Week-11&12

Planning for experiment - 3

Over the weekend there were a few thoughts in my mind that I later sketched on a sheet, I had imagined myself experimenting and there are a few challenges here is that neither of the narratives includes a significant use of LEDs, so how do I experiment.

For poster-1: I want to explore with lights and shadows to see if I can simulate movement on the paper. I’ll be using an LED strip for this. For poster-2, I am not exactly sure how to use the LED, but I am thinking that maybe I will work on the animation triggered by a button.

With aid of chatGPT I made a list of tools I need for Arduino:

1. Arduino UNO board
2. 5v LED strip
3. Push button
4. Resistors
5. Breadboard
6. Jumper Wires (M/M,F/M)

Experimenting with LED strip

My focus wasn't much on illustration or visual aesthetics as I was more focused on the technical part. Once I was done crafting the poster, first I realised that I could habe made the hare and the dog bigger in size so that they are more visible.I wasnted to fit the LED in the empty space of the poster and I had glued cut-up pieces of straw to get shadows. The aim was to see if moving light and shadows simulate a movement.

I first started experimenting with buttons but it was getting a bit complex, as when I turned the LED on the button didn’t really work. And, I was not able to create light movement on the LED strip. So first I decided just to work with the LED strip and insert the button later.

Challenges with LED

The LED would light up but it won't create a light movement. So I searched it up and realised that maybe the LED needs more power. The lady at the electronics store gave me 9v batteries so that the LED has enough power. It did not work. And I got pretty overwhelmed by then. What actually happened was the arduino heated up to a concerning extent so I put it off and didn’t continue to work on it for the day.

Attempt - 2: Trying to work with the LED

I first found a relevant tutorial on youtube (link).Through this tutorial I will be able to animate the light movement in three different manners. After watching it, one thing I understand here is the difference between a DC12V and a WS2812B LED strip, is that W2812B are individually accessible hence they are flexible to control and animations, while DC12V is suitable for more consistent lighting than animations. So I just found reason number-1 as to why didn’t the LED strips work.

So I started working according to the tutorial. Even though I have been failing to make the LED strip work, I did find the setting up of the Arduino a little less complex than usual. And the LED still won’t work :’). So for now I thought it would be better to wait till the class we have on friday with Jake Tan and meanwhile work on experimenting with P5js. Another poster included working with p5js so maybe I will focus on working with p5js for now.

Weekly Consultations

The LEDs don’t work because the wiring of the LED was wrong (also got it checked at the shop) and there was no common ground for data between the Arduino and the LED.

There are a few things I realised during the consult:

1. Even after acknowledging that I am new at this, I think I still didn’t estimate how challenging this could be.
2. Looking at the state I am in - I think I should also not completely fix the final outcome to be completely non-digital. At least not yet. I keep thinking about the final outcome even though I am supposed to focus on my experiments. I should maybe consider keeping a blend of digital and nondigital and maybe a series of artefacts instead of just one. Anyway, that is something that will come as I experiment.
3. Having more experience with digital interactivity like p5js, maybe for each experiment I should first start out digitally and then see if I can progress it to arduino. Because being completely new at this, underestimating the challenges, I have only been stuck since the past few days. Maybe I should open my mind more, in terms of experimenting. I actually finally understand now, what Andreas meant as to keep the narratives ‘open-ended’ when I was still researching my concept.

What is fixed is: There’s gonna be pop-up craft, there’s gonna be interactive What’s flexible is: Digital and Non-digital. Currently, I have to get the LED wires fixed and then try again.