On the Monday of this week, the plan was to start joining the photoresistor Max and Arduino Code into the Fade Candy patch. It was a bit of a tricky task but Kimberly managed to pull it off through having the Arduino send messages from the serial monitor, into Max where it receives the message from the serial monitor "c" port. We also needed to readjust the numbers according to the ACW 103 room`s brightness and darkness. Eventhough the photoresistors were able to output the correct numbers when they are covered and when really bright light is shown on them, the other challenge would be taking into consideration the brightness of the NeoPixels and the projections. The numbers would definitely have to change once the whole structure is built with all the lights and projector screen working. The other tasks that are remaining in regards to the code include: testing if the phoresistor sensor changes the NeoPixel colour modes, adding the proximity sensor code and joining Viginia`s projection videos.
The second thing that we did this week was working with Micheal and Joel to start building part of the structure with the wooden collars, pipes, joints and atoms attached. This was proven to be a bit of a challenging task because we had to figure out how we are going to place the joint inside the atom as well as attach the wooden collars. Micheal and Netra suggested that we cut it, I (Divya) was not too keen on the idea of "damaging" the aesthetic of the atom. However, the guys tried it on the first ever atom that was made and lo and behold, the cut was barely even noticeable. What was even more relieving was the fact that the atom was strong enough to retain its shape after the cut. As a result, we decided to start a trial construction of half of the molecular structure. It was not an easy procedure when it came to constructng each node of the structure.
First we cut the atom, placed our hands inside along with the wooden collar and pushed a screw through one of the collar holes at the side. Then we cut inside of the collar hole where it rested on the atom`s yarn. This was the hole made for the pipe to fit through, making sure that all of the yarn was cut inside of it otherwise it would block the pipe. The other screw was then pushed the the second hole at the side of the collar and then the second wooden collar was bolted on top of it. We pushed the pipe through the collars and into the joint held inside of the atom. This procedure was repeated for the half of the structure. The other girls worked on soldering the other half of the Neopixel strips, testing and cutting the wires.
On Friday, Kimberly and I (Divya) decided to meet and construct a dome made out of plastic cups to place some plants, NeoPixels and the photoresistors in. We realized that people may not see the photoresistors so we wanted to develop two of these dome shape structures to highlight the photoresistors. We planted some beans with tissue in plastic cups and then placed them inside of the protruding cups. and soldered two sets of NeoPixel strips each having 32 pixels instead of the usual 64. Hopefully they grow and hopefully the rest of the group members like our idea because we have not actually told them that we were going to do this. THIS WAS GOING TO BE A SUPRISE :D!
