Category Archives: Assignments

Week 1 – Lisa Ho

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This is an Interactive Light Painting that was done by Jie Qi which when you blow on the white puffs, the seeds will grow and generate into new flowers. This is done by using LEDs, microcontrollers, and copper tape. I love how this project seems so clean and beautiful but requires such complexity into the circuits behinds the painting. And I also wonder what they used to sense the users’ breaths to trigger the seed’s growth. I’m intrigued by how you can make a simple painting like this and change it to a painting with this many dimensions. It becomes a fun piece to interact with!

Detailed Project Details can be found on her blog here.

Week 1 – Neil V. Techapanichgul

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In this video, they used painting as an interface to play a music. This is fascinating because you can now have more sense to play with. Normally, we just use one sense to perceive. For Example, an eye to watch a painting. I’m really want to try to use as many senses we have in future projects to enhance interaction experience. If we can use visions, sounds, and scents, our experience with any interaction will increase and more memorable than the other medium.

You can narrate your story through painting and sounds which I love to experiment with.

Project By sab

Week 2 – Dario Narvaez

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For the activity of this week I picked the famous phrase by -Doc- Dr. Emmett Brown from the Back to the Future movie: “If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour… you’re gonna see some serious shit”. I used the LEDs to give the effect of flame coming out of the tires and to create the back light from the speedometer.

I wanted to explore different materials to efficiently diffuse light. I tried painted over the material to add or change the color of the light coming from the LED, and also to obstruct light to represent symbols and numbers( in the case of the 88 speedometer), I took a milky/translucent paper to create a soft light and I also painted on top with black sharpie so the light could be visible only in the spaces I didn’t paint on.

I also experimented painting the cooper tape in black, the tape maintains its conductive properties after it is painted with markers. I wanted to do this to integrate the circuits into the composition of the illustration.

List of Components:

  • Cooper Tape
  • x1 RED LED
  • x2 Yellow LEDs
  • x 3V CR2032 type battery

How it works:

The LEDs are assembled in parallel using cooper tape. I had some issues with keeping the continuity in one portion of the circuit, so I had to use a wire instead.

Process:

 

Week 3 + 4 Assignment

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Below is your assignment that is due 9/27. Remember: there is no class next week. Please make sure to bring your soldering iron to the 9/27 class.

PART 1: Computational Craft Swatch Exchange

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~MFADT style ~

The exchange wishes to emphasize the importance of physicality and quality workmanship in an increasingly digital world.

~ e-Textile Swatch Exchange

A swatch is a microcosm: a small insight into a much bigger picture. It is the tip of the ice-burg, and it holds a world of potential inside. In creating a new swatch we are simultaneously cataloging knowledge and developing skills.

~ Definition from Swatch Exchange participant Becca Rose

A) Create a swatch. Design a switch or a sensor. You can use any materials you like. Document it on the blog using the same format as the post you made in class:

  • Title. Give it a name
  • Description. What does this swatch do? How does it work?
  • Materials. What materials are used? (cardstock, copper tape, conductive yarn, LEDs, etc)
  • Techniques. How was this swatch constructed? (e.g. folding, sewing, knitting, soldering, etc)
  • References. Where have you seen it before? What inspired you?

D) Make three more identical ones. You will give these to three classmates next class. (You will have 4 total swatches). They do not have to look exactly the same – you can play with color and aesthetic properties.

PART 2: Learn a New Craft 

Before next class, I would like you to try learning a new craft. That’s it. NO electronics. Make a swatch (small example) that comes out of your learning. This could include any of the following:

  • sewing (by hand or on the machine)
  • embroidery
  • knitting
  • crocheting
  • draping
  • paper engineering
  • woodworking
  • silkscreening
  • surface design / fabric printing
  • etc, etc, etc

Here are some tutorials from last year as inspiration (also, this was a much longer project last year – you do NOT need to go into this depth). There are also a TON of tutorials if you hit the Googles.

Next, create a post with an image of your swatch and reflect on the following questions.
After doing all of the above, write a blog post that answers the questions below. It doesn’t have to be long, but I would like you to spend a good amount of time reflecting on these:

  • How do you identify / classify your practice? Choose as many as you would like from the following and feel free to add to it. Briefly explain why you chose them.
    • storyteller
    • maker
    • engineer
    • coder
    • designer
    • artist
    • learner
    • hacker
    • research
    • educator
    • gamer
    • craftsperson
    • [other?]
  • What is your favorite tool and why? Yes, again ? (I’m going to put one restriction on this – you’re not allowed to say computer ?
  • Reflect on your experience trying out a new craft. Some questions you could address: What did you like about the process? What was frustrating? What insight did you gain? What advice would you give to someone?

Week 2 Homework – Neil V. Techapanichgul

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Smile Envelope

In Action

Process

 

Description

I always like the quote about the moment when you missing someone.

“Your words warmed my heart” – Unknown

At some point in our life, there is sometimes to get lonely and you are not expecting anything else except a mail from your loved one. My inspiration is when you received a mail from your loved one such as your family members, your boyfriend or girlfriend, you tend to be happy and get warmer.

Materials used

1 x Led Light

1 x 3v Battery

1 x Copper Tape

Challenges

It is hard to make a spring that blocks the circuit. I’m trying to use a letter to block the copper tape and it kind of works. I want to know a better way to use this in the future.

Week 2 – Anna Garbier

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Crafting a Path, inspired by the last stanza of Osso Buco by Billy Collins:

In a while, one of us will go up to bed
and the other will follow.
Then we will slip below the surface of the night
into miles of water, drifting down and down
to the dark, soundless bottom
until the weight of dreams pulls us lower still,
below the shale and layered rock,
beneath the strata of hunger and pleasure,
into the broken bones of the earth itself,
into the marrow of the only place we know.

 

 

 

 

Week 2 Assignment – Zhenyuan Shi

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For this assignment, I made the illustration based on the quote “They found out that the small fish in the pound, will swim to the moon with a smile on their face.” in Jimmy Liao’s book When the Moon Forgot.

I used conductive ink to build the circuit, and I used SMD LEDs to create the shiny eyes of the fish. Then I painted the black conductive ink circuit with yellow paint to create the glow of the moon.

 

 

Alice in the Wonderland – Week 2 – Carla Molins

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I’ve always loved Alice and the microworlds in which reality and scale always are reversed!

At first, I tried cutting curves but it didn’t work as expected, so I decided to think of other options. I’ve never used copper tape before and I wanted to try different arrangements. I wanted the lines to come from the bottle as if they were tears.

I created a bigger switch to be able to play around with the thinner connections and being able to blink those LED as if they were dropping.

I enjoyed working with this material, but I had the sense that it needs some practice to make really clean and polished cuts.

 

 

Week 2 Assignment – I Sound My Barbaric YAWP!

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I chose to illustrate one of my favorite verses from Song of Myself by Walt Whitman. I’ve read this poem countless times. I felt this particular passage would work well with a loose looking style of writing using a simple marker. I wanted to accentuate the raw nature of the verse using simple tools. Above are a few of the practice sketches, beginning in pencil, and moving to marker once I felt like the proportion worked. I used the marker sketch to practice soldering. Below is the finished illustration.

 

Week2_Yixun

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Minotaur is a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man. It was kept in the Labyrinth in Crete, feeding on human flesh, until Theseus killed the Minotaur with the help of a princess. So in this piece, I use conductive tape to draw the shape of the Labyrinth. And the two yellow LEDs are the eyes of Minotaur. The red LED represents the torch in Theseus’s hands.