Callie’s Page


This is my blog from my first semester at ITP. I have since switched to a Notion blog which you can view here.


Fall 2024


Intro to Physical Comp:



Intro to Comp Media:



Hypercinema:






Week 10 → Synchronous serial labs & final project progress



This week’s labs 


I completed the I2C Communication with a Time-of-Flight Distance Sensor Lab


 

I also did the Data Logging With an SD Card Reader using SPI Communication Lab

I used the code for writing data from the IMU sensor built into the Nano 33 IoT to an SD card.
Here’s the sample data I got after running the code



Final project progress


The game feels almost ready to playtest! 

We have the buttons wired and connected to p5 and the basic structure of a game, though I’m sure we’ll want to tweak it 

 
The game is structured into 8 rounds of 15 seconds. Each round, the number of fish on the screen will double (however the maximum amount of fish is 8, so that players can’t simply wait for tons of fish to spawn). Pressing a button will cause a fish to disappear and gain that player a point. 



If all the fish are depleted, the players lose and the game resets

I soldered some very long buttons so that we can playtest the game without fabricating the whole setup yet. When testing, each player can hold their own button. They’re still loud, so we might need to play music when playtesting. 
At the end of the 8 rounds, the player’s scores are displayed



We have a slightly new direction for the fabrication. 

We think it could be cool to project onto the table from below using a translucent material, like the acrylic pictured. We tested that out with a projector, and it worked pretty well (forgot to document)!  

The table shown is from Facebook marketplace, and we’re hoping to get this one (or a similar one). 

With a base structure like this table, we could layer translucent acrylic on top, place a projector beneath, and add buttons to the sides. 


The buttons are haunting me. All of the buttons on the floor are too “clicky” so we’ll need to buy our own. 

In my ideal world, we can find buttons that look and feel like a classic, tactile arcade button that is satisfying to press, but doesn’t make an audible click. However, it’s surprisingly hard to tell online how clicky a button will be before buying it. 

According to my friend, Tom Igoe might have some leads on this. I sent him an email to ask if he knows of anything that would fit. 



Open questions / considerations / problems



  • We need to playtest - we’re not sure if the game will be fun yet. There’s so much to consider... I do want the game to remain as simple as possible because I think adding too much could make it confusing. However, one mechanism I’m interested in exploring is rewarding players who cooperate. More research and testing is needed.

  • What kind of buttons to get? 

  • We need to get rolling on the fabrication soon - I want to have a table to base the design off of ASAP, because that will affect projector considerations. 

  • Definitely want to refine the aesthetics, add sound effects + animations for fish spawning and disappearing. 

  • Why is p5 sometimes crashing when the sketch is stopped? Troubleshoot this.