Production Phase 2

From the start of my work on Follow Your Heart!, I’ve been fortunate to have a clear idea of how I want the final system to work and the dedication to expend a lot of energy on trying to implement my vision within my time and budget limitations. Every step I take in the development of this project requires me to do research and learn new things, often from disparate fields. When one doesn’t know the terrain in between, charting a course from point A to point B is just a series of best guesses.

As such, the timeline put forth in my concept architecture is an ambitious and under-informed reflection of what I knew about my project on April 17th. I was certainly aware of this at the time of writing, but there was no way around it: I knew there were some things I had to learn before I could know what had to be done and how long it would take. Nonetheless, inaccuracies forgiven, the timeline was useful in keeping me from getting too consumed by work in any one facet of my project to the detriment of the whole.

The biggest difference between the current state of my project and my earlier expectations is also, at this point, my biggest anxiety about the project’s timely completion. I thought getting the heart signal to my program would be easier.

No.

Why is this, the core of the project— the translation of the participant’s heartbeat to the movement of the projected light—not done yet? The device that receives the analog input from the piezo microphone and transmits data wirelessly to the computer (the Arduino BT) needs to receive a clean signal. The Arduino is not an advanced enough piece of technology that it can transmit the full audio from the mic to a computer (It’s cost had me assuming otherwise). Therefore, rather than the audio being filtered in real time by the computer (in software), it must be filtered between the piezo and the Arduino (in hardware, i.e. by a circuit).

One month, 9 trips to Radioshack and many more days in Fremont later, I am still struggling to make an adequate signal emerge from the circuit and I am still determined to get it working before this coming Monday. I sincerely hope my perseverance and patience in this matter will outweigh my frustration and inexperience.

My program that will be projected, a novel written in the language Processing, is now as far as it will go without being modified to accept heartbeat data. The dimensions of the room are adjustable, as is the speed of the light’s movement, and there is new aesthetic behavior to make the light easier to track at a high pulse rate. As I noted in my post on April 16th, the participant’s body will inevitably obstruct the path of the light from the projector to the ground at some times in the experience. Time allowing, I may try and impose a few more movement rules in my program to minimize these occurrences. Realistically, writing and debugging the Arduino code, modifying my Processing program to respond to the Arduino’s feed, and writing a suitable ending for once the participant stops following the light are going to take up all the time left for coding.

Today I have a shipment scheduled that includes a first-surface mirror and another lens (a 90mm negative meniscus to be exact). I have tested a wide-angle camera lens from CARTAH in combination with a big plano-concave lens from Surplus Shed and this has widened my projection to 18ft. width at a throw distance of 9 ft., with a tolerable amount of pincushion distortion. I do not yet know exactly how I will mount the projector, DIY lens adaptor assembly, and mirror. I have thought about it a lot, but I need to test the meniscus and get into Rm. 109 to try different things out, before I know for sure. I might bring in a ladder.

Two important timeline events I have not yet accomplished, but will be forced to relocate respectively as goals for Sunday and Monday due to the time crunch:
1. Build a housing for the Arduino and it’s circuit paraphernalia.
2. Experiment with myself as the participant of a working version and use my experience to adjust the distance of each step accordingly.

This possibly being my penultimate post on Project of 202, I would like to mention that although I can appreciate the development process and will surely use the knowledge I’ve gained (and the equipment) in my future endeavors, I have especially desired to see Follow Your Heart! complete, with everyone enjoying it and hopefully arriving euphoric and exhausted at a place where they may know themselves a little differently. Having believed in it and worked on it as though to do so was an opportunity I might not have again, I’d be very disappointed if I can’t get it together in time.

Good luck to everyone in the week ahead!