Hello From the Other Side

Made by kanikak, Benjamin Hecht and Samuel Lee

Ever miss your family? Don't have time for a call or rather don't know what to say? All you know is you miss them. Sometime all you need is a gesture just showing them that you miss them. Hello From the Other Side (HFOS) is that tool. It is a non verbal tool that facilitates distance communication between a parent and their child.

Created: March 4th, 2018

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PROBLEM

With parents working over time and numerous of them being consultants, many parents are away for the entire week and only get to see their children on the weekend. Hello From the Other Side allows for non verbal interaction between the parent and a child to help build relationship across distance. 

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OVERVIEW

Hello From the Other Side (HFOS) is a interactive tool in connecting parents and their children when they are unable to see each other. The interaction takes place with either party moving the right hand with a flex sensor. This reflects with a left hand wave for the other person. The face of the tool is a white board on which the kid or parent can customize the product. 

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PROCESS

1. We identified 3 different areas: 

 - connecting parents with new borns that are in intensive care and the parents can't be there due to other responsibilitiess

- games: tic tac toe and connect 4 playing board 

- collaborative sketch - drawing together

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2. We further explored the opportunity to play games and create a moment of delight in a persons monotonous day. We ran into a few complications with LEDs. Not enough digital/analog slots. We couldn't find enough LEDs. There were time constraints. We weren't confident in our coding skills. There were just a number of different issues. So we decided to pivot 

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3. The pivot was towards creating a tool that was inspired by a smiley face with insanely large hands. The idea being that a parent and their child can communicate from a distance. We initially only had one hand.

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4. We decided to add two hands. The right hand would be the flex sensor that would trigger the servo on left hand of  the second product. 

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5. We drafted out our storyboard for a the video of the product. 

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5. The final leg of our project started with us laser cutting our all our pieces from the acrylic. After which we constructed the product and did on final test to see if all the pieces were working. 

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//Particle Photon code

//the other side will be the reverse. i.e subscribe_channel = "diot2018/tictactoe/particle2" ;

const char *subscribe_channel = "diot2018/smiley/particle1" ;

const char *publish_channel = "diot2018/smiley/particle2" ;

const int FLEX_PIN = A0; // Pin connected to voltage divider output

// Measure the voltage at 5V and the actual resistance of your

// 47k resistor, and enter them below:

const float VCC = 4.98; // Measured voltage of Ardunio 5V line

const float R_DIV = 47500.0;

// Upload the code, then try to adjust these values to more

// accurately calculate bend degree.

const float STRAIGHT_RESISTANCE = 37300.0; // resistance when straight

const float BEND_RESISTANCE = 90000.0; // resistance at 90 deg

Servo myservo;// create servo object using the built-in Particle Servo Library

int button = D1;    //declare variable for button

int servoPin = D0;  //declare variable for servo

// Read the ADC, and calculate voltage and resistance from it

float getFlexAngle() {

  int flexADC = analogRead(FLEX_PIN);

  float flexV = flexADC * VCC / 1023.0;

  float flexR = R_DIV * (VCC / flexV - 1.0);

  Serial.println("Resistance: " + String(flexR) + " ohms");

  // Use the calculated resistance to estimate the sensor's

  // bend angle:

  float angle = map(flexR, STRAIGHT_RESISTANCE, BEND_RESISTANCE,

                   0, 90.0);

  Serial.println("Bend: " + String(angle) + " degrees\n");

  return angle ;

}

//drives the motor to correct angle

void setFlexAngle(float angle) {

  Serial.print("Setting servo to " + String(angle) + "degrees\n") ;

  myservo.attach(servoPin) ;

  myservo.write(angle) ;

  delay(200) ; //short delay to allow motor to move

  mysevo.detach() ;

}

//publish to cloud

void publishAngle(float angle) {

  s = String(angle) ;

  Particle.publish(publish_channel, s) ;

  return ;

}

void subscribeHandler(const char *event, const char *data) {

  if(!data) {

    return ; // nothing sent

  }

  float angle = String(data).toFloat() ;

  setFlexAngle(angle) ;

  return ;

}

void setup()

{

  Serial.begin(9600);

  //setup flex sensor

  pinMode(FLEX_PIN, INPUT);

  //setup servo

  myservo.attach(servoPin); //Initialize the servo attached to pin D0

  //quick servo test

  myservo.write(90); //set servo to furthest position

  delay(100); //delay to give the servo time to move to its position

  myservo.write(0); //reset servo position

  myservo.detach(); //detach the servo to prevent it from jittering

  //subscripe to channel

  Particle.subscribe(subscribe_channel, subscribeHandler) ;

}

void loop()

{

  int delay_period = 1000 ; // set to desired amount to prevent too many messages sent

  float curr_angle = getFlexAngle() ;  //get angle of the flex sensor

  publishAngle(curr_angle) ; //publish angle to other device

  delay(delay_period);

}
Click to Expand
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OVERVIEW (Quick overview, Material Part, Diagram, code)

Material Parts: 

2 breadboards

2 particle pros

jumper wires

wires 

2 servo motors

2 flex sensors

1 2'x1' acrylic sheet 



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Creative Project III: CONNECTED INTIMACY
Ben H - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyTOyoQZ61w&feature=youtu.be
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REFLECTION

It's been an interesting journey of going back and forth between ideas and figuring out what we would actually go through with. Even though it was a little difficult to plan out how to create our project with individual schedules, as a team we are super excited with the product we built. 

We also struggled in the final stages to get all the flex sensors to work. The flex sensors seem really sensitive and stopped working. 

All that being said, it was fun, delightful and creates a beautiful connection between the parents and child. 


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About

Ever miss your family? Don't have time for a call or rather don't know what to say? All you know is you miss them. Sometime all you need is a gesture just showing them that you miss them. Hello From the Other Side (HFOS) is that tool. It is a non verbal tool that facilitates distance communication between a parent and their child.