PURPOSE:

Window Vision is a reactive sculpture that serves to highlight the changes in the outside environment by gradually shifting between two components depending on varying levels of light and dark.

OBSERVATIONS:

To have called my apt in Manhattan small would have been an exaggeration.  From my tiny room, you could hardly tell that I was living in the midst of a huge bustling metropolis and to that respect, it made me appreciate the architectural form of the window to an even greater extent.  The one window in my room faced a mere brick wall and the light that came in was so meager that I could hardly tell whether it was two in the morning or two in the afternoon.

Therefore I wanted to create something that would be a reminder of the changing levels of day to night and using the window as the fulcrum through which to implement these ideas.

It is a commentary on our perception of the outside environment.  On the one hand, Window Vision emphasizes the architectural nature of the human need to have an interaction with the outside world and the other is neurological. The piece reflects the way that our vision physically sees the world namely through the cellular structures “cones and rods” that reside in our retina.  Cones generally allow us to see objects and color during the daytime, and rods take over during moments of darkness.  In order to express this dichotomy of vision in terms of light and dark, I created two interfaces: solid for day and transparent for night to reflect the way that our own eyes are constantly shifting to adjust for varying light levels.

INSPIRATION:

The idea of a blind affected by light was very much inspired by Rachel Wingfield from RCA, and her research group Loop.Ph for the reactive blind Digital Dawn, which was conceptually based on the idea of photosynthesis.  Digital Dawn explores how changing light levels within a space can have a profound and physiological impact on our sense of well being.

PROCESS:

Using my sculpture piece to react to varying levels of light using a photocell was fairly easy but achieving the right mechanics ended up being the real challenge. The piece is mechanized through a series of pulleys and a stepper motor that would create enough torque to lift up the first structure similar to a window blind. I ended running out of time to test everything once it was constructed.  The construction alone definitely took the better part of a week to put it all together.  Thanks to some friends for helping me fold my pieces! In retrospect, I might have compromised a bit on the piece itself and the construction in order to better test the mechanics.

having to experiment with different types of “rails” in the form of regular wire, invisible wire, string and finally the winning combination of fishing line to get the structure strung up correctly and properly working.

inspiration ideas for the transparent structure: playing with things that look out of focus

in the end i used this halftone image of tree branches to give the impression of someone looking out their window.

from left to right: testing various motors, gears, and power supplies.

the stepper motor required a circuit using a dual h-bridge and two transistors wired in such a way that i could control the stepper motor using two wires instead of four.  tom igoe has a good tutorial for setting up stepper motors and programming Arduino to run the motor back and forth.

however i ended up running into one major issue: more power!  Seeing that my motor ran on a peak voltage of 24V, I was only giving it 5V through my Arduino at the time.  However once I added an external power supply using both the transformer wall plugs and the variable DC power supply, the motor would no longer run properly and either not turn on at all, stall or repeatedly beep.  I had several people take a look at the setup and circuit to no avail.  I ended up borrowing Adam Lassy’s stepper motor driver in order to guide the stepper motor through the steps in the correct sequence and from there I could add on a higher voltage and amperage.  Unfortunately, that still was not enough power to drive the motor to pull the pieces all the way up and stalled about a third of the way.

Keling stepper motor driver

problem solving

Window Vision Take 1 from Angela Chen on Vimeo.
FUTURE:

As the piece is selected to be shown in the Winter Show this year, I am aiming to improve the mechanics of the piece by adding a stronger, more powerful stepper motor and adding larger pulleys in order to add more torque.  Hopefully the combination of these two will provide the much needed boost in order to get Window Vision off of the ground!

Much of this project has been a lesson in limitations and learning to accomplish something given the time allotted and the resources i have.

at first i was thinking of going in the direction that i had previously been foraying upon: namely working with felt and weave approach.

but as i started to explore materials, the more i became convinced that it needed to have a more rigid structure but something that was still light enough that could be moved by a small motor.  I started researching a lot of examples of paper architecture but they were all too static to be formed into a unit that could fold up and down like a blind.  eventually i continued to experiment until i formed a modular structure that is formed from four pieces of square paper and are folded incrementally until they look like the piece below which are than sewn together into strips.

next, i needed to build a frame with which to attach the blind and motors.

yikes. looks like i’ve got a lot of folding to do if i want to fill up that frame!  to the right side of the picture is my stepper motor.

i realized that unless i wanted to have some big ugly armature sticking out of my servo motors in order to pull up the blind all the way up the length of the frame, i needed a motor that could turn more than 180 degrees as well as have the ability to know where it was in the turn (hence why i forewent the DC motor).  The stepper motor also happens to have a stronger torque than both the DC and servo.  The only catch is however the stepper motor seems to have a more complicated circuit than either of the other motors.  Looks like I’ll be getting friendly with an H Bridge this week!  Soon i’m sure I’ll be dreaming of steppers and blinds in no time.

I am working towards creating a piece called Window Vision, which will act as a window covering that  highlights the changes in the outside environment by shifting its components in response to light and dark.

Previous weeks I had been struggling with creating something that would effectively work in a modular pattern as the basis of my structure.

from there, I started looking at structural patterns in nature and seeing the similarities.

but what if i flipped it? instead of thinking of mobilizing solid pieces of the pattern, what about the joint structure in between?

however this also catapulted me on a track to start considering weaving techniques as a structure.  i began looking to the work of sheila hicks, annie albers and gunta stolzl as inspiration.

gunta stolzl

annie albers

in conjunction to exploring the visual concept of the piece, i was also examining the inherent properties of vision and light.  the “bandwidth of consciousness” article reminded me of how our eyes take in so much information but yet how little our consciousness registers.   from here i stepped into the world of neuroscience to form a link between the piece as a reflection on how we as humans will perceive this “window to the outside world” as well as the mechanics behind our vision.

Much of this is enabled through the structural properties of your retina which is the part of your eye that responds to light.   within the retina there are two photoreceptor cell types: rods and cones.  rods are the cells that are the most sensitive to changes in light and dark, shape and movement and only have one light-sensitive pigment.  however because of this, they are not extremely sensitive to color.  in a dim environment however, we mainly use our rods to see (quickly moving from a light to dark area however usually takes our rods 7-10 min. to take over).  cones however, work only in bright light, and are sensitive to one of three colors (RGB).  these cones translate signals to our brain which than perceives it as a color. incidentally, color blindness occurs when the retina is lacking in cones or are irregular.

the challenge now of course is to translate all of this information and to funnel it into a piece that adequately addresses a cellular/modular structural pattern, something that incorporates sensitivity to changes in light, and differentiating functions in terms of light and color.

Photocells will sense the changing light levels of the area outside your window and initialize the servo motors mounted to the frame which are connected to the “cones” that will activate and push the “rods” aside with increasing amounts of light.

iterations

for my pcomp final i was interested in building something that was more architectural in nature.   i’ve always been interested in layering textures and patterns in multiple ways to create something else entirely whether it be structural or more graphic in nature.  in contrast, the process of subtraction rather than multiplication is the process of removal from the existing to create new relationships.  within this dichotomy i hope to discover something new.

been thinking about modular patterns found in real life.

lately, i’ve been contemplating ideas of replication, copies, doppelgangers, iterations, clones, etc. as a possible starting point for my final project in ICM.  i’m currently looking into exploring this as both a physical and visual interface, having an individual act as the subject for the piece.

the main premise behind this piece so far is to have a person’s shadow projected onto a wall or the floor and be frozen in a moment in a time.  the shadow, which shares a certain set of characteristics with the original, is also its on entity, but in nature is still dependent on the original.  so, what if the shadow was imbued with its own set of individual properties? giving birth to your own shadow in a sense through a process of multiplication (perhaps mitosis) and becoming something else entirely.

an example of shadow manipulation

another example of shadow manipulation

there could be several ideas for pushing this concept further:

(1) manipulate people’s shadows into different ways that artists and designers have viewed objects in real life.  cubism, modernism, bauhaus, etc. type filters

(2) placing the shadows in different architectural type situations, on the sides of windows, walking on ceilings upside down

(3) placing the shadow in immediate hyper-tensioned situations that the viewer is currently not in, movie scenes, dinner party scenes, etc.

(4) imbuing the shadow with a set of physical characteristics not shared by the owner-  making your shadow fatter, shorter, taller, bigger feet, wide hips, etc.

(5) having your shadow multiply (clones) and forming patterns or form to become another object, pattern, etc.

INITIAL OBSERVATIONS:

the midterm for my physical computing assignment ended up manifesting itself through several different iterations.  i initially chose an idea that revolved around wearable technology because i wanted to learn how to integrate traditionally “hard” circuits and components into something soft.

having a background that included jewelry design and fashion, i knew i also wanted to make the object to have the ability to stand on its own.

traditional uses of jewelry have ranged from:
1. a means of personal expression
2. mementos of an important friend or family member–lockets, family heirlooms
3. symbols of relationships–  engagement rings, friendship bracelets
4. cultural and religious purposes — rosary beads, crosses, etc.

and traditionally jewelry has been made from precious materials, metals, gemstones, etc.  mainly because craftsmen were limited in the availablity of materials.  however, starting with the introduction of plastics, glass, and various other material composites, designers began to bridge and break the boundaries of what was considered jewelry.  my hope would be that this piece would be something that would be able to also bridge several of these ideas as well.  something that would emphasize the wearer and the wearer’s interactions with others and something that would use the materials now available to us (in this case technology).

PROTOTYPING

Our first initial concept for the piece was that in consideration that much of the principle behind having an accessory is to enhance our appearance to the outside world, we aim instead, to have the outside environment complete our wearable object

our goal is:
to create an object that will only be affected until the wearer has interactions (whether it be specifically people or the environmental surroundings)

possible applications are:
- ear muffs
- tshirt
- necklace
- bracelet

methods for achieving this are:
- force sensors
- pressure sensors
- light sensors
- vibration sensor
- sound sensor (programming to recognize the human voice frequency)

possible outputs are:
- changes color
- changes shape
- moves (reacts)
- makes sounds

In the end, we chose to use sound as the means for which to demonstrate when our user would be having an interaction with someone else. unfortunately however, i don’t think we quite realized how much of an investment learning how to build a microphone and op-amp circuit would be.  but we were committed to the task and kept going with the help of a few people and mr. oscilloscope!

some of the initial problems we encountered was the amplification of our microphone signal.  the microphone signal itself was not strong enough so we needed to use an op-amp with a line signal of roughly -1 and 1 volts to get us anywhere at all.  however, sound being an AC signal and having an oscillating wave meant that we weren’t getting half the readings that we wanted.  in which case, we learned about the full-wave bridge rectifier using four diodes and a capacitor to help flip the bottom half of our AC waves into DC and the capacitor to smooth it out.

some other new issues that we encountered were learning how to take our circuit off the breadboard and on to something more portable and something more compact.  we at first began soldering our components onto small perf boards but soon realized that we would be needing something even more flexible which is when we started to experiment with using conductive thread.  we also attempted to use a lilypad arduino but unfortunately realized that we were missing the lilypad’s usb link!  but i hope to use it sometime in the near future to test its possibilities.

MOVING ON TO THE FINAL PRODUCT:

meanwhile, i was experimenting with various fabrics and materials to use for our piece to get the right look and feel for what we wanted.  however knowing that we wanted to use light as our output, i strove to find materials that would be somewhat translucent and transparent in order to display our led lights adequately.  as a design intention however, i knew that i wanted to contrast both the organic quality of our materials with the inorganic nature of technology but also at the same time to embrace the products of technology in a way that wasn’t cohesive.

we also couldn’t resolve the recurring problem of the microphone not picking up the sound of our voice or near voices versus noise in general.  this led us to change our initial idea of a human voice as the sign of interaction to the idea that an intimate interaction can be one that is not necessarily between just two people.  thus the new concept became…

…as we find that an increasing number of our interactions with people become non-personal through the use of email, telephones, IM, etc.  the moments of standing close to someone and whispering something in their ear as an act of intimacy and closeness between two people become fewer and far between.  in light of this, we strove to create an object that would display that act of intimacy between two people, encouraging a more physical means of communication and in effect, publicly celebrating it and making it an interaction of many between the viewers, the wearer, and the person with whom the wearer is interacting.

from there, the whole thing came together more easily.  we hid the microphone in two head pieces that would be placed near the ear, namely a pair of earrings that would blend into one necklace and a headband for the other necklace.

FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS:

we obviously still need to figure out what happened to our objects on the day of our presentation.  but we are determined to have a working piece for next week’s class. in the meantime, some hopes that i have for the future of our project would be that we would be able to effectively make it portable (ie. small batteries, small microchip instead of the arduino, and a better means of making the connection in our pieces).

our powerpoint presentation.

the first part of this week in pcomp was the transistor lab.  i hooked up everything and than supplied an external power source using my DC adaptor to supply to my DC motor.  however.  i think i must have wired something wrong because although it did work at one point, the next time i plugged in my arduino, it stopped responding and the software said that the programmer has stopped responding and the L LED light no longer lights up!  ah!

In this lab, we are further exploring serial communication by using multiple sensors as opposed to just one from the previous week.  The initial part of the lab was simply setting up our breadboard with two sensors.  In this case, I am using a force sensor and a potentiometer for my analog in and a switch for my digital.  The reading of my first sensor (the potentiometer) was successful as I received values from 0 to 1023. 

and than afterwards told Arduino to read me numbers with various types of data formats:

moving on…using the punctuation method to separate our sensor data:

and using the handshake/call-and-response method:

to bring it into processing.  i had to adjust the mapping values in processing in order to correctly get a range of my potentiometer and force sensor values.  i also had some problems with the background.  i couldn’t see my ellipse because of the background (bg color). 

this week’s lab has been about exploring serial communication, specifically between a variable resistor (in this case the potentiometer) and the computer.

first, i programmed the arduino to read the values coming in from the potentiometer which actually gave me the data in BYTES causing the data to come out looking funky like this.

second, i tried to open up a serial port using terminal on Mac OS X but for some reason it kept returning a value that said “permission denied”.

finally, i programmed processing to read and write using the computer’s serial ports.

and used the x-position on the graph to visually graph the potentiometer’s values.

this week we are learning how to control a servo motor using analog input.  the servo motor is a great little tool for doing all sorts of things and i’m sure the possibilites are endless. nevertheless, following through the basic steps is essential and I was pretty successful in terms of wiring up the breadboard and our potentiometer for the first part of the assignment.

next i decided to take it a little further by using a photocell to control the movements of the servo motor and to take that idea of hand movements and apply it to shadow puppetry.  so far the servo’s motions are a bit too jerky i think for this exercise but i still do believe that it is a nice take on the idea of how a different sort of hand motion can control a puppet. I made a little video below showing the puppet in action. I didn’t have any cloth on hand though so next time I think it would be fun to see what it would look like behind a screen. i was also initially imagining a whole stage set-up with several puppets controlled by several different servo motors…may be some hanging and going up and down or somehow moving across the stage. the music in the video is bonnie “prince” billy, the world’s greatest.

Servo Shadow Puppet from Angela Chen on Vimeo.