All posts by Wenzhe Peng

Interactive Digital Matrix

Why:

Our project takes simple components that can be used to motorize any operation and control it with motion.  We have focused our  efforts on the  issues of the modern human who needs to be socialized  in group work. Our proposed installation can be placed anywhere in a city designated to gather people for interaction. The use of the Arduino modernizes the mediums that are used in traditional installations and allows city dwellers to interact with  the space around them and people. The chime installation will produce different sounds in each  of the five rows. Each row will be controlled by a different Arduino and Leap Motion, allowing up to five people to work together to create a rhythm  with different notes.
This type of installation would be best used during welcoming or team building events. For example, the CED open house or school events during the beginning of the semester that are meant to welcome new people into a community or group. The moving matrix can be used as a fun, large scale ice breaker for groups of five people to interact with each other. If particular goals are set for the users, for example to make a familiar tune by coordinating row tempos, the installation can be used for team building purposes.

 Work flow:

work flow
work flow

Take gesture as input, and the whole working process is based on the transition from gesture to physical visualization. It’s accomplished step by step, as the work flow chart shows above.

Gesture Capturing

The device we used to capture gesture is leap motion. Based on the previous post about the processing library of leap motion, we are able to utilize the vector(including speed, position and so on) acquired by leap motion to do further visualization process.

Wave Visualization 

Design Space of wave patterns
Design Space of wave patterns

 

Working on the visualization of vectors captured by leap, we decide to use the wave patterns. Above is a design space of some possible wave patterns generated.

The code concerning the wave simulation process can be accessed through the previous post of “Wave Simulation in Processing”.

We have chose the wave pattern we deem works best based on the design space , and simulated the movable pattern using processing. Here are two video of that simulation, in either 2D and 3d.



LED Matrix test

The LED matrix can be used to physically display the visual data from processor. It also serves as a test for the circuitry and coding.  The concept of an LED matrix could be used instead of a motorized system for an installation, especially if it is to be a night installation, say for the winter holiday season. The concept of interaction of the user with the installation and others in the space can also be accomplished with  an LED matrix.

Untitled-1

The details concerning the LED matrix can be accessed through “How to Build a 5X5 LED Matrix”.

Here is a video about our Multi-LED test:

 

 

 Multi-Servo Test

This process is the way to turn data acquired by leap motion into physical movement. It is also the bridge of digital to physical.

We tested the possibility of controlling 4 servo’s movement based on the position of gesture.

circuit
circuit

Here is the video showing the controlling process.

 Physical installation

In order to convert the rotation of servo or motor, we have designed the physical installation of pulling balls by motor.

set big per top

/Users/JERRY/Desktop/MyBat_Shapeoko_004_Y_Axis_Motor_Mount_Plate set small

 

Team member:

Wenzhe Peng | Janet Torres | Jianjia Xu | Yuqing Nie

Wave Simulation in Processing

Wave movement in processing We want to simulate a wave movement based on the up-and-down of a grid of balls. I have imagined of two kinds of ways that we can interact with our wave grid: -Point based control: The wave is simulated starting from a point, and moves towards all directions from that very point. We will gonna control the position of the point that affects the grid, by mouse position, or Leap Motion gesture position. -Line based control: The wave grid is affected by a line, and moves in the vertical direction of the line. The line is adjusted by our mouse position or Leap Motion gesture position.

  • The grid of balls

We will write a class for the grid. They are the basic class that we will simulate the movement of grid. I have used  IGeo  Vector library here.

 

  •  Control the grid by point

Here I will write a class that functions as a point field that can affect the position of the grid.

For this point field, it is capable of calculating the distance to each ball in the grid, and thus change the position based on the distance, through the calculation of the cos value based on the distance, the wave distance, the phase, and the circulation.

  •  Control the grid by Line

Here I will write a class that functions as a line field that can affect the position of the grid. It is based on a line2d class that can help me do some geometry calculation.

Based on the line class above, I wrote a line wave class which will utilize the functions to affect grid nodes according to the distance to the certain line described in the way of line2d class.

  •  The Main function of the point control simulation software

We need this main function that will utilize the class of grid and pointwave that we wrote, thus to finalize the simulate of the behavior of the wave movement based on our control of that point. We will start with the mouse control, which is a function built in processing, and later on we will use the Leap Motion control to replace the mouse Position here.   In order to show 3D perspective in a more controled way, I have used a 3D camera library called peasy camera here.