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Introduction to Physical Computing
Week 2, Lab- Digital In and Out

Here is the ITP intro physcomp link for the lab.

Step 1.

First I connected the breadboard to the Arduino.

Step 2.

Next I connected a switch, as per the lab instructions. When the switch
is pressed the red LED switches on, green turning off. Otherwise the
green LED is always on.

Step 3.

Time to have some fun! I decided to continue work on a project I
started in The Softness of Things. I had made wind chimes from copper
pipe, so I decided to turn the chimes into a switch. By rigging wires
from the individual pipes to digital in, the LED's to digital out, I
strove to express the sound of the chimes in light.

The contact between the pipes, despite the pipes being quite large, was
much better than I thought. I didn't measure amperage, but I'm bit
worried that I was using a decent amount of power to generate a
potential across the pipes. I programmed the Arduino to light the LEDs
on contact between the pipes, which resulted in short bursts of
responsive light. The sound of the chimes was not affected by the
wiring.

The most difficult part of the project was finding a place to put the
Arduino and breadboard. I hadn't build a resting place for it on top of
the chimes, but it is definitely something I will need to do if I want
to make the project viable. Also, the wiring was a mess. I added +5V
to the center chime, and the rest were grounded, acting as switches to
individual digital in. These wires, with the LED's made a complete
mess. I need to redesign all the wiring, which will not be easy, to
make the chimes look decent.

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-- Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08-28 -0400