Weekly Assignments Final Project About me

Week 18 Applications and Implications

This week we were charged with the following assignments:

In addition, we were asked to complete the following:

In order to make use of my commute, I had used the following prompt in chatgpt:

I want you to ask me the following questions regarding my final project for fab academy and record my responses. Where appropriate, ask me follow up questions that might likely be asked of me- or to clarify my intent. You are to record what I say and then formulate my responses into answers to these questions, being careful NOT to change or amend my answers other than to clean up grammatical or errors or to clarify ambiguities. When clarifying ambiguities, you are to ask me -- not craft the clarification on your own. The intended outcome is an HTML formatted response to these questions that I can place on my fab academy page. What will it do? Who's done what beforehand? What sources will you use? What will you design? What materials and components will be used? Where will come from? How much will they cost? What parts and systems will be made? What processes will be used? What questions need to be answered? How will it be evaluated? Your project should incorporate 2D and 3D design, additive and subtractive fabrication processes, electronics design and production, embedded microcontroller design, interfacing, and programming, system integration and packaging Where possible, you should make rather than buy the parts of your project Projects can be separate or joint, but need to show individual mastery of the skills, and be independently operable

I then worked through and edited the transcript of what was provided- which was incomplete.


Final Project title (tentative): PXL

PXL: A Spatially Aware Interactive Light Exhibit

What will it do?

PXL is a spatially aware interactive light exhibit intended to engage, entertain, and create a sense of wonder. I will develop a single wall-mounted interactive exhibit that uses a time of flight sensor, 960 NeoPixels, and a mini MP3 player, along with the Jeff-Uino, which is based off of the ESP32C3 Xiao board. The project is designed to grab users’ attention and shape their behavior through responsive light-based interactions. As users walk by the exhibit, approach it, stand in front of it, or walk away, the exhibit responds through animated addressable NeoPixel lighting patterns.

Final project

The project is intended to signal to a passersby that it is interactive and to demonstrate how movement maps to visual output.

Neopixel strands

The animations are designed not only to react to movement, but also to encourage movement. For example, animations that move from the outer perimeter of the matrix toward the center are intended to encourage users to move closer to the exhibit.

The project was intended to be installed as a semi-permanent wall-mounted exhibit in the mezzanine exhibit space of the Design, Media, and Technology department at Lebanon Valley College. Intended audiences include students, faculty, staff, prospective students, parents, and employers visiting the space. The t-slot extrusion will not be installed until early August, however, so I have instead created a free-standing display.

display display

The 12" by 18" curved laser-cut acrylic slats project outward from the wall and form a concave interactive space with Neopixels mounted underneath.

Curved Laser Cut acrylic

The exhibit reacts to users as they walk by, approach, stand in front of it, or walk away. The concave form is a compromise derived from the original concept of creating an immersive geodesic dome. Due to space constraints at both home and school, a full domethat I had originally proposed was impractical as the footprint for such a project would be prohibitively large. The concave form is intended to evoke a similar sense of immersion while accommodating the space available for the installation.

Who's done what beforehand?

I have not encountered a project that closely resembles the final form and interaction model of PXL Several projects and artists helped shape the conceptual and technical direction of the work. I have worked through the fab academy pages, searching for neopixels, interactive art, and used Zotero to create a working bibliography.

My concept differs from these projects in both its form factor and interaction model. The acrylic slats act as a medium for the light emitted by the NeoPixels, while the interaction model relies on a time-of-flight sensor to categorize user movement and trigger corresponding animation functionss.

Ideally, the project is also intended to function as a platform that my students can later use to learn about interaction design, embedded programming for TOF sensors and neopixels/addressable LEDs, and the use of feedback systems to shape user behavior.

What sources will you use?

Sources used to create this project included Fab Academy documentation, hardware datasheets, NeoPixel documentation, ESP32C3 documentation, sensor documentation, embedded programming references, and examples of interactive installations and responsive environments. I had reviewed my zotero libraries for the fab academy, and created a bibliography of these lirbaries and documents that Ihave used or referred to.

What will you design?

The exhibit will contain a 16 × 56 NeoPixel matrix composed of approximately 4 meters of addressable LED strips mounted beneath edge-lit acrylic slats. I was heaviliy influenced by Nadieh's LED matrix in this project.

To create this project, I have designed and fabricated the following components and systems:

To demonstrate input/output device programming and embedded programming, I will create a software system running on the Jeffuino board that categorizes six interaction states (four definitely, two- rtl and ltr if there is time.:

  1. No one present
  2. User approaching
  3. User standing still in front of the exhibit
  4. User walking away
  5. walking right to left
  6. walking left TO right

Each interaction state will trigger a corresponding NeoPixel animation function. Sound functions using a DFPlayer Mini MP3 module may be added during a spiral if time permits.

What materials and components will be used?

I have used the following materials and components in building this project:

The acrylic slats are clear edge-lit acrylic elements mounted perpendicular to the plywood base using custom 3D printed holders.

Power usage is controlled through software brightness limitations and by using every fourth NeoPixel LED in order to reduce current draw and improve safety.

Where will they come from?

How much will they cost?

Individual component pricing and sourcing information are documented in the Bill of Materials section of my final project.

What parts and systems will be made?

I designed and produced as part of this projecct the following custom systems and fabricated components :

What processes will be used?

The project required significant iteration during development. For instance, I produced 11 versions of the slat holder design, 3 versions of the enclosure.

To categorize movement states, the VL53L5CX ToF interaction sensor (8×8 zones) uses a combination of active zone locations and distance values to determine movment. I used Codex to iteratively work through 19 versions of the sensing/animation embedded programming.

The acrylic slats are mounted perpendicular to the plywood base using 90 dual holders and 12 single holders. The NeoPixel strips are attached beneath the acrylic using double-sided tape.

What questions need to be answered?

One remaining technical concern involves power distribution and safely providing power to the NeoPixel system. Current mitigation strategies include software brightness limitations, use of every third LED, and inclusion of a 10A fuse.

Future improvements could include:

How will it be evaluated?

This project will be considered successful if users are drawn to interact with the exhibit in a way that creates enjoyment and draws attention to the use of interaction design and technology to shape behavior.

The project will also be successful if the ToF sensor can accurately categorize movement states most of the time and if the corresponding animation functions are enacted reliably.

A final measure of success is whether users understand how their movement directly shapes the visual output of the exhibit.

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