In earlier assignments and documentation I mentioned that I was going to make an interactive installation in which energy would be generated by riding a bike or spinning a handle and after that you would get some sort of feedback on how much energy was generated. This plan was developed to be placed in an exhibition I was working on during my internship. However, due to unforseen circumstances, the framework exhibit was delayed. By the time I had to start working on my final project and I wasn't sure if or how it the plan for the generator fitted it in the exhibition. I couldn't wait any longer until this was all figured out, so I decided to do something else for my final project. You can find the new plan for my final project below, as the assignment for week 15.
propose a final project that integrates the range of units covered:projects can be separate or joint, but need to show individual mastery of all of the skills where possible, you should make rather than buy the parts of your project
- what will it do?
- who's done what beforehand?
- what materials and components will be required?
- where will they come from?
- how much will it cost?
- what parts and systems will be made?
- what processes will be used?
- what tasks need to be completed?
- what questions need to be answered?
- what is the schedule?
- how will it be evaluated?
For my final project I am going to make a wearable, modular light system, that responds to it's environment in a playful way. For the final project presentation it will be put on a jacket, that can be used during the night at a festival. I want to integrate color recognition: when you touch an object, the colors of the lights on the jacket will change to the color of that object. Individual modules can change brightness when somebody touching them.
It is going to be a modular system that is easy to expand, removed and transferred. In this way it can easily be used in other contexts, for example safety lights for running in the dark or interior design.
There have been color changing wearables before. A good example is the Cameleon jacket. However, I could not found out how they set up the color sensor.
There is an Adafruit set with a pre-fab color sensor available at their website: Adafruit set.
The societyofrobots.com has documented how to make a Color Sensor. I will use the same basic technique: blink a reg, green, and blue light and measure the reflection with a photo-transistor.
Color sensor - I'll make it myself with electronic components from Lab inventory
Electronic components - inventory
Polypropylene - Can be bought at art store Vlieger or Van Beek in Amsterdam.
Copper foil - available in Lab
Black Filament 3D printer - available in Lab
Elastic band, yarn - bring from home
About 40 Euros:
Color sensor - costs of electronic components plus a small piece of pcb material, (fr1, about € 2,-)
Electronic components -
The rest of the electronic components is not yet sure, but these is all stock components. For all 5 boards I together think the costs would be €10
Polypropylene - €17 for a large sheet, I'll use less
Copper foil - €3
Black Filament 3D printer - €1 (I need a really small amount)
Elastic band, yarn - € 2 euro
A module (shape and design yet to be determined) will be approximately 5 by 5 cm. When the rgb-LED is off, the module will show as opaque white, when the LED is on it will emit light. A module consists of a flexible circuit board, with an rgb-led and capacitive touch pads connected to it. There will be one master module that operates the communication to the rest of the modules. Communication will done by I2C, this uses two wires. I2C is capable send and read data from the separate modules. The modules will be attached to the jacket by buttons. These buttons will also act as wires for power and communication. There will be a power supply running on batteries.
The color recognition is going to be done by a separate module. This board would have a rgb-led and a photo-transistor. It blinks the led three times: red, green and blue. The photo-transistor measures the reflection from blue light, red light and green light. A red object will reflect the more red light, then the other colors. Calibration is done in the code.
Before the final project weeks start, check if everything is available in inventory and get the polypropylene at the store.
The first Final project week I want to:
The second Final project week I want to:
I think it would be a success final project if I can make at least a color sensor communicating with one or more rgb-modules made of folded polypropylene that can be worn with rgb-LEDs in it.