Process

• Draw from your project logs to tell the story of your exploration. Describe how you arrived out the outcome. What iterations, refinements, design decisions and changes were made? What challenges were encountered and how did you resolve them?

• Socket + Color + Servo

  I was assigned the above combination of input, output and object with the goal of making something animistic. At first, I was very unsure of how to interface with the socket. Do I take it apart? Do I cut into the wires? I didn't have relay. Concentrating on the affordances of the physical movement of the servo, I thought about how to make the socket 'emote'. The simplest way, given the rotation of the servo, was to attach wheels. The majority of the troubleshooting done during this project concerned the physical construction and engineering of the object. 

• The first issue were the wheels. Originally, I planned to use plastic bottle caps I had lying around. However, the plastic was thick, making it hard to cut through. Once I had squeezed them onto the straw, the friction fit was too tight I was unable to adjust their position on the straw without compromising the structural integrity of the straw. 

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• The initial set up I had involved taking the 2 servos onto top of one another. The rotation axis of one of the wheels was slightly higher, meaning the wheel connected to the servo on top had to be bigger. This meant I had to use different materials for the second wheel. As a result, the entire setup was slightly unbalanced, with each wheel travelling different distances, due to the radius and surface grip. However, connecting it to the Arduino, I had no problem coordinating the movement the wheels such that they span in the same direction at the same time.

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• Testing + calibrating the color sensor.

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• Taking these lessons I had learned, I separated the servos, taping them next to one another underneath the 'house' I had made for the socket. One major issue was the servos kept buckling under their own weight and falling off the house. In order to solve, this I attached a 'shelf' connecting the bottom of the servos to the house so that they would be supported as well as hidden. I left a hole in the back for the servo cables. I also replaced the plastic cap wheels with cardboard wheels I made from stacked hand cut cardboard circles. These were much more successful and gave the object a 'handmade' charm.