A Big Subject in a Big Semester

I believe today's presentation was a success. It was something of a rush trying to get everything done in time, however we still managed to get all of our presentation files ready, not to mention cobbling together a speech. It has been a subject of giant proportions, not just because of the added technical requirements of the Arduino. Designing for interaction and considering how it fits in a real-world context took a great deal of effort, though to be honest it has been both a pleasure and a challenge. 

Action!

We started today by shooting the remaining scenes for the movie, after which I got down to work editing and the girls worked variously on the report, object model and presentation boards. It has reached a point where everyone is simply taking on whichever jobs are required to finish the project. Fingers crossed it all gets done in good time!

**Update! The full video can be found here: Design Narrative

Everything's Coming Together...

Busy day today. Since I finished the programming last night, I've taken on the task of building the Solidworks model This was initially going to be a simple task, however it quickly got complicated when I realised how many splines and lofts - functions I'm not totally confident with - were required to build the model. In the end, I used a combination of top-down and bottom up assembly methods, and managed to make the belly light luminous in the renders, something I've never been able to do before. For the remainder of the day I worked with Sophie, who was writing the script for the scenario narrative. We finished the day by shooting some scenes for the movie. 

Accelerometer functioning!

Success! Today I managed to get the accelerometer to function. I started by downloading a code from http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ADXL3xx, and used this to run the accelerometer in the monitor screen. This gave me the readout values of the accelerometer, which I then patched  into Yasu's code for analogue sound manipulation so that the speaker plays a tone the increases or decreases in pitch according to the reading of the accelerometer. 

Circut and Programming Complete

Well, the circuitry is complete - or at least complete for now (I will come back and work on it if I have heaps of time later) We have: 

• Accelerometer. This is used as described earlier for the "toilet" function, it modifies the sound coming out of the speaker according to the frequency and how hard you shake the arduino
• Flex dependant resistor. This is used for the sleep function. When it is bent past a certain point, an LED activates for the night light
• Push Button. This is for the "eating" function. When the push button is pressed, a sound activates.

A video of this functioning can be found here: https://vimeo.com/53415563

Data recording abandoned

Based on Yasu's advice, we have abandoned the idea of including the data recording function as part of the behaviour model. Initially we had thought of somehow recording information form the monitor screen, however the reality proved significantly more complicated.

Components Acquired for Behaviour Model

Today we met with Yasu to gather both parts and advice to build the behaviour model for our product. Drawing on the interaction diagrams we have devised over the past week, we obtained a flex dependent resistor and an accelerometer. The flex dependant resistor will be used to activate the "sleep" mode, when it is bent over hopefully I will be able to program a light to be turned on, and perhaps the sleep noise/vibration to be activated. The accelerometer will be used to activate the "toilet" mode, making a noise that responds to the shaking of the device. The "eating" mode will use components from the previous task - a simple push-button tone should suffice.