learning the ropes

I spent a bit of the afternoon photographing my living room. I spent even more time manipulating the images to try to reconstruct the perspective of the room. Am I spending too much time on this? I’m not sure that sketching would be quicker — but it would look more accurate.

I’m working on a game of catch as my first self-chosen project in Physical Computing.

The idea is simple: two players throw a ball (represented by moving LED) back and forth. The thrower controls the speed by the amount of time he takes to release SW 1 after pressing it. To catch the ball, the second player, must press his button exactly when the ball reaches him.

The implementation is not as simple: it appears that I may need to draw a state diagram. The schematic isn’t complex, but I have a feeling that the code will be.

For now, I will keep my goals simple.

1. Test out a throwing algorithm (done). I’ve already made the “ball” move and at varying speeds
2. Make SW1 trigger the throwing algorithm
3. Work out a catching algorithm

In order to get my salvaged switches working, I visually inspected the circuit traces and then poked around measuring continuity until I found the pairs that matched.