Don’t wake up the angry firefly…

The plan for my Behavior Story took a detour when I underestimated how loud/strong the vibration from the mini vibe motor could be. I had initially planned on making a nice, soothing toy/object that created a gentle vibration and pulsing light when you put your hand on it. Instead what I got was an angry cricket/firefly that was irritated when you bothered it.

A photoresistor at the top of the jar detects when the user places his or her hand above it, causing the angry firefly inside to wake up (lighting an LED and powering a mini vibe motor in short pulses) until the user’s hand is removed.

Materials:

• 1x Adafruit Trinket Pro 5V (or any other microcontroller that fits in the container of your choice – in this case I was using a glass jar with a plastic lid and needed something compact)
• 1x Photocell/Photoresistor/LDR
• 1x 5mm LED (bright white)
• 1×1300 mAh LiPo Battery* (+battery “backpack” to connect it to microcontroller) *used 9v battery instead – bulkier, but still works
• 1x 100 ohm resistor (for LED)
• 1x 100k ohm resistor (for LDR/photocell)
• Hookup wire/conductive thread + solder + soldering iron etc.

for the vibe motor circuit:

• 1x NPN Transistor
• 1x 1k ohm resistor
• 1x 1N4001 Diode
• 1x capacitor
• 1x 33 ohm resistor
• 1x mini vibe motor

The project is my first attempt at using a Trinket microcontroller with soldered connections – something I tried in order to keep the components as compact as possible. However, the project still required a 9v battery to work effectively (the vibe motor requires a decent amount of power), making it bulkier than intended.

Fritzing Diagram / Breadboard Circuit:

for Arduino code, see below:

The Code:

/*
Jane McDonough
Computational Craft, Fall 2015
October 13, 2015

Behavior Story: Cuddling/Comforting
Create a circuit showing a behavior or action
Tell a story about the object: what is it feeling?
How is this feeling displayed through code?

Circuit uses: Trinket Pro 5V, photoresistor, mini vibe
motor, 5mm LED, and is powered with a 9V battery

*/

int sensorPin = A0; // LDR on analog pin A0
int ledPin = 10; // LED on digital pin 10 (PWM)
int motorPin = 13; // mini vibe motor on digital pin 13

int sensorValue = 0; // stores sensor reading value
int val; //store mapped sensor reading value

int brightness = 0; // for pulse: how bright the LED is
int fadeAmount = 5; // for pulse: points to fade the LED by
void setup() {

pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(sensorPin, INPUT);
pinMode(motorPin, OUTPUT);

// Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {

sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);
val = map(sensorValue, 550,900,255, 0);
analogWrite(ledPin, val);

if (val>200){

analogWrite(ledPin, brightness);
brightness = brightness + fadeAmount;
if (brightness == 0 || brightness == 255) {
fadeAmount = -fadeAmount ;

digitalWrite(motorPin, HIGH);
delay(1000);
digitalWrite(motorPin, LOW);
delay(1000);

}
delay(30);
}else{
analogWrite(ledPin, val);
}

// Serial.println(sensorValue);
// Serial.println(val);

}

Cave Paintings

Maybe ancient civilizations are more advanced than we think they are…

If you ever enter one of these caves.

Just hold the painting’s hands,

Unexpected things may happen…

On his first day of  fifth grade, Bob, decided that he was finally going to say hello to his kindergarten crush, Beca. The only problem was that Bob was so shy he could never muster the courage to actually speak to Beca. So, Bob did what Bob does best, and built a waving robot to do the talking for him.

Unfortunately, when he used it at school Tess, the girl sitting in front of Beca, thought the wave was meant for her. Tess walked over and  started talking to Bob….and never stopped. The two lived awkwardly ever after.

•  Mini Servo Motor
•  Potentiometer
•  Copper tape
•  Wires
•  Arduino

Simulating computer could also have emotion.

VIDEO

– pressure sensor
– LED light
– Arduino (programmed to fade)

I did a rough prototype of an experience to encourage the user to dig/look and discover what there is underneath the sand. The combination of touching the sand while also getting light feedback might encourage the use to keep on doing it while maybe relaxing them.

Behavior — BLUSHING

When someone gets close to him, he gets shy and blushes.

I used a photo resistor to sense people approaching.

Arduino, LED x 4, wires, copper tape, one pushbutton

There are a press sensor made by myself on the sole of this shoe, a LED and a LilyPad Arduino. When users step on it, it can trigger sounds through GarageBand.

Full project at,

http://www.dkaib.com/new-index/#/shoe/

Used conductive yarn to make a pom-pom and put that onto a bunny. I had trouble getting the tail to work as a DIY switch. Ultimately I resulted to poking the bunny with something conductive and attached to ground to get it to work.

Video: https://youtu.be/xmfR5t1KPE0