w/ Zey

concept

We wanted to do an aura reading inspired by the aura photo at the magic Jewelery NYC: https://www.magicjewelrynyc.com

The original idea was to link censors to the crystals so that once pressed, they generate different “auras” based on the pressure you apply with your hands. The user would have to step forward in a designed position to get their answer displayed on a projector, around their silhouette shade. We wanted to design a visual that would actually look like an aura is drawn around their silhouette so the position from the projector to the person would matter.

credit - zey

credit - zey

credit - magic jewelry nyc aura photo

Eventually due to time constraints, we scoped this project down to the following:

• we would turn the crystals into tarot cards with FSRs (after having a class discussion/with Jeff about how we could add a sensor to a nonconductive crystal, this seemed the simpler solution)
• the choice of tarot card would trigger a reading based on your choice to be displayed on a p5.js sketch running behind the project
  • this was further scoped down to displaying a random tarot card and a random reading (from a list of hand written ITP-related readings).
  • we originally wanted to also attach certain color choices to card choices, but eliminated this too. would be a fun idea for future project. maybe year 2 halloween.
• the project would take place on the type of table you’d see in a psychic’s reading room (built onto some board/tabletop).

build (pcomp)

First I tested attaching the FSRs (force sensitive resistors) to the back of a test card. In order to make this easier and in prep for installing in a board, I soldered long threaded wires that can lead from the card to the breadboard and dangle and be moved around easily. This required splitting up the ribbon cables and wrapping and soldering fiddly little leads to both ends. We decided to go with 6 cards.

In testing I found the pressure points on the FSR card too small and requiring too much concentrated force. After consulting with Jeff and exploring some different options (foam, changing the second resistor on the breadboard), I decided to attach thin pieces of cardboard to the back of the cards and reinforce the cardboard enclosure to try to make the contact points as firm as possible to ensure that a light hand press would trigger the sensor. This ended up working “OK”, but not great.

The circuit is very simple. Ran the FSRs in series across one row which feeds into the A0 analog input of the arduino. This combines any press on any card into one sensor input that makes it dead easy to write logic on. This got messy (physically) and some of the header pins weren’t fitting into the breadboard pinholes well so I ended up using blue tape to keep everything secure. You can see some leftover resistors from the beginnings of running them as separate inputs, which we descoped.

Although not pictured, at the last minute I added an LED tea light from the D9 digital pin which sends HIGH voltage while the one of the analog inputs is pressed.

D6DF11D9-8B40-4A5B-8C2E-4E13CE507819IMG_0398.mov

Then using next week’s documentation, got serial communication working with the arduino and loaded some samples to read from the correct port and read the sensor value. This ended up being pretty quick and easy. I then merged this with the visuals sketch that Zey put together.