A reflection

It's here, the end of the semester.  Although it feels more like the start.  I never thought I would be able to code to this capacity at all.  Things sort of just clicked.

My "Business Fan", as it is deemed now, is a working reflection of my experience in ICM and Physical computing.  I was working on the digital aspect in ICM and the tangible interactions and movement in Pcomp.

One early morning I was working off the old interface i've made to control my fan (Interface_v1).  It was a simple sketch made to represent the angle of the fan digitally and vise-versa.  It was plain to look at but I knew I had something there.  I wanted my physical fan to have a direct connection with the javascript I was writing.  So I made them share the same value.  mouseX was the easiest to have a immediate impact to the input and was very precise.  So for weeks I've been controlling both aspects of my project with the swipe of my fingers.

As the physical component of my project changed.  So did the interface to match.  The physical movement of my version 1,2,3 fans are different and needed a digital interface to support these motions.  Here is how different the arc opens up in Interface_v2.

In my previous assignments, I kept using this ARC pattern to create a visual component.  It was something I was clearly trying to understand.  The timelines I created and shifting colors, also resurfaced from past projects.  If I had time, of course there would be sound.  But the sound of whirring servos and the paper fins brushing past each other will have to do for now.

Oh and arrays, if you look back to the blog post about arrays I made a comment about how it would eventually make sense.  And well, sure enough, it makes sense to me now and is what created this visualization pattern. Interface_v3

It is hard to be completely satisfied with my work here.  Once I enter a new territory and gain a grasp of my surroundings my mind starts to spit out the possibilities.  Paraphrasing here, but I will keep to heart what my professor Dano said during our presentations "...keep your whimsical approach to coding..."  And you know what, I will continue to play in the vast playground of digital functions and objects.  Who knows what I can stumble on through my travels?