Howdy everyone.  This is my first post, and unlike most blogs I’ve started and never continued, I think I might actually try to post regularly on this one.  So I guess the only thing going on my life right now that’s super exciting is this project I’m making for my Physical Computing class.  Our midterm assignment was pretty open-ended; basically, develop a system in which a user can communicate with or through a computer without using the mouse and keyboard.  It was also an option to exclude the computer all together, but I don’t think I’m advanced enough to start programming in machine code, so for now it’s Flash the mchelper app.

About 200 dollars worth of erector set and various other tools later, I’ve put together the base for my project.  To give you a better idea of what I was thinking from the beginning, here’s a piece from my proposal:

The goal of my project is to create an electronic representation of the children’s game “etch-a-sketch.” The product will use the Make Controller to allow a user to interface what I’m calling the “eSketch” via dials, sliders and buttons. The Make Controller will send input signals to Flash, where it can render the information into variables that control either three or four motors, depending on the scope of the project. Two of the motors will be responsible for X and Y positioning, while the third will move the drawing apparatus up or down (so that you can move the system to a new location without drawing a line to that spot). The dial will control X positioning with full left matching the left hand side of the drawing canvas, and right matching the right. The slider will control Y positioning with full up matching the top of the canvas, and full down matching the bottom. A button will allow the user to control whether or not the pen is up or down.

But anyway, here’s a few pictures of what I ended up with.