So. Some silly little ideas for physcomp projects.

• Standing Pot: A coffee pot that cooks your coffee while vibrating the liquid with a standing wave
• Super Strong Alarm: A super strong alarm system. Have it set up to also drop say… textbooks or rocks or knives or naked womenz on you when your alarm goes off in the morning.
• Pebble Rock Security System: Have a system, where if you open a door while pressing a secret button, the next person to follow you in gets smashed on the head with a large club while a speaker says “BAM BAM!” Useful for situations where you’re followed into your house by unwanted guests. Also useful for situations where you want to placate angry partners, quiet noisy children, or relax uncomfortable dates.
• Stalker Domo-Kun: For a haunted house thing. Make a domo-kun. Mount in on say a wall or something. Give it creepy dangly arms. When someone walks buy, have it decide to follow or not follow that person, but only while that person is moving. OR, have domo-kun be a robot on the floor. Hopefully he won’t get stepped on. He will randomly follow people that are moving, but stop when they stop. If they catch onto his game, they can say… press a button on his head or something and he’ll idle for a bit before going for someone else.

Alright, so it’s time for Lab 3. Was gonna do it tomorrow but it was a Sunday night and I was bored. So~ here it is. Let’s skip the boring stuff and go straight to the Luv-O-Meter.

I took the basic concept of a squeeze handle love meter and changed it a bit. Anyone can go up to a meter and squeeze it. But, what if you had to squeeze it a different amount depending on another variable. So basically you have to match up the potentiometer w/ the pressure sensor. Like making love, and unlike your regular luv-o-meter… this requires some skill.

Here’s the video:

Harder than it looks. I had *plenty* of time to practice. And don’t even talk to me about trying to keep the light steady… ugh.

I wanted to call my meter “GUTS!!!”, but after playing around with it a bit, I realized “Soft Touch” fits it better. I also wanted to use 2 force sensors, but only had 1 on hand. That would have made this game really fun.


Also, here’s the Arduino code:

int potPin1 = 0;    // Pressure Sensor
int potPin2 = 1;    // Potentiometer

int potValue1 = 0;   // value read from the pot
int potValue2 = 0;
       
int led2 = 2;        // LEDs
int led3 = 3;
int led4 = 4;
int led5 = 5;
int led6 = 6;
int led7 = 7;
int led8 = 8;

void setup() {
  //set up led's as outputs
  pinMode(led2, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led3, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led4, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led5, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led6, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led7, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led8, OUTPUT);
  
  // initialize serial communications at 9600 bps:
  Serial.begin(9600); 
}

void loop() {
  potValue1 = analogRead(potPin1); // read the pressure/pot values
  potValue2 = analogRead(potPin2);
  
  if(potValue1 < 25 || potValue2 < 25) {lightDown(2);}
  else {
    //if(potDiff(potValue1, potValue2) >= 300 ){lightDown(2);}
    if(potDiff(potValue1, potValue2) < 5)
      {lightUp(8);}
    else if(potDiff(potValue1, potValue2) < 26 ){lightDown(8); lightUp(7);}
    else if(potDiff(potValue1, potValue2) < 50 ){lightDown(7); lightUp(6);}
    else if(potDiff(potValue1, potValue2) < 100 ){lightDown(6); lightUp(5);}
    else if(potDiff(potValue1, potValue2) < 150 ){lightDown(5); lightUp(4);}
    else if(potDiff(potValue1, potValue2) < 200 ){lightDown(4); lightUp(3);}
    else if(potDiff(potValue1, potValue2) < 250 ){lightDown(3); lightUp(2);}
    else if(potDiff(potValue1, potValue2) < 300 ){lightDown(2);}
  }

  
  //Serial.println(potDiff(potValue1, potValue2));  //debugging
  delay(10);                     // wait 10 milliseconds before the next loop
}

/* Difference in numbers between pot and pressure sensors */
int potDiff(int x, int y)
{
  return abs(x-y);
}

/* Turn all the led on up to num */
void lightUp(int num)
{
  for(int i=2; i<=num; i++)
  {
    digitalWrite(i, HIGH);
  }
}

/* Turn all the led's off down to num */
void lightDown(int num)
{
  for( int i=8; i >= num; i--)
  {
    digitalWrite(i, LOW);
  }
}