ARDUINO

ARDUINO!

So finally after so much talk about them we are finally going to be playing about with Arduino Boards

"Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software on running on a computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP).

The boards can be built by hand or purchased preassembled; the software can be downloaded for free. The hardware reference designs (CAD files) are available under an open-source license, you are free to adapt them to your needs.

Arduino received an Honorary Mention in the Digital Communities section of the 2006 Ars Electronica Prix. The Arduino team is: Massimo Banzi, David Cuartielles, Tom Igoe, Gianluca Martino, and David Mellis." - Arduino

We had a look at this tutorial:

http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/PhysicalPixel

After our first look at Arduino I feel this technology would help our project greatly, we had a lot of ideas for our visual aspects but not how to make transitions, with Arduino we can use the traffic lights changing as the cue for the change. We are thinking of doing this by using an Arduino board with a light sensor to do this, every time the lights change red the animation begins.

Another way that was suggested was to use a wireless mouse and instead of a click action on the left mouse button we will use a light sensor. Every time the light turns red the mouse “clicks” a play button that starts the animation. Whilst this is good in theory as the use of a wireless mouse would mean we’d need the sensor near to the computer that gets clicked which probably isn’t viable. One way to get around this would be to use a wired mouse with extensions, the problem with this is that they could get disconnected or cut by passers or be effected by the weather by which would end the project.