28/03/22 Lab & Seminar Blog Post

During this mornings session, we watched and gave feedback on a great presentation by Dr. Rebecca Stewart, based around electronic music interfaces, primarily using unconventional materials like fabrics or textiles. It was very helpful to see and witness how one can experiment with somewhat traditionally sourced materials.

This is a screenshot of one of the projects featured within the presentation, by Afroditi Psarra

In the lab session, we revised last weeks topics and began working towards our final projects independently. I personally tried to resolve some software issues I am having with MAX/MSP but they are persisting which is causing me great frustration. I am at this stage considering switching to Pure-Data instead, before I am too far into this project and I cannot change program as I have committed too much time into one software.

21/03/22 Lab and Seminar Blog

In this morning’s session, Tolu gave a great presentation on some projects that inspire his project and gave a great insight into his thought process into how he decided his final project.

For the lab session, we began with a recap of last week which we then followed by an informative session around remote access of the DMU computers which in turn gives us access to software such as SolidWorks which is a material design/3d printing and construction software that will be crucial for us to

A Screenshot of a half sphere created within SolidWorks

The second phase of the lab was spent checking fitting within the enclosure and trying to work out creative ways in which I can get the most out of my circuit and make it a unique, interesting project.

14/03/22 Mechanical Labs Tour

In today’s session, we had a guided tour around the engineering facilities on the ground floor of the Queen’s building. I found this greatly helpful as I am in need of tools and potential parts that I cannot facilitate on my own, such as 3D printers, CNC machines, etc..

In my own project, I have ordered an enclosure I intend to use for building my project however, if I had known I could custom make an enclosure then I would have. Since I already have bought my premade enclosure, I can use the facilities to machine the holes in the enclosure whilst making a half sphere shape that will increase the playability of my device. Rather than the box sitting on a flat plane and needing to be picked up, Raising it up on a free moving sphere that can support the project to stay flat yet allows to easy adjust the orientation, increasing the functionality of my project as an interface to create sounds.

Here is something that has been printed by someone else that is similar to what I would like to make, except only 1/2 of the sphere would be necessary.

Lab Questions

9. What is the process of the Arduino IDE to load the code into the Arduino board? To load code onto the Arduino, you must connect it via USB to your computer. The Arduino software should recognise the board and then you can either write your own code or load a previously written code which will be verified by the programme when it has completed the upload.

10. How does the Arduino IDE relate to the Processing IDE? The Processing IDE works for a computer like the Arduino IDE works for a mini-controller. It has initialisation functions and draw capacities like an Arduino has an initialisation and loop sequence. The Processing IDE can speak with the Arduino IDE through sequential communications.

11. What is Processing? In computing, a process is the instance of a program that is being executed by one or many strings. It contains the program code and its action. Contingent upon the operating system, a process might be comprised of numerous strings of execution that execute directions simultaneously.

12. What is the Arduino web editor? The Arduino Web Editor allows you to write code and upload sketches to any Arduino board after installing a simple plug-in — your Sketchbook will be stored in the cloud and accessible from any device. You can even import your Sketchbook via a . zip file!

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