Journal 02


Wednesday 9/18: I finally had the chance to sit down and start playing with some of the toys I've been snatching up. Actually, on my way to ITP this morning I picked up another bag of stuff - a few of the necessary parts to create the power source cable, a transistor (which I asctually thought was a resistor) and I randomly picked up a motor and a flex sensor.

After about 30 mins in the lab (and with Alex and Mark's help) I was up and running with my newly created power supply cable (it's been a long time since I've picked up a soldering iron) and a basic breadboard setup with two or three LEDs randomly placed around the board. At first I was playing by the rules and making sure I had resistors strategically placed between my power source and my LEDs, but I'm starting to think that something is (a) wrong w/ my power supply or (b) I have the switches set on the wrong setting (I'm using the HelperMonkey AC adaptor) since even without the use of resistors, my LEDs aren't that bright (read: I wasn't able to burn any of them out).

After tinkering with different configurations (serial vs. parallel) of LEDs on the board, I started to mix it up a bit adding photosensors and experimening with the flex sensor. I was batting about .500 as I was able to get the photosensor working with two LEDs (however, the LEDs were so faint that either (a) the photosensor is acting overtime as a resistor or (b) something is screwy with my power setup), but no matter what I tried, I could not get the flex sensor to work. I was plugging it directly into the breadboard (do I need to solder/wire it to the board?). In any case, I'm a little disappointed that I couldn't get the new toys I picked up at the NYU Computer Store this AM to work so I think I may venture our on another Radio Shack field trip.

What else? I jumped ahead and already soldered up my 8pin female connector (using the longer set of pins, thanks Mark). I also burned myself about, er, 6 times on the transistor (a sign that my power source is AWOL?). In any case, I'm looking forward to round 2 of tinkering, especially once we start adding the BX24 to the picture.

Response to Reading: "Responsive Environments" (Myron Krueger)

Coming soon