Digital clock with Arduino

Assignment 1:

Make the controls for a desk or bedside clock.  At minimum this should include controls to set the hour and minute. Automated time setting is not permitted for this assignment. Your controls should be clear enough that the user can figure out how to set the time without a manual. Here are a few methods for setting the time on a clock.

You should add at least one extra feature to your clock. Consider the following:

• Alarm clock
• Time and Date clock
• Stop watch
• Countdown timer, such as a kitchen timer
• Chess clock
• Daylight clock (Arielle Hein)
• Sun-Moon position clock (Jeff Feddersen’s physical version is lovely)
• French Revolutionary era decimal time clock
• Talking clock

Whatever features your clock has, you should provide tangible controls to set and control those features.

Your clock’s display should be as simple as possible. The simplest version might be a serial output to a computer. You could also control a p5.js clock animation. You could also write to an LCD display or LED display. Since this is a one-week assignment, avoid mechanical clocks and focus on the input controls.

I decided to make a simple clock using an LCD display as I hadn’t used it before. The clock has a simple interface with just two buttons for changing the hours and minutes.

Testing the LCD contrast with a 10K POT

Power out

Front view

Since I only had two buttons as my interface, I chose to put the buttons on the back of the enclosure. Additionally I used big buttons for better ergonomics so that they are easy to locate in a dark room or without having to look. The enclosure is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and the form factor feels more like a game controller when using the buttons. The position of the buttons corresponds to the clock display, i.e. with the display facing you, the button on the left sets the hours and the button on the right sets the minutes.

Back view

Internal wiring

I used this diagram for wiring the LCD screen.

I replaced the POT with a ~10K resistor to set the brightness of the LCD.

I used Tom’s push button time set code as my starting point. In Tom’s code the time was set each time one pressed the button. I modified that code to change time as the button was held pressed. This proved useful when cycling through the minutes instead of pressing the button 60 times to change through the minutes.

I added this simple condition to the button press event so that button needs to be pressed in order to set the time.

WHAT IS PHYSICAL INTERACTION?

 

As I was approaching this question, I was wondering if I was walking into an analysis-paralysis situation by over thinking something so simple to answer. Isn’t interaction simply just communication between two people …..? I asserted, and found it pretty much futile to continue questioning further, but the train of thought had already begun.
…..Or is it interaction which sometimes takes place between a person and an object, like a boxer practicing his punches on a boxing bag? Or maybe between two objects, like our heart and lungs working in coordination, to keep the blood flowing and oxygenated….?
When a Mimosa Pudica herb closes its leaf in response to stimuli, is it interactive or merely reactive?
It may seem like new media creatives (myself included) would be quick to conclude ‘Interactive’, after all, if you were to artificially recreate a Mimosa herb using mechatronics, you would know what a long winded process it would be. From setting up the sensors, motors and linkages and programming all of the components to talk to each other to produce the desired result, is a commendable effort. Moreover, there are a plethora of new media projects (with similar interactivity quotient as that of a Mimosa herb) which respond to stimuli, rather quite one-dimensionally but are marketed as ‘Interactive art’, widely exhibited at ‘Interactive media art festivals’ and frequented by ‘Interaction designers and artists’.

So clearly there is a lot of buzz around interactive tech and media, but without a clear understanding of what it really means? In The Art of Interactive Design, Chris Crawford defines interaction as, a conversation between two actors who “listen, think and speak.” Physical interaction involves a give and take, and is not simply a reaction (for example, a viewer watching a movie) or participation (a couple dancing).

So Crawford would clearly dismiss the notion of a Mimosa herb being interactive and I agree with him.

I think it’s OK to declare that in the context of interactive design or interactive media, for something to be interactive, it has to work outside of repetitive instances of mere cause and effect, unless the effect stirs up another cause leading to a different effect. This act of give and take is much more dynamic, engaging and meaningful.

But I also wonder why Crawford chose to use the term ‘actors’ instead of people? Could it imply that the two entities are acting out a role in a given stage (context) where the interaction plays out? A context where there are unique rules, behavior and sign systems? Is an AI machine talking to another AI machine a case of interaction design? Because even though a person (Human) is only an audience to  such an AI driven chat show, it still takes a person (human) to design and engineer it. How then, would a person design such a platform for AI conversation? Should you design it to be decipherable for humans? Instead, what if you invent an entirely new language, much rich in semiotics in computer parlance for AI bots to communicate with several times more efficiently? Does it still hold up to the idea of interaction design?

As you can see, the more you attempt to define it, the more obscure or inadequate the definition starts to feel. It can perhaps only be understood within a certain framework (context) of declarations and objectives.

 

WHY IS THERE A NEED TO DEFINE WHAT INTERACTION IS?

There isn’t really, because there is perhaps no satisfactory answer. But in the process of trying to define it you understand the boundaries of the concept and the boundary can be thought of as both limiting and expansive. Moreover, you will have some objective parameters against which you can judge your design, and lastly and more importantly, the process of inquiry gives you better informed visions of the future of interactivity!

Bret Victor, in A brief rant on the future of interaction design says, “I believe that our hands are the future!” It’s quite a fun way of saying that interaction design as we know it, is under-utilizing the capabilities of the human body. Our dexterous hands are capable of much complex and nuanced gestures than simply swiping and tapping information on a sheet of glass. Bret has a term for it – ‘ pictures under glass’.

You can think of interactivity as a long string of information exchange at its most fundamental level and if you observe the different ways in which nature presents information, you can imagine a much richer future of interaction design which extends far beyond the screen, incorporating sights, sounds, smells, taste, touch and everything that could appeal to our senses!

This is indeed a beautiful idea and it has been explored previously as well. I appreciate Bret’s essay for putting forth a case for a more organic and immersive interface design, which fully exploits and extends human capabilities but at the same time, it is also frustrating to not find any answers for achieving that level of interactivity. I appreciate the detailed and well documented presentation on the dexterity of the human hand, but all of those gestures are very one dimensional and meant for specific actions.

Let me explain, I think every rosy idea should be tested in practical terms as an early prototype, even if in form of a simple thought experiment. So I wondered; if I were to design an enterprise software, in which the user is presented with several layers of information and has to navigate several pages with multiple buttons to click and drop down menus to select, how much of our sensory or bio-mechanical capability should I exploit to control the interface? Should I design the software to accept as input, the full spectrum of hand gestures, from grips to pinch to scissor to flicks? OR, Should you smell Lavender, every time you get an email? OR Should I engineer my laptop’s enclosure to slouch as it starts losing power………?

No doubt, the whole idea starts to feel quite comical!

In fact, it seems as if dealing with highly complex tasks of information handling and processing requires a much simpler control, a lowest common denominator of input actions.
I wonder if people would want to perform awkward ‘hand/body gymnastics’ for navigating facebook! It’s seems to contradict the idea of interactivity as a tool. For a tool, like a hammer, is meant to have an easy and comforting interface (handle where you grip the tool) and leverage our bio-mechanics with amplified results on the output side (hammerhead).
So perhaps what is needed, is simply a minimal tool box of effortless interactions capable of manipulating a large landscape of information.

I don’t mean to disregard Brets’s ideas, but rather I think we need a paradigm shift in the way we process, display and control information to make organic interactivity possible. Something which has to be fueled by developments across tech, manufacturing, engineering and commerce.

I know I too have raised many questions without providing any answers, but I am going to attempt to do just that, at ITP and beyond!