Beautiful Stone,

I created a story around a piece of coal that a character wants to purchase.
When the character places the money on the scale once he has placed enough money one the scale and the green LED is lit he will have placed enough money to grab the coal.

I used a pressure sensor and set the range of pressure set for each led to light up.

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This week, we’ve decided to use one of the switches that Dylan made to executed the exercise. The nature of this switch allows it be to three buttons. What we’ve done is to match each button to each LED: first button turns on the white LED, second button turns on the red LED, and the last button turns on the blue LED. We used three if statements, one for each of the button, so that only  one LED can be turned on at a time.

Here is our video explanation.

1. Build a circuit with one constructed switch or sensor and 3 (or more) LEDs.
2. Use one of the following control structures to turn the LEDs on and off in sequence when the sensor or switch value changes: if, if/else, while()
3. Individually or in groups, film a short play or movie that explains what is happening to a 5 year old. If you work in a group, each member should post this to the blog. Individually, write a few sentences about what was fun and challenging about this exercise. HAVE FUN WITH THIS!!!
4. Bring in sketches and an idea for your midterm lamp project.

Inspiration…

eTextile Plays: How Would You Explain Electromagnetism to a 5 Year Old? from Liza Stark on Vimeo.

This week I decided to create three “meatball” soft switches for our Computational Craft class.  I used a combination of different conductive materials attached to alligator clips that run through the fleshy cloth down into a 3 volt battery power source.  When squeezed together an installed red led lights up.  Attached are four pictures of this week’s project.

-AJS

Computational Craft

One of my fondest memories as a child I was when my parents would send me to camp. I was a bit of a tomboy so it was usually me and the boys playing soccer in the field and skipping rocks over the lake. Sometimes, if we were lucky we would catch frogs along the lake and put them into peoples cabins.

For this project I made a pressure sensor out of lilly pads and made an origami frog.

At first I made a pressure sensor using conductive copper tape but wanted the lilly pad to be softer so instead I used a conductive fabric tape with velostat, and cotton fabric.

For this week I was inspired by the movie My Neighbor Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki, especially the bus that is in the shape of a cat (with a lot of legs).

I want to recreate the scene in which the cat is running on a wire between two electricity pole and his windows were lit up. Originally I wanted to create a 3D poles but the paper I chose to laser cut was too thick. I glued the pieces on a piece of artboard instead.

The copper tape was hidden under the laser-cut electricity pole and connects the 3V battery to the LED light inside the cat bus. See the video of how it works here: Video

For my project, I recalled a memory I have from my childhood. I took a trip with my mother just outside of Canton, Massachusetts and stayed at a bed & breakfast; there was a lovely garden in the backyard with a forest as its backdrop. At night, when we looked outside the window from our bedroom, the garden has be completely draped in darkness. Through the darkness we could hear the sounds of what seemed like hundreds of crickets chirping and frogs croaking. Drawn by the sounds, we looked outside and could see that the entire yard was sparkling with what must have been hundreds of lightning bugs! For me, it was a fantastical experience as a child.

First Step of my process was to create the assets for my scene. I decided to draw my creatures by hand with colored pencil instead of making them on the computer because I wanted them to have more of personal aesthetic.

Next I had to cut out each of my pieces. I wanted to put them on a darker background so that my elements would have a more striking contrast from the background.

Next I needed to plan out my circuitry and the mechanism for the switch that would short circuit the lights, turning them off.

I wanted to somehow incorporate the copper tape because I feel that it is aesthetically beautiful and that it is a shame to hide it completely. So my solution for this was to use it as a kind of branch or bush limb that one of my lightning bugs would be resting on.

Here is a short video of the project:

Growing up I loved reading Shel Sliverstein’ s poems.

My favorite poem is “The Poet Tree”.

Underneath the poet tree, Come and rest awhile with me,
And watch the way the word-web weaves Between the shady story leaves.
The branches of the poet tree Reach from the mountains to the sea.
So come and dream, or come and climb – Just don’t get hit by falling rhymes.

I wanted to highlight the leaves in tree and the little boy reading under it.
I used two LED’s in parallel and a 3V battery.

When seeing Jie Qi’s project in class, I were surprised by her work. The material that she choose is so simple and elegant.

I always want to make something with paper in different textures, but have the subtle feeling of each.

The following is a project I have done in my first semester, the 5-in-5 project, which I really like it, and still wants to continue to work on.

When I see the dandelion painting by Jie Qi, I am totally inspired by her work.

We have some similar in the project, such as the flower, paper, and painting. But Jie uses the Chinese calligraphy to represent her work really inspired me. Also, the way she uses the blow sensor to connect with the dandelion is super smart!

Start thinking if I can get some inks that can change the colors with temperature? Or if I can made these flowers in a garment? Or what if I can made these flower open and closed with sensor?

I feel excited to work in this class!

Elly(Chieh-li), Lin