PCOMP 009

Project 2

Inspiration:

#Color Board

#Audio Guide in Museum

The color board and audio guide remind me of the form's conversions: Colors are converted into numbers, pictures /objects are converted into sounds. How about the conversion between sounds and colors? Music has seven basic notes, and pictures have seven primary colors. Maybe there are some connections between them. Based on this, I came up with the following two ideas.

Process:

My idea about project2 is to use the serial output to make a color picker. Getting the color information of the pixel on p5.js, then through Arduino, lighting up the RGB LED lights in the same color. At first, I connected the p5 to the Arduino, but the color displayed by the LED light was completely different from the color I selected on the canvas. I knew that it was a fluke that the light was able to turn on at the time, and I later discovered that the color data was not transmitted correctly at all.

Then I modified the sketch on p5 so that the color data could be printed out. The P5.serialcontrol application also showed that the data were transmitted, but the Arduino still did not receive it. The colors displayed by the LED lights are still random.

Later I found out that my previous Arduino code received the red, blue, and green values of the LED lights separately, so Arduino may not be able to receive data in the correct order transmitted from p5. It may cause lights to display random colors or even not work. With the help of Echo, I used Serial.parseInt to allow red, blue, and green values to be received in order. The LED lights could light up again.

However, the colors displayed by the LED light were still inaccurate, especially when the color was yellow and green. Moreover, the colors of LED lights are completely different when viewed from different angles. After asking Tom, I learned that the cause of this situation is more complicated than I thought. Tom mentioned colorimetry and told me that this problem could only be solved by improving.

But I used some tricks to add diffusion to the LED lights while fabricating; at least it could solve the problem of "different colors from different angles." The thing I used was milk cups! (I bought a large cup of coffee in the middle of the night) Then I organized the circuit and made the shell with PVC board. (making shells while considering the circuit and devices is so much difficult. This must be the difference between making things in art school and making things in ITP)

I finally finished the fabrication! (In order to make the shell more stable, I used nails, which would make the shell difficult to open, so I also made a small door for the circuit)

Lights effects and p5 canvas

Some wrong effects

Things to improve: 1. By doing the project2, I found that I still have some problems with serial output /input, especially about the code. I must figure all of them out and solve them as soon as possible. 2. The LED light is a very interesting thing. I'm sorry that I did not completely solve the problem about it this time. I hope that I can keep working on it. 3. The original idea of this project will use a physical speaker, but in the early stage, it met the same problem as LED lights. Because I didn't have enough time, I had to use computer speakers. I hope to realize this idea later.