Author Archives: yuchenzhang

Digital Voice Display (Mid Term)

In this digital age, we are used to express ourselves through social networks and text messages in digital forms. For this project, I wanted to create a metaphor of our digital voice online. Digital Voice Display is a device that a person can wear on his or her head as a visual display of what they are speaking. The device has an Arduino, LOL Shield and a microphone.

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Laser cutted different models of the box. 3

The Finished product with real leather straps and metal buckles. 4 5See the product function in this video.

 

 

The Artificial Hair Garment

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The clothes and garments we use are a reflection of our personalities. In order to live in a society we dress and change attires every day first and foremost to protect ourselves from the elements and also in order to make a statement in front of society. What we wear -wether we like it or not- reflects more than we can see. In the following research paper we present ‘The Artificial Hair’, a coat imbued with electronics designed to make way for a different way of interacting with society in situations of stress.

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Above is the first round of prototype made with different shapes of laser cut plexiglass, canvas fabric and synthetic heavy string.

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After the first prototype we have chosen the the model to use for final production.Pto5

Below is laser-cut panels to be threaded over the servo motor. Pto7

Pto8The front view of the garment. Pto9When the flex sensor is bent, the spikes raise base on how much the flex sensor is bent. Pto10

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We are still looking into improvements in both the mechanics and the material. This is a great beginning of exploring in the areas of expressing emotions through the artificial extensions of our body.

 

MARKER’S FAIR

I found three projects are especially interesting to me in the 2013 New York Maker’s Fair Visit.
1. Dodecado is a modular light project that lit up pentagon shaped cubes that attach to each other magnetically. The team behind this project, made of six professors, is currently on Kickstarter to raise funding. The light modules are around baseball size and easy to fit in adults’ hands. When matched at the right angle, the lights lit up. You can create fun shapes with these modular lights.
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2. Below is a interactive sound visualization project. This maker created a music instrument out of transparent acrylic as the stand and metal as keys. When a person touches the metal top of the key, the instrument detects the conductive object, in this case is the person and triggers sound. At the same time, the graphics projected on the screen changes base on the different keys.
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3. This is also an interactive light piece, that is fun and immersive to play with. The project is conducted with two life size led screens. When someone press his hand on the screen, the color changed on the areas where the hand is pressed.
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See this video that documents my experience at the Maker’s fair.

MARIO ALARM CLOCK

This is a simple alarm clock when the day light is strong enough to trigger the Arduino to play Mario theme song.

Below is my code:
#include “pitches.h”
int speaker = 11;
int sensor = A0;
int sensorValue = 0;

int melody[] = {
NOTE_E7, NOTE_E7,0,NOTE_E7,0, NOTE_C7, NOTE_E7,0,NOTE_G7,0,0,0,NOTE_G6,0,0,0,
NOTE_C7, 0, 0, NOTE_G6, 0, 0, NOTE_E6, 0, 0, NOTE_A6, 0, NOTE_B6, 0, NOTE_AS6, NOTE_A6, 0,
NOTE_G6, NOTE_E7, NOTE_G7, NOTE_A7, 0, NOTE_F7, NOTE_G7, 0, NOTE_E7, 0,NOTE_C7, NOTE_D7, NOTE_B6, 0, 0,
NOTE_C7, 0, 0, NOTE_G6, 0, 0, NOTE_E6, 0, 0, NOTE_A6, 0, NOTE_B6, 0, NOTE_AS6, NOTE_A6, 0,
NOTE_G6, NOTE_E7, NOTE_G7, NOTE_A7, 0, NOTE_F7, NOTE_G7, 0, NOTE_E7, 0,NOTE_C7, NOTE_D7, NOTE_B6, 0, 0

};
int noteDurations[] = {
12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12,12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12,
12, 12, 12, 12,12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12,
9, 9, 9,12, 12, 12, 12,12, 12, 12, 12,12, 12, 12, 12,
12, 12, 12, 12,12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12,
9, 9, 9,12, 12, 12, 12,12, 12, 12, 12,12, 12, 12, 12,
};

//notes in the melody:
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
pinMode(sensor, INPUT);
pinMode(speaker, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
sensorValue = analogRead(sensor);
Serial.println(sensorValue);

// sensorValue = map(sensorValue, 1, 15, 100, 2000);
// tone(speaker, sensorValue);
// Serial.println(speaker);
Serial.println(sensorValue);

if (sensorValue > 1000) {

for (int thisNote = 0; thisNote < 78; thisNote++) {

// to calculate the note duration, take one second
// divided by the note type.
//e.g. quarter note = 1000 / 4, eighth note = 1000/8, etc.
int noteDuration = 1000/noteDurations[thisNote];
tone(8, melody[thisNote],noteDuration);

// to distinguish the notes, set a minimum time between them.
// the note’s duration + 30% seems to work well:
int pauseBetweenNotes = noteDuration * 1.30;
delay(pauseBetweenNotes);
}
}

delay(1000/4);
noTone(speaker);

}

Why Do We Create Anything?

During my senior year in college, I did a presentation of the Japanese art group Maywa Denki to my fellow graphic design classmates. I think that was a little strange for them to see from all the other fancy packaging or print design presentations. However, now the dots are connected. I have created my first none sense physical interactive object. Click on the button and you will never know which LED is going to be lit.

I started working on this project by prototyping on the bread board.

Prototype from Yuchen Zhang on Vimeo.

When the prototype proved my code and the physical connection works, I started getting into construction the actual object.
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Work In Progress from Yuchen Zhang on Vimeo.

Final object in action!

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Why Do We Create Anything? – Complete Object from Yuchen Zhang on Vimeo.