I am Kanto, the Kanto who is not sticking to his profession
Today, let’s continue talking about Arduino,
It is completely correct for skilled electrical programmers to look down on Arduino, after all, they can quickly create a circuit board and solve everything stably, while you are using a Raspberry Pi or Arduino as a supplement.
However, we, coming from a traditional art design background, cannot underestimate the possibilities of Arduino. After all, the true imaginative part of Arduino lies in interaction, with vast potential.
Designers who are not very skilled can finally make their own designs come to life, how can they not be excited, how can they not cherish this moment? (The significance of Raspberry Pi is that traditional computer designers now have the ability to directly influence real-world scenarios, many people do not realize how significant this progress is.)
I haven’t statistically analyzed the total number of commercial projects using Arduino in the country, but it is visibly not many, mostly student graduation projects, after all, these are displayed for two days and then end, while commercial projects take at least a year or even longer, and there are generally doubts about Arduino’s stability and maintainability.
However, I have indeed encountered quite a few Arduino commercial projects, all of which are complicated relationships. Today, I will casually discuss one to illustrate the process of Arduino commercial projects.
By the way, for those of us from an artistic background, it is best to only work with low voltage for Arduino projects; if it involves high voltage, it is still necessary to have professional friends help out.
One year, I worked on a project at a gallery in Vanke, Jinan, where I directly managed four exhibition items, including a laser sand table, 3D house viewing, interactive touch cartoon character printing, and teamlab-like interactive cartoon character ground water flow. You understand…
In the end, the client said there was a bamboo forest, and the bamboo needed to sway and make do re mi fa sounds, so we needed to find a hardware supplier to cooperate, and then you handle the software part.
I asked if the hardware supplier had already been designated? A special connection? The client scratched his head and said it’s hard to find someone for this kind of interactive project, and we are also looking for people. Based on the principle that, “if I understand it, and the other party is not a well-known expert, then I probably understand it better than them“, I said don’t look blindly; I’ll help you with it. I’m confident in combining hardware and software, and we shouldn’t delay the acceptance process.
The client’s general idea was as follows: there are many bamboo poles on the ground, and the tops of the bamboo poles have light sources that can project onto the ceiling with special coatings, creating mottled patterns. Then the swaying of the bamboo poles needs to be detected, and each bamboo pole should emit different musical tones.
That’s easy; we can place a collision sensor inside the bamboo pole, which has a steel ball. When it collides, the steel ball connects or breaks the current. Based on this change, we trigger music, and the bamboo pole itself has a spring that can be activated by user interaction.
Since these types of devices consume very little power, we can directly strip a network cable to connect to Arduino and use Arduino’s power to drive it. The distance between the exhibition item and the control room is not far, so we can directly connect the network cable into the Arduino in the control room.
This type of sensor is essentially just an on-off switch, and it doesn’t need any 5V or 3.3V interface; it just needs one signal cable and one ground wire. The component itself is a very simple structure, just connect it, and then use glue to secure it to prevent the interface from falling off. (Depending on the number of inputs, consider whether to use a Mega.)
Connect the Arduino to the computer, plug in the power supply for the Arduino, and that’s it; the hardware part is done. (Remember to keep a few spare Arduinos with the same configuration, burn the program, label them, and store them in the warehouse. In case of leakage or damage, you can quickly send one over.)
Then the focus is on the software part, which I handled directly using Unity. Unity has a rich Arduino ecosystem, so you don’t need to figure out too much; just buy a few plugins and throw them into Unity.
The rest is to play the sound based on the input on-off status (this music can be adjusted according to Dolby 5.1 based on the space of the site, and you can also adjust the dry and wet effects. This is purely engine work, and you can play around with it).
After each music playback, we can delay for a period before starting to detect the next trigger, using this method to correct the sensitivity.
From my personal experience, Arduino can generally ensure long-term stable operation under stable site conditions. The main issues that may arise are loose wires, static interference, and USB port recognition errors. However, once it runs normally, it can actually be used for a long time. Even projects from three years ago are still operating stably.
That’s all for today, I am Kanto, see you next time