Very excitingly, today I made some major progress on my Flash development for my final year project.
Flash is reading the keypresses from my severely hacked keyboard, and responding to them with a colourTransform on the respective square of the grid.
All I need now is to add the sound from the pentatonic scale,
So my LED’s are finally all done! This calls for a celebration! I am so glad this part is over!
I stripped 356 20 cm wires, 1cm off each end. I then wrapped each wire around the leg of an LED, covered it with heatshrink, and sealed.
When each LED was wired and sealed, I joined their positive ends to a 3V watch battery, using a foam sticky pad. I then attached the sticky pad to the hardboard base of my grid. I also stuck the LED bulbs to the grid with a foam pad, to ensure they stayed in place.
The next step is to attach the other ends of the wire to foil sheets, and attach these sheets to the plastic. When the plastic is pressed, the foil will complete the circuit by providing a bridge between the negative LED wires and the battery. Once this is done, I can test that all 128 LED’s are lighting effectively, and giving my the instant positive feedback I require.
I have begun the design of my Press Pack to go with my Final Year Project.
Here are the designs:
Poster
Postcard
DVD Case
Business Card Background
I’ve ordered these to be printed – just hope they arrive in time!
The first step is to cut the wire to lengths of about 20cm, and then strip 1cm off each end. Initially, I was attempting this with scissors and then my nails. Bad plan… I regularly cut too deep with the scissors, leaving spiky wire loose inside. When I pulled the plastic cover off by hand, I gave myself tiny, very deep and painful wire splinters. (My index finger is still bruised a week after getting the wire strippers.) Moral of the story: strip the wire using wire strippers, not fingers or nail scissors.
Step 2 uses a material called heatshrink to join the stripped wire ends to the LED. Heatsthrink is a length of thermosetting plastic tubing. I twist the wire around the leg of the LED, pop the heat shrink over the joint, and seal using hair straighteners (I find they are working better for me than the soldering iron – they heat evenly, distributedly, and without the risk of burning (and splitting) the heatshrink.)
The third step is to attach the positive ends of the LED to the battery, and then attach the battery and bulb to the bottom of my grid. This is done using foam sticky pads. There are 2 LEDs for each square of the grid, their negative ends will need to be joined to foil on the plastic top. When the plastic is pressed, the foil will touch the battery and complete the circuit.
These 3 steps need to be repeated for 2 LED’s per square of my grid – 128 LED’s. Each LED has a positive and negative pole to wire up, so I’ll need to be stripping both ends from 356 wires. Better get on then!
My polyethylene sheet has arrived. Here it is, on the grid:
The 2mm thickness gives just the right flexibility and rigidity to the switches, it’s smooth to drill through, and a lovely surface to stand/press upon.(The blue cover is a protective sheeting I will be removing before the demo!)
The translucency is great too; I’m pleased that you can see the contast of the dark wood through the plastic, showing the boundaries of the switch. I am very impressed with the way the LED light diffuses through the plastic. Because of this, I am going to use 2 LED’s per square, as this light spreads nicely across.
I will need to attach all my wiring, and then drill and screw the plastic sheeting to the wooden grid frame.
Having some interesting thoughts about the feedback loop created by my grid.
In a traditional software feedback loop, a user would respond to screen output with their inputs, mouse, keyboard etc, depending on the screen display. The display responds to, as well as shapes their feedback; like a mirror reflecting back, the reactant inputs create new outputs, which prompt varied responses, creating an infinite loop.
In my project, my input is the users’ foot and handprints, which is processed and converted to immediate output as light, and delayed output as sound. The users should react in response to the light and sound, as a result of the output, they will change the way they are interacting and using my project, as the output should show the effects of their positions. Once a user understands how it’s working, they will change their interaction, changing the output, which again will prompt a change in their behaviour. I’ve built quite an interesting feedback loop!
Here are some example photos I took of my testing of the plastic samples.
The first image shows the brightness of the LED alone, the second is the LED shining through ordinary paper attached to clear perspex sheeting, and the third and forth are two of the plastic samples.
The forth image shows the largest diffusion area from the LED, this sample is 1.5mm milky polyethylene. Comparing with the thickness and texture of the other samples, I think a slightly bigger thickness would be more appropriate, so I have gone ahead and ordered some large sheets (1600 x 400, and 2 of 1600 x 600) in this milky white polyethylene. The grid is split into three sections to allow me to transport it more easily.
When the polyethylene sheets arrive, I will need to attach the foil switches, LEDs and keyboard wiring. I will then need to drill, countersink, and then screw them to my wooden grid.
I need to get hold of High Density Polyethylene or Polycarbonate sheeting. It should be 2mm thick, and in 3 sheets (2 x) 1600 x 60 (1 x) 1600 x 40.
The potential sources I have found are:
ADF Plastics Supplies
43 Sisna Park Rd, Plymouth, PL6 7AE, 01752 696 990
(no website)
DT Plastics
1 Willow Court, Marsh Mills, Plymouth, PL6 8LQ, 01752 425 909
http://www.dtplasticsplymouth.co.uk
Eurocell Building Plastics
Unit C, Valley Court, Plympton, Devon, 01752 345 629
www.eurocell.co.uk
This afternoon, I will visit these companies and enquire about the plastic sheeting.
After a few visits to various plastics distributors (who all humoured me very nicely) I’ve decided on the sort of plastic I need, either polyethylene or polypropylene.
This is because both have a good tensile strength, to easily support a persons weight, they both bend easily, but retract to the original shape and do not deform, even with repeated pressure. Their impact resistance is good, they are difficult to snap, and offer a smooth top surface, comfortable to stand or press on.
One interesting aspect to my visits over the last few days was the colouring of plastic. Both these forms of plastic are unable to be sourced cheaply in a clear finish. The clear finishes are also not polishable and scratch easily. I’m looking into the diffusion of the LED lights, and have come upon the idea of perhaps purchasing translucent (natural milky) plastic, rather than clear. Making the grid buttons of this would avoid the process of diffusing the LED by another method.
I have requested the below samples of various plastics:
Polyethylene sheet hdpe – 1.5mm natural
Polyethylene sheet hdpe – 2mm natural
Polypropylene sheet copolymer – 2mm natural
The Yamaha Tenori-On is a physical tone-matrix like device. Instruments played this way are called Monone,s and Yamaha are one of the only major manufacturers of commercially created Monomes. The Tone Matrix, by Andre Michelle, is a flash implementation of this real world device, and my project will be a real world (and larger) implementation of his digital flash device… I like the process of the cycle there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SGwDhKTrwU
