Second picture!

Here is a picture of an improved version of the circuit in the last picture.

Now everything is powered using batteries!

First picture!

Here is the first picture showing some rough wiring of the mouth of one of our eMoodies. This shows one of the 10 possible smiles that we have enabled.

With some simple modifications to this circuit the Arduino microcontroller and the rest of the circuit could be powered using only batteries. But when taking this picture we were to lazy, hence the unnecessary wires

Meeting 21 – 25.03.2009

Research about color and texture has been made for discussing the design choices of the eMoodies’ colors and character of their textiles.

Textile samples were collected  on March 9th and tested with our LEDs. We found some fabrics that would be suitable for the eMoodies.

The discussion lead to the following design decisions:

• Mary will have a soft and yellow fabric.
• Cory will have a blue, shiny and thin fabric
• Steve will have a black, fuzzy and unruly fabric

 

Textiles were purchased today at Myrins Textil and Panduro in Gothenburg.

Meetings 17,18,19 & 20 18.03-23.03.2009

During the last week we have been very busy but have also managed to get a lot of work done.

The control circuit is operational.

The vibrating motor is fully operational.

The accelerometer is fully operational.

Through the Arduino microcontroller we now know exactly now how to control the LEDs of an eMoody’s face. The programming concerning this is not yet, however, finished yet.

Textiles have been purchased.

More information about the status of the mood cahnging software will be posted soon with several images of circuits, textiles and so on.

Meeting 16 – 16.03.2009

During today’s session a wide range of work was done.

Different speakers were tested and a piezo element proved to be perfect for makign an eMoody produce sounds if such an output will be used.

A microphone from an older project was tested for audio input and worked perfectly. Code for detection of sounds such as items dropping, doors slamming and hands clapping were written and will be used.

An accelerometer was tested more thoroughly and problems occured. The potential solution might disable the data transfers and a proper evaluation is needed. More information will be posted.

The circuit for the LED face was finished and the segments were tested (without using the epxression changing routine on the Arduino).

A restart was made on our moode changing routine. In its first iteration it will only focus on distance between the other eMoodies and which of them there is who is sending. Much more information will be posted soon.

On wednesday textiles will be purchased and research on peoples relationships to shapes and form will be done.

We also performed a peer review of another group’s design document and will receive feedback on our own soon.

We’ll meet again at 10.00 on wednesday and thursday.

Unique features for each eMoody

Due to constraints concerning time, budget and available components a decision has been made to equip each eMoody with a unique feature. We believe that a personal technical feature of its own will help distinguish an eMoody from the others.

The angry and bully eMoody Steve will be equipped with a vibrating motor.

The mellow and sensitive eMoody Cory will be equipped with a microphone (yes, audio input is back on track and already finished).

The social and positive eMoody Mary will be equipped with either a piezo element for playing melodies and sounds or an accelerometer for detecting physical movement.

More information about these choices will be posted.

The hardware structure of an eMoody

This is an likely overview over how the inner hardware structure of an eMoody will be designed.

Batteries. 6 1.2 volts or 1.5 volts will be used for powering the Arduino microcontroller and the rest of the components.

Control circuit. This circuit will hold 3 shift registers that the Arduino will use for controlling all LEDs. The batteries will also be connected here to an embedded small curcuit fo enabling output of both 9 volts and 5 volts depening on the components.

Face circuit. Holds the 25 LEDs, 25 resistors and 6 transistors for creating the different facial expressions of an eMoody.

Other circuits. Smaller circuits for vibrating motors, accelerometers, speakers and so on will be connected to the control circuit.

Meeting 15 – 13.03.2009

During today’s session we continued working on the mood alerting routines of the eMoodies. Apart from that focus was mostly on hardware. The circuit for the LED face was worked on and will be finished shortly. Work was also started on the controller board that will enable the Arduino to control all 25 LEDs, which the face consists of using 3 shift registers.

Meeting 14 – 11.03.2009

During today’s session we worke don the hardware.

Our 3 Arduino microcontrollers are now able to transmit and recieve data from each other. The concern about collisions in data traffic when receiving multiple packets never became an issue. Now focus will be put on the mood altering routines.

We also built the power circuit, which will draw power from 6 1.2 volt batteries and will offer both 5 volt and 9 volt depending on the components.

Audio input likely to be ignored

Initially, an idea was that the eMoodies should react  in different ways to sounds like  a door slamming or hands clapping. This idea has been moved to the bottom of our priority scale due to the following reasons.

First, we don’t have much money left in our budget for the microphone we want to buy.  

Second, our microphone of choice demands a lot of wiring and there might not be enough pins available on the Arduino microcontroller. Solving this will also be resource demanding.

Third, at this point we don’t have time looking for, ordering and testing another kind of microphone.

Fourth, audio input (despite being cool) was never one of the must-have features of an eMoody.