Below are videos demonstrating the multiple versions of code I used in the cubes while testing.

Dropped off cube for Test #3

User: Unsworn Industries

Dropped off cube for Test #2

User: Apokalyps Labotek

Dropped off cube for Test #1

User: Do-Fi

This week’s activities:

• With 2 cubes now complete, I am delivering them to local designers to test their interaction and potential future use.
• Working on interviewing techniques and questions that I will be asking. I’m video recording the interviews to be used for videos to support my final paper.
• Writing initial drafts for final paper…

After midway critique:

• Traveling to Stockholm and Århus for additional testing, along with testing more local designers and “people on the street”.
• More writing and editing video…

Some photos from recent prototype building. In case you are wondering, I ran cords out of my 4th floor apartment into the courtyard so the apartment wouldn’t smell like burnt wood/metal/plastic.

Cords out the window.

All pieces inside each cube.

Cubes drying after being glued.

Circuit board with touch sensor and LEDs.

Final assembly of internals (button stand and cube in background).

• button double-press (hold red light on)
• button press hold + touch tap (switches rainbow color)
• button press hold + touch hold (cross fades between rainbow colors)

My initial electronics design made use of a very small code library that would allow me to sense the touch of the button. This method did not require any additional hardware and used only a small amount of code to detect the touch. (See photo above) It is a great piece of code and only requires connecting a single wire to a single digital pin on the Arduino.

However, this method did not work for the level of control that I need for my cube. My basic debugging showed that the touch is being consistently detected, but the detection cycles quickly between “touch” and “no touch”. For my cube, I need to be able to detect when a finger is touching the button for more than 1.5 seconds, an action I’m calling a “hold”. This “no hardware touch detection” would cycle between “touch” and “no touch” so quickly when my finger was “holding” on the button, that I wasn’t able to accurately interpret the “hold” action.

I instead moved towards a “hardware required touch detection”… (see video)

The button touch is now being detected by the Quantum QT110 QTouch Sensor IC (chip). Only a simple setup is required, connecting the chip to power, ground, a capacitor to filter out noise, a wire that will be touched, and one digital pin on the Arduino to receive the HIGH/LOW output signal. The good thing about using the chip, is that it does the touch processing for me and outputs a simple HIGH/LOW signal to the Arduino, and also allows me to detect the “hold” action! Integrating this chip to the electronics was almost too easy. The only custom wiring I did was to lengthen the “auto timeout” from 10 seconds to 60 seconds. I changed one wire from power to ground for one pin on the chip to achieve this.

Functionality so far:

• button press (red light on)
• tap button touch (blue light on, repeats number of taps)
• hold button touch (blue light, cycles brightness up and down)

I never thought I would hear myself say that! Thanks to my classmate, Katrina Anderson, for the perfect idea of sewing conductive thread on top of a monome.org style rubber button.

Many updates to catch up on…

I have decided on a direction for the final prototype: a small cube with a single touch-sensitive button, that abstracts the idea of a SUI, with playful and contemplative interactions. The first step, of course, is to create this cube.

My plan is to laser cut plexi for the cube, use a monome.org style rubber button, make the top of the button touch-sensitive, include some AA batteries, throw in an Arduino Pro board and maybe an RGB LED… and POW!… a “SUI Cube!”

3rd Test of making the rubber button touch sensitive… (the 1st and 2nd attempts were with variations of using a QT110 touch sensing chip or a bare wire, both of which failed)

I know of capacitive touch chips that are available, for example, at Sparkfun. But why do I need an additional chip for sensing touch, when apparently I can do the same sensing with a piece of wire connected to the arduino? See video…

Hardware setup and Arduino code available in Arduino Playground: Native Capacitive Sensors without additional Hardware