Computation

Here are the final documentation videos for my projects for Major Studio:Computation in the Parsons MFA Design and Technology program. The first two have been posted before in different videos, the third is new. Enjoy!

Speak to Me//Breathe: Documentation from Steve Varga on Vimeo.

BeatBoxxx 1.0: Documentation from Steve Varga on Vimeo.

BeatBoxxx 2.0 Documentation from Steve Varga on Vimeo.

Here is a project using Arduino-generated sound.

Basically I wanted to combine an old school/do it yourself 80’s nerd feeling with the old-school/do it yourself 80’s break dancing/hip hop feel. I also wanted to create something that could be sold as a kit for a very reasonable price and would allow people to create their own custom beat boxes that would be uniquely theirs. I also see opportunity for releasing a line of artist-based boxes, either in somewhat limited quantities or as one-off truly custom units that could be sold for charity.

Beat Boxx is an interactive beat creator and recorder that allows users to lay down digital loops of blips and beeps or perform them live. Through the use of gesture based beat selection, users can choose to either perform live or record a sample and endlessly loop it. Simple and affordable, Beat Boxx is available as both a pre-made ready to go unit and as a user buildable/customizable kit.

Beat Boxxx! from Steve Varga on Vimeo.

Here’s a simple example using IR sensors with some LEDs to show the distance detected.

IR Sensor with LEDs from Steve Varga on Vimeo.

OK…super nerd warning on this post….

I am currently attempting to use PHP as a gateway for retrieving my IMAP mail for my Speak to Me/Breathe project, and I hit a MAJOR snag last night. It seems that the version of PHP 5 that currently comes with MAMP is totally not compiled with support for IMAP SSL (secure email connection). I think this is one of the key differences between MAMP and MAMP Pro which costs $70. This is a major bummer for anyone who wants to grab gMail, since they basically require that you use a SSL connection. After about 4 hours of wrestling with my file structure and recompiling both PHP 5 and the IMAP extension about 20 times, I finally figured out how to create a version of the IMAP extension through Terminal (something I’ve never done…). Since I went through all this pain and suffering, I figured I’d share it with everyone so that they don’t have to.

Basically all you need to do is download the attached “imap.so” file and drop it into the following directory:
Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20050922

Thats all there is to it. If you’d rather figure this out on your own I recommend reading the following instruction site, but keep in mind that I had to do a couple different things to get this to work, namely manually creating the “/usr/local/include/” directory in my local Apache PHP directory. You then need to follow comment #5 and copy the compiled files from the OS X Apache directory into MAMPs php extension directory (the one I mentioned above).

Thats all…hope someone can find this useful and avoid the pain I had to go through….

Click Here to Download IMAP SSL extension

Here is my final prototype for my LED Time Based project. I totally reworked my project after a lot of user testing, and built everything from the ground up. I spent a lot of time doing the woodwork/templates, and the code as well.

Speak to Me/Breathe is a project that shows communication over time by displaying my incoming email messages in Braille format on a large LED driven interface. The project is both an exploration of Braille as a visual 6-bit binary form of communication vs its normal tactile form, as well as a commentary on information security and encryption. Now that everything in the world is connected through the internet, is any of our data completely secure? By displaying my emails in an encrypted form, they are readily available for anyone to read if they put in the effort to learn and use visual braille. For the most part my information is secure because this is entirely too much work for a lot of people, but those who are determined enough will ultimately be able to read my mail despite the encryption.

Speak to Me/Breathe: Part 1 from Steve Varga on Vimeo.

Speak to Me/Breathe: Part 2 from Steve Varga on Vimeo.

Here are the final sketches for my passage of time project. The first two concepts will be combined into a third concept.

Here are a couple TED Conference talks that we watched for computation that I thought were extremely interesting.

David Merrill discussing Siftables…an new,insane, completely modular interface

Caleb Chung discussing his life’s work and Pleo

Here is a recent example I made for a student-led lecture in computation class. The topics I had to present were RGB LEDs and Switch/Case logic. To demonstrate this, I created an Arduino sketch that takes input from 3 push buttons and counts how many are pressed. Based on this input it changes the RGB LED to either red, blue, or green. I also learned a lot about button input with microcontrollers while creating this simple example. I have previously only worked with switches from a basic electronic standpoint and not as an input. I quickly discovered the need for pull-up or pull-down resistors on each button in order to get clear and accurate readings.

Switch/Case with RGB LEDs from Steve Varga on Vimeo.

New iteration of the the time passing LED prototypes. Definitely getting very close to a finished product this time around. Doubled the amount of LEDs, used white spray paint as a diffuser (MUCH better now ), and adding some circular masking elements. I can now see what the final iteration will be and I think it will be cool.

Time Passing LEDs v0.3 from Steve Varga on Vimeo.

Second prototype of the Arduino LED time piece. This time is much higher fidelity. I got some nice clear round enclosures from the container store, and customized them to created a really nice feeling container for the project. I used a dremel tool to create openings for power and USB, and sanded the lid down to create a nice diffusing effect. Inside the enclosure, I have an array of 12 LEDs in a circular pattern, grounded in series and connected to power pins on the Arduino individually. They are connected using wire-wrapping and hot glue, a technique that we are learning in class that is really, really convenient for prototyping like this. You can see the various ways that I programmed it in the video.

Arduino LED Time Prototype 2 from Steve Varga on Vimeo.