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Série de voyages vers le point le plus proche du pôle le plus proche, en fonction de l’hémisphère cela peut être le Nord ou le Sud. 

Pour le premier voyage je vais essayer d’aller le plus proche que possible du point le plus au nord de l’Union Européenne continentale : Nuorgam, en Finlande.

Je souhaite aussi effectuer d’autres voyages vers le Nord d’autres endroits, tel que la France, la Norvège, l’Europe (continent) ; mais aussi vers les extrêmes sud, par exemple le Brésil, l’Argentine, l’Amérique (continent), l’Antarctique.

Ces endroits portent avec eux un symbolisme et un imaginaire qui sont très forts. Le but de ces voyages est d’explorer ces points extrêmes et d’essayer de donner des sentiments à ces zones du globe.

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Serie of travel to the closer point of the closer pole, depending on the hemisphere it can be North or South.

For the first travel I will try to get as close as I can to the most northern point of the European Union mainland : Nuorgam, Finland.

I also wish to do other travels to the North of other places such as France, Norway, Europe (continent) ; but also towards the south extremes, for example of Brazil, Argentina, America (continent), Antarctica.

This places carry with them a strong symbolism and imaginary. The goals of such travels is to explore this extreme points and try to give some sense to this areas of the globe.

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Serie de viagens para o ponto mais perto do polo mais perto, dependendo do hemisfério pode ser Norte ou Sul.

Para a primeira viagem irei o mais perto que posso do ponto mais ao norte da União Europeia continental : Nuorgam, Finlândia.

Também quero fazer outras viagens para par o Note de outros lugares como a França, a Noruega, a Europa (continente) ; mas também para o extremos ao Sul, por exemplo do Brasil, da Argentina, da America (continente), Antarctica.

Esses lugares carregam com eles um simbolismo e imaginário muito fortes. O objectivo dessas viagens é de explorar esses pontos extremos e tentar dar um sentido à essas áreas do globo.

Massimo Banzi was CIID’s guest to hold an one week workshop presenting us the first steps in Arduino.

Day 1)

The first day had a general presentation of Arduino and of some of the project built using this tool. Among the presented project there was an Laser Harp, an interactive Force Field controlled by ones Oyster card, etc.

After the presentation we started working on simple digital/analogue input sensors together with Serial communication. We had to build a device to control a computer game with only one sensor (it could be a tilt sensor, a temperature sensor, a photosensor, a switch…). It was proposed to seek for some Processing source code for some game, like Pong for instance.

I decided to build a small “game” in Processing in order to escape from the Pong factor. I made a simple application where the user has to control a small car in order to pick up some targets. The game controller was a light sensor (aka. LDR), its function was to control the vehicle’s orientation. I also made a calibration function where the game calibrates the sensor in order to get full profit out of it.

Day 2)

On the second day we were asked to make a group project in 12h with and Arduino and a servomotor. Mary Huang, Pedro Andrade Nakazato and me decided to build a Jedi trainer. The device helps Jedis to control their inner force by asking them to lift a caw and hit its top part.

The device has two hand made sensors as switches to know either if the cow hits the ground or the ceiling.

And Yoda lights up his green led to show his happiness with the Jedi’s achievement.

Day 3)

In the third day we had a tiny group exercise that consists on using the serial port and the RS232 protocol. The idea was to connect two Arduinos in order to send analog data through the serial port. The Tx of an Arduino was connected with the Rx of the other one. Only one Arduino had a sensor and the other one had an LED driven by a PWM output.

We also had to do a group project (12h deadline) where we had to use two Arduinos in order to build a communicant device : one would only treat the inputs, the second one would be the output. Laura Boffi and me decided to make a fortune teller. The user has to tap on the device to activate it and to rub it for 5 seconds in order to see his fortune on a LCD screen.

Fortune Teller, a 18h project where we had to interface two Arduinos, one is used as sensor inputs and the other is used as output. The two Arduinos are connected with a one way RS232 communication protocol.

Laura worked on the sensors part, she integrated a knock sensor and a temperature sensor. Knocking activates the temperature sensor that is calibrated. The user has 5 seconds to use the sensor. The result is the temperature difference between the knocking moment and the end of the 5 seconds. This information is sent to the output Arduino.

The output is an LCD screen with backlight. There is a list of sentences stored in the Arduino. Since the device is a fortune teller, there is a lecture of an analog input as random generator. The input information from the other Arduino is treated together with the random generator and displays one of the sentences.

Video here soon…

Day 4 and 5)

The last two days were used to build a free group 24h project. Pedro Andrade Nakazakto and me decided to build a multitouch space in order to control a room’s ambiance.

(Pseudo) Low-Tech Multitouch Sensor, hand made in 24h with not much sleep… This sensor is used to control the light ambiance in a room, concert hall, hotel lobby, or whatever you want. It works with any micro-controller and it is easy to implement. This prototype has a resolution of 5 by 5 (which makes a 25 points grid). For this prototype we used Arduino and the sensor was made in 3 layers : the lower layer is a protoboard (printed circuit with copper lines), the middle layer is an isolant material and the top one is composed by straight wires that are perpendicular to the lower layer’s lines. When one touches the surfaces, the wires get in contact with the lower layer, this contact is analyzed by the micro-controller. In fact, the lower layer is connected to micro-controller’s inputs, and the top layer is connected to micro-controller’s outputs. In order to know every contact point, we activate one output at a time and check each input. the inputs that are high are the contact points with that specific output. Like this you can translate the combinations of i/o in coordinates.

The LEDs that you can see in the picture are there to simulate the purpose of the prototype. When you touch the multitouch sensor in a specific spot, the lights are calibrated in order to focus the light to that point. The calculus is quite simple, the light has a position in the room and its intensity depends on the distance between the light (in the sensor’s grid) and the touched spot. For cpu efficiency, the distances are pre-calculated and stored in a 4 dimensions array.

The next prototype will have the following components : a IR-LEDs based touch area, several micro-controllers, ethernet interfaces and a server. The IR-LEDs based touch area would have a master micro-controller and it would send the information to the server. The server makes the calculations (taking in consideration the multiple contact points in the sensor), and sends to the other micro-controllers the command to change the light intensity/orientation.

The ideal configuration would be a wireless network using either WIFI technology or Power Line Communication (in order to reduce electromagnetic waves production).

Video here soon…