Physical Computing: Input Data

Module 1 Weekly Activity Template

Gabriela Gonzalez

Project 1

Module 1

Here, I’ll be documenting and reflecting on my weekly activities for Module 1 of Physical Computing, and how we are experimenting with circuits.

Activity 1

Testing out if Arduino works alongside with my computer and are compatible with one another. Creating a simple circuit just by using a basic code to make the LED light flash and connecting with two wires. Create a more complex, but still basic circuit using the same components but testing out resistors in between. Creating a circuit that uses more than one light that flashes. Create a circuit that not only involves a light but a button that triggers the light to go off and on.

Activity 2

We added the Arduino to the bottom of the board so that we could test out if we could calculate the humidity and degrees using an app by Protopime, and here we are just testing if the Arduino can connect properly to the computer and Protopime. Here, we are testing ProtoPie Connect to help us see the data from the Arduino and seeing the numbers go up or drop whenever it changes. Thank you for watching. Here we can finally see that after connecting everything and putting in the right code that the phone, Arduino and ProtoPie are working along together to show the degrees and humidity rate. Testing another activity that was made on Protopie where when two circuits, that then connected to one another, it will send a response that will appear on the screen, which in this case indicates a certain color will go off depending on what circuits are being connected to each other. In this photo, you can see exactly what is happening that when you select one of cords to specifically touch the circuit that's connected to the earth, it will trigger a response making a specific color go off. And you can see that we were testing that here.

Activity 3

When we first open up the code that was given to us and put it into our Arduino, which is calculating the degrees and temperature around us, this is what appears on the TouchDesign website when we first open it. It doesn't seem much at first, but it is quite interesting, which you can see in the next photo. In this photo, you can see the big orange circle in the middle, which helps to indicate how much the temperature has increased or decreased using the turning knob that is on the Arduino. You can also see it in the charts beside it. You'll see a specific number of what the temperature is. For our second trial with using TouchDesigner, we are implementing very specific structures and elements to help us get to a specific point, which we can then see later on in the photos. But this is how we started. Continuing with our second trial, we start adding more elements which involve a sphere to help us create the dynamics that we are trying to test out. In this last photo, as you can see, we've added a lot of different elements. But sadly, we were not able to complete the activity due to some tech issues. As well as for our specific code, I know that we are missing two elements at the top, which I was not sure if we needed to connect them to other elements, because as you can see in the photo, some elements have arrows, meaning that they are connected to one another to work together and help the system work as one. But sadly, due to tech issues, we did not finish the activity.

Research Activity

WGSN Consumer Trend Research

These are my findings using the website WGSN for my research activity, and heres what I found.

If you click on a very specific category, this is what you'll see. So they help categorize what you're seeing. I really enjoyed looking at the website. It was very informative but also very structured. For example, if you are wanting to look at a specific area and how they use UX and UI designs, they have certain categories. For example, like home tech or personal tech. I also really enjoyed that even though they gave us visual images of what's to come in the future and what has already been made, these statistics and data that they gave us was really helpful to see how the public and users interact and how much and if they enjoyed the interaction.

WGSN Personas Research

These are the personas that caught my attention and why.

This is The Privacy Keepers One of her beliefs is that users should be able to confide and trust within the companies that they are buying from, which I think is very important because that just shows the relationships that the company and team are wanting to give the best product that they can create to their users that use the technology. Those are The Conventionalists These partners are wanting to create more healthy technology, whether it helps you mentally and physically, for example, may help you remember when to take your medication for a user that has diabetes, or just to better your relationship with technology and not always feeling the need to constantly be on it but have a healthy relationship with it.Which I found really interesting, especially when reading everything about them and finding out certain products that they were working on. After creating the personas, I explored the website further and came across a page that really caught my attention. It was visually engaging and inspiring, and I felt confident that I could create something similar while adding my own unique touch to make it stand out and better support users based on my ideas.

HMI Research

My HMI research activity
With how might we's, it's very important to think about the who, where, what, why. Especially with designing, you need to know who your target audience is, and especially why are you creating, and why do you think this implementation into this object or creating a whole new object would be so revolutionizing. And I think brainstorming definitely helps to get ideas out of your head and onto pen and paper. How am I used? I have found very important especially once I knew how to properly use it. It became very helpful and I have even used it in other past assignments. And I think it just helps you to get a better grasp and understanding of whatever you are trying to make. While looking at the website, I tried thinking about how they might have used HowMightWease to help them create their products, and how they could possibly implemented them into their design process.

Project Path

My project path

After doing some research on what path or what exactly I wanted to do, I thought it was really interesting how some of these products have either been implemented in some way already in the public that I have even personally experienced myself, or they have just started to prototype it, or it's been around for a while already, which I find extremely interesting, especially looking at this website today. In this example, I just find it so interesting that something that you and some people use every single day of their lives can have a specific element added to it to either help your day or to make it interesting and fun. And here are just some more examples that I just thought were cool and interesting to implement onto objects that already exist. For example, cars, especially with how much cars have been advancing in technology.

Project 1 Concept

Project 1 Concept

This is what I consider doing in the path I have decided to take.

ut of all the research I have seen and looked through, this is what I have decided on. Just because I can see myself actually creating similar objects to this in real life that can help all people.Therefore, I have decided to go with the design path and the art.
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