Lab 3 - Electronics Lab

I put together my DC power jack and I hooked up the jack and what I think is a voltage regulator to to my breadboard.





















I plugged the DC jack in to the 12volt power supply. Then I started to smell burning.

I thought, "OMG. What have I done?"

As I was looking around my circuitry, I felt heat coming from the voltage regulator, and when I touched it, it was very hot. I immediately unplugged the power supply, undid my wiring, and discovered that I melted my breadboard.
















Questions:
*Why did this happen?
*How did I do this?

Also, during this exercise, before I realized what I was happening, I was using the multimeter to try and check an LED on the board, and no reading was coming through. Why?

Still figuring it out.

Fantasy Device!

My fantasy device is a Universal Translator. It would be like a cell phone, with a screen, a keyboard, and an internal microphone.

The computer would hold all the languages in the world in its reference. If a person is going traveling, or speaking with someone who speaks a different language, the person would put on headphones and the Universal Translator would "listen" to the person, translate their words, and through headphones you could hear machine translate the conversation for you.

If the person with the Universal Translator is trying to respond in the foreign language, they would type their word or sentence into the translator, and on the screen the translation would appear. It would be like a quick and handy pocket google translation (but better).

Lab 2 - Pot and Flex. Yum.

I worked with a potentiometer. I made it work!


Then I tried to work with a stretch sensor, but I couldn't get it to work. I decided to use another sensor.














I moved on to a flex sensor.


















My sad little flex sensor and LED. I got it to work, to dim and get brighter, but I couldn't figure out how to make the light go off all the way. I am still trying to work out the coding part to bring logic to these machines. I am beginning to understand the circuitry, but making the computer talk to the circuitry I am having a hard time with. Keep on truckin,' keep on learnin.' I need several afternoons with few shots of espresso by my side while I spend some quality time with "Getting Started with Arduino."

PhysComp Sensor Walk

I have to admit, this was a little difficult because I'm not used to looking at the world this way. I go about my life pushing buttons, stepping on things, and walking around without paying any attention to the doors, lights, and general machinery that are reacting and interacting with my body (and my body to it). I can sense my perception of my surroundings already beginning to change just within my first week at ITP. (Sidenote, I wasn't able to take many pictures because I didn't have a camera with me.)

On my commute to Tisch this morning I began to think about the different sensors that I come in contact with. There are the buzzer buttons on the door to my building, and outside there is a motion sensor light that comes on when someone approaches the door at night.

Getting on the subway, I noticed the MTA kiosks and their touchscreens, the swipey-card turnstiles (are those sensors?), the emergency stop button in the subway cars. Walking in the world, I thought of the CVS automatic open doors that slide out of your way when you step on the mat. I thought of traffic lights and how late at night some of them don't turn green unless they sense a car waiting. I noticed the buttons on the elevator, the buttons on the key code to the ER room, and the motion sensor lights in classrooms.

Now I'm super aware of doors that I have to push open and things that don't change when I interact with them. I'm sure there are sensors everywhere, and I just don't know where to look or how to classify objects. I'm looking forward to changing my worldview to include an awareness of technology, and dealing with sensory overload.

Arduino Lab #1 - Send In The Clowns!

It's always hard to know when to really go for it. You think she likes you, but you never know. If only you got a green light. Literally. Like, a green LED light to blink if there is that magical chemistry.

Well, I can't program Arduino to sense pheromones (yet!) but I can make the light blink if you get close enough to some chick's face, and if you're both wearing clown noses.

The first Physical Computing assignment of MY LIFE was to set up a microcontroller to make an LED light up. I had never heard of any of these words before I took this class - but hey, trial by fire, right? I didn't want to mess with noses first, so I began with a button.

Following the syllabus, pictures, and schematic pretty carefully - I figured out how to hook it up to a button, so the yellow light would be on until you pressed the button, then the red light would be on. I'm being purposely vague because I don't really know what I did, I just know I did it. Go me.

Then, I wanted to add some sass to this baby. I thought, what if I put metal on the tips of a pair of clown noses, and those would serve as a switch for the light?

After chatting with some other awesome PCompers, some other ideas occured - something about a magnet switch, which would allow only one nose to be wired. Something about magnets and window alarms. Cool, but I didn't have one of those.

Then Corrie suggested what if the noses themselves lit up? I thought that was a great idea, but I didn't know how to execute it. So she drew me a diagram.














After attempting to put LEDs in the foam noses, realizing I didn't buy extra replacement noses in case I destroyed one, and also thinking that I didn't have time to really figure out if this was going to work or not, I decided to stick with my original idea: The Clown Love o' Meter.

Clowns need love too. Clowns are sad.













So, instead of using the button as a switch, I used two pieces of metal.














Now knowing that the metal was going work, I then poked holes in the noses and hotglued the metal to the tips of the noses. I wired the noses to the breadboard and the Arudino. Then I tested it! Success! After a few tries.

I didn't wire the noses directly at the tip (foam is a temperamental material!) so it took a little nuzzling to get the green light to go off. Nuzzling can be fun and interactive, so it wasn't too big of a problem.

Check out the video below for some hot clown action.

Clown Love from Krystal Banzon on Vimeo.

An interesting epiphany: I didn't realize how interaction can be so playful - I mean, I know we talk about it all the time at ITP, and I know that "playful" is something we all hope to be, "play" is a verb we want to put into practice, and "playfulness" an attitude that we strive for. It wasn't until I was trying to smash my nose into my friend Jenny's face, how we were forced to break our personal space bubble, and when I had to grab her head to face me because we kept missing on closing the switch, that I realized - wow, something other than a finger to interact with something, or someone, can make something really fun. Things that struck me: using body parts other than hands, interacting with another person (as well as the computer), and breaking personal space.

Acknowledgements:
-- Corrie Van Sice for her patience, advice, and diagram. She had the unfortunate luck of sitting next to me in the PComp lab through all of this.
-- Arturo Vidich for videotaping
-- Noah Waxman for going through the steps with me
-- Yea Bin Diana Oh for inspiration
-- Jenny Logico (below) for being my guinea pig!














-- And a shout out to Lisa Maria for being your bad Nica self!














Clown blooper for your enjoyment:

Untitled from Krystal Banzon on Vimeo.

Proof.

Some pictures of my new life, my first week in grad school!

ITP - The Beginnings!

It's Been A Long, Long Time.

Damn.

Yeah, so its been a year since I finished my Fulbright in Manila, and two years since I started this blog. What a journey. This blog began as "Striving for Praxis" - because that intersection between theory and practice was what I was looking for when I left to go study theatre in the Philippines in August 2007.

Sidenote: I'm a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador, so if you're interested in help with your application, or want to know more about my experience go here: a YouTube video interview by IIE about my experience (I can't *stand* this video), and my essay on Fulbright application tips.

Since then, its been a wild ride - I directed a show (check out photos on my portfolio), traveled through some of Southeast Asia, moved to New York City, been hustlin' by babysitting, working random laborious gigs, and assistant directing shows in NYC. All the while, I've been living and loving life (including the down, dark, periods - and there were some, trust me), meeting amazing people, and working, sharing, and collaborating with them.

Two years ago, I was looking for the link between theory and practice. I had just left the love of my life, Smith College, with a BA in Government and Women's Studies, and I wanted to be a theatre director. Armed with post-colonial theory, feminist knowledge, American race and cultural studies, and one full-length play under my belt, I was ready to find a way to bridge academia and art. If that wasn't challenging enough, I was going to do it in the Philippines. On a Fulbright. While "finding myself" as a Fil Am and rediscovering my history, heritage, and culture! Go me! I was going to crack open the world!

Then the world cracked me open.
Like a fucking egg.
Not one of those awesome salty purple eggs that are tough and resilient.
I was a thin-shelled, pesticide-ridden, sad, non-organic cage-fed chicken egg.

Needless to say, the world gave me a well-deserved bitch slap and it hurt like hell.
Then I moved to New York City, (because one smack down wasn't enough), and found myself surviving. Then, soon after, thriving.

I found myself changed, calmer, humbler, growing.

I realized that so many decisions I had made in the past were driven by what was "right," and the insanely high expectations of myself were motivated by fear - fear of failure and hurt. I began to realize that failing, and surviving, was my best success. Now, I find myself gaining a truer, more honest and genuine confidence.

Which brings me to where I am now, and why "Striving for Praxis" has been renamed "The Center for Sustainable Foolishness."

Two years later, I am beginning to learn to bridge the gap between theory and practice, ideas and art. I am starting my first year at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, in the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). ITP is an interdisciplinary program, a playground for artists and technologists to come together, learn from each other, and create things with our (and each others) brains and hands. I've only been here two days, and it is a magical fucking place. I have very little background in technology and new media, but I am so privileged, excited, and eager to learn to make things that I cannot even yet imagine, with creative people whose interests and disciplines are diverse and wide.

My first day of school, my morning class involved learning to wire a microcontroller to an LED and make it light up. Then, my second class of the day lectured to us, "poetry drives you, not hardware."

I am so happy to be in an environment where I have so much learning to do, that I have no conception of what I can make and what I am capable of. It is freeing.

I am inspired by this quote:

"Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.

It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you."

-Rumi

I've renamed this blog because I'm ready to be a damned fool.
I want to make mistakes and look ridiculous. I want to make bad decisions, freak out, cry, move forward, and learn and grow.

This will be where I will be posting my work, projects and ideas from ITP.

Thank you for witnessing my transformation from a true and sad dolt, to a joyful playful fool. Enjoy!