Jose Alegria - Fab Academy

Interface and Application Programming

Assignment

wHAT iS THE ASSIGNMENT ABOUT?

Write an application that interfaces a user with an input and/or output device that you made

Group Assignment:

Compare as many tool options as possible

1^st Step. Electronics design

I am going to continue with the same board I used with the input assignment, it consisted of my electronics design board, made to be able to work with different peripherals using connection pins. For input devices, I used an ultrasonic sensor to analyze distance between an object and my sensor.

If you wish to see more information for this board designs, please follow the links below:

Electronics Design

Output Devices

Input Devices

2^nd Step. Processing

The software I am going to use to complete this assignment is called “Processing”. It is an open-source software made to allow future developers to get to know how to make interfaces between sensors and a computer.

The design is very similar to Arduino IDE in many concepts, including the way you should be programming. Here is a guide to a few important commands we need to know about:

- Setup (): Function called once when the program starts.

- Draw (): Function called after Setup () and executed continually until manually stopped.

- Size (x,y): Displays a window with a predefined size (x and y) measured in pixels.

For drawing, there are many other different commands, if you want to see them all and access to the description, uses and examples for each one, please follow the link:

https://processing.org/reference/

3^rd Step. Code and programming

I wanted to have a visual output that depended on the distance retrieved by the sensor, so I created a code where there will be three possible outcomes:

- Distance under 5 cm (Red light)

- Distance between 5 cm and 10 cm (yellow light)

- Distance over 10 cm (green light)

With these limits in mind I came up with a design, there should be a color square depending on the distance, and a written distance whenever we had a measure. This is the code that resulted after this process:

import processing.serial.*;

Serial myPort;

float sensorValue = 15;

void setup(){

size(640, 360);

noStroke();

background(255, 255, 255);

color red = color(255, 0, 0);

color yellow = color(255, 255, 0);

color green = color(0, 255, 0);

}

void draw() {

pushMatrix();

translate(80, 80);

if (sensorValue <= 3) {

fill(red);

rect(0, 0, 200, 200);

}

else {

if (sensorValue <= 10) {

fill(yellow);

rect(10, 10, 200, 200);

}

else {

fill(green);

rect(20, 20, 200, 200);

}

}

popMatrix();

translate(150, 0);

textSize(64);

println(sensorValue);

fill(0,0,0);// these are the colors inside

text(sensorValue + " " + "cm" , 220, height/2);

}

void serialEvent(Serial myPort) { // sketch read the serial data

String inString = myPort.readStringUntil('\n');

if (inString != null) {

inString = trim(inString);

float[] values = float(split(inString, ","));

if (values.length >=1) {

sensorValue = values[0]; //first value in the list

}

}

}

3^rd Step. Operation

These are the three outcomes that visually indicate the distance:

- Distance under 5 cm (Red light)

- Distance between 5 cm and 10 cm (yellow light)

- Distance over 10 cm (green light)

Conclussions

This is just one of the different tools we have to create an interface between our boards and what we want them to do and the user. Without having an actual output that satisfies the user, everything we program our boards to do is just part of an internal process that does not count as a finished work.

Original Files

1. Arduino code

2. Processing code

Nueval Checklist

- Linked to the group assignment page and reflected what you learned individually of the group assignment.

- Documented your process.

- Explained the UI that you made and how you did it.

- Outlined problems and how you fixed them.

- Included original code.

- Included a hero shot of your application running with your board.

2022