My final project proposal for Physical Computing at ITP: head(banger)phones – a personal musical device A set of headphones rigged with an accelerometer that detects the motion of the user’s head and converts that motion data into MIDI data via an Arduino microprocessor.  The MIDI then triggers percussion sounds in a software synth on the [...]

Liesje, Tim and I finished our midterm project for Physical Computing tonight.  Our original concept was the Voodoo Bear, but after managing to break a couple sensors and a vibration motor in the building process, we decided go with a slightly different concept.

In this week’s Physical Computing lab, we learned how to power a DC motor using a transistor. I wired up my Arduino and motor following the schematic in the lab documentation exactly: The connectors on the DC motor are extremely fragile.  I managed to break one off accidentally, so I had to borrow Tim’s motor.  [...]

I worked with Tim and Liesje yesterday on our Physical Computing midterm, the Voodoo Bear, which is a bit like Frankenstein’s monster, built from the shell of a Build-a-Bear and various wires, sensors and other components.  The bear will move in reaction to human actions on a connected Processing program or through triggering sensors built [...]

In this week’s lab, we learned about Serial Duplex and continued to learn more about how to get Arduino and Processing to talk to each other. In my spin on the lab, I hooked up 2 potentiometers through the Arduino to control the frequency and panning of a sine wave in Processing that is manifested [...]