMCU
LDR
Analog sensor from week 6
7 cables to connect everything
At first I've looked through te examples from Processing for inspiration and came across this example I want to combine with Arduino.
By tweaking the values with my analog sensor i want to create more triangles so it will turn into a big circle, the same for the other way around.
Visually, I want it to look like it fits this series:
The Arduino code looks like this:
I can use this code for the LDR and for the analog sensor I've made because i only want to read the values. The value is also mapped to 0 - 255 instead of 0 - 1023. I uploaded this code to the NodeMCU.
Schematic:
For the first time to make sure it works i will use the LDR instead of the analog sensor I made.
For the code I've combined the example code with the code I used the first time in Processing. This was the trickiest part because i was not sure what to change. After a few hours i finally figuered out to make it work with the LDR and giving the right values so there will be more triangles or less.
The last thing in processing i needed to do was to make sure the visual will fit in the serie. It finally looked like this:
The final code in Processing:
First i tried it with a LDR and it worked.
Next i tried it with the analog sensor I've made for week 6 and i was very happy to see it working!
This was my first time using Processing.
Processing is a flexible software sketchbook and a language for learning how to code within the context of the visual arts. - processing.org
The coding language is similar to Arduino code.
To try to figure out Processing I followed the Arduino X Processing Tutorials that i found on DLO.
First i uploaded this Arduino code on my NodeMCU and used the LDR to receive data:
Then i pasted this code in Processing:
I was not sure what was about to happen when i would run this code. It turned out to be a circle that goes up as soon as the values change:
Through Zoom i learned about processing and how to work with images. Sander had made something with which you see the sun rise in an image and I also wanted to make something similar like that. I made a moon from the view of a satelite that rises above earth.
It is important to set the size the same as the image size so it wil fit as a background image otherwise you won't see it. I changed the code in processing and this was what happened: