Kate Casey Interactive Art II

 Lots to go over!  Labs I couldn't get the shift register lab to work after a few tries, but I'm giving it another go before our next class and hopefully it will work. The concept makes total sense to me, so it must be a tiny mistake somewhere that I just couldn't identify. I took a break from it and got started on the final lab earlier today, and completed the first task quickly with no issues (you'll have to take my word that the light is blinking). I still don't *totally* understand what a transistor is/does, but I'm sure moving through the rest of the lab next week will help. Projects  Before Thursday, I was feeling stuck on ideas for project 2, mainly because I know I will simultaneously be working on my typewriter and I don't want to over commit / under deliver on either side of things. While I don't yet have any more "deliverables" on what project two could look like, I do have a potential concept that I will explain here:      My relati...

 Yay!! Progress!! I didn't have computer access over break, but I was able to refine my idea and adapt based on the limitations that came up along the way. I went back to the very beginning and tried to stop thinking about anything technical in order to nail down why I chose this project in the first place, and I gathered a few key concepts:  the importance of visual / physical communication the contrast between vintage and evolving methods of communication (injecting technology into foreign places)  the emotional implications of / sentimental value behind how we communicate In order to make this clearer and get the message across better, I decided to add the tactile element of having the user create a wax seal associated with the letter that they type, with a color key based on the sentiment score that gets picked up by the program. I did some research about the historical uses of different wax colors and created a start-to-finish process of how to interact with my piece...

 I’m writing from my phone in Denmark, so it’s a little difficult to provide any substance to show for this week, but this week has been lots of progress with also lots of setbacks…. First off, I finally got the measurements correct on the typewriter and it lined up well with the printout of the circuit board model, so technically the actual typewriter part is done and just a waiting game at this point (aside from adding a piece for the space bar).  My biggest issue right now is navigating the logistics of the experience, especially since the sentiment analysis can’t happen gradually in a way that still captures the content of what’s being written in a way that makes sense. To be honest, I’m still struggling to understand where I can go from here and have come up dry so far. I’m trying to think of an adapted vision for the final output and I think I just need to give it more time. The main bit of the concept that I really don’t want to lose is the mail slot, because my main fo...

 I spent a little bit of time today trying new versions of the shapes on fusion / illustrator and still haven't gotten it quite right. Tomorrow, I'm going to spend as long as it takes until its correct. Woohoo!  It has been really frustrating so I took a break from measuring over the course of the week and researched some code that I will need to move forward once I have the correct circuit board. Most of it is a collaboration of chatgpt and my edits, and it will require more edits once I have all the parts and it is working for real, but I'm going to dump my drafts here.  This is the hypothetical sequence to turn the connection signals into the actual characters with 5 shift registers. I know I found some code online for this before, but that was designed for switches and this involves pull-up resistors so it should be debounced:  // Pin configuration for the shift registers const int latchPin = 9; // Latch pin connected to Arduino pin 9 const int clockPin = 10; //...

Lots of Project Updates!  Shopping is (sort of) complete. I bought both types of shift registers x6, the jumper wire kit, and five switches. Why only 5? Well, I ran into an issue when trying to measure the distance between each key bar on the typewriter... There is a gear under there that puts some of the bars at an angle, and even aside from that weird gap, there is no consistent measurement for the ones that are parallel to each other. It's hard to tell in the image, but most of them are slightly different distances apart.  I hope I'm correct in assuming that this wont be a huge issue when making a custom circuit board, but when I test on the breadboard, it is going to be pretty hard to align a switch for each one of those bars. And with the switches being over a dollar each, I didn't want to spend ~$50 before knowing that they would work out, so I decided to only order 5 so that I can get a feel for the size and placement of the switches without fully committing. I know ...

 First and foremost, I have been gradually cleaning the typewriter, so I'm hoping the smell gets better and better as time goes on. I also ditched the suitcase that it had probably been sitting in for 40 years, so I think that'll help too.  Here's my cart on digikey that I made after watching the video. I'm holding off on adding switches until I can get some better measurements of distance between each bar - that will help determine if it's feasible to do a switch per key bar or revert to something else.  I'm also looking ahead to see what resources I'll need to build an actual circuit board. I found this youtube playlist, but can't tell if it's worth my time or not yet:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la5BafeXsUI  . There may be something better.  In class on Thursday, I started thinking about how to build the mail slot and what I might need for that, but I want to try to limit myself to getting the typewriter to work before I move forward. I think...