Vis 147 Midterm Project

Alan Yang

VIS 147

Nov 1 2010

Midterm Project

       We are living in an amazing world that some creatures have two eyes, and some have compound eyes. But not all the eyes can provide good sight to creatures as they needed. However they have developed some other senses to help themselves to live. One example is the bats using Echolocation.

These animals have really poor sight; however, they are able to use Echolocation to navigate during fly. “Bat echolocation is a perceptual system where ultrasonic sounds are emitted specifically to produce echoes. By comparing the outgoing pulse with the returning echoes the brain and auditory nervous system can produce detailed images of the bat's surroundings.” Bats are actually seeing the images from the echoes. So I came up this idea of hearing “the sound of vision”, or “the pitch of a space”. Some abstract art works are painted to present a rhythm or a piece of music. My idea of this project is to give user an audition of the space.

My device is built on a baseball cap. There is a microphone to measure the volume of the voice. As the performer yells loud enough, the microphone will activate the device, and then the ultra-sonic distance sensor will start to detect the distance. After that, the measuring result from the distance sensor will be sent to Arduino. Then the Arduino will use the input sound and the distances as factors to play a short rhythm. As the output, the performer will hear this special piece of music.

Codes:

/* 

 *Name:Alan Yang

 *VIs 147 Midterm Project

 *The sound of a space

 *

 *

 *More info:

 *THis is a small electronic devide which can detect objects from the distance. 

 *And then the distance will be transalted into the sound.

 *The duration of the sound is depends on the distance.

 */

// these constants won't change:

const int ledPin = 13;      // led connected to digital pin 13

const int electret = 1;  // the amplifier output is connected to analog pin 1.(Mircophone)

const int pingPin = 7;  // ultra sonic sensor 

// these variables will change:

int sensorReading = 0;      // variable to store the value read from the sensor pin

int sensorMax = 0;

int sensorMin = 1023;

int threshold;

//Starting up the device and detecter the background noise.

void setup() {

  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); // declare the ledPin as as OUTPUT

  Serial.begin(9600);       // use the serial port

  pinMode(13, OUTPUT);

  digitalWrite(13, HIGH);

  pinMode(4, OUTPUT);

  while (millis() < 3000) {

    threshold = analogRead(electret);

    // record the maximum sensor value

    if (threshold > sensorMax) {

      sensorMax = threshold;

    }

  }

  // signal the end of the calibration period

  digitalWrite(13, LOW);

  threshold = sensorMax;

}

void loop() {

  // read the sensor and store it in the variable sensorReading:

  sensorReading = analogRead(electret);    

  // if the sensor reading is greater than the threshold:  (activate the distance sensor)

  if ((sensorReading >= 200)) {

  

      

    // establish variables for duration of the ping, 

    // and the distance result in inches and centimeters:

    long duration, inches, cm;

  

    // The PING))) is triggered by a HIGH pulse of 2 or more microseconds.

    // Give a short LOW pulse beforehand to ensure a clean HIGH pulse:

    pinMode(pingPin, OUTPUT);

    digitalWrite(pingPin, LOW);

    delayMicroseconds(2);

    digitalWrite(pingPin, HIGH);

    delayMicroseconds(5);

    digitalWrite(pingPin, LOW);

  

    // The same pin is used to read the signal from the PING))): a HIGH

    // pulse whose duration is the time (in microseconds) from the sending

    // of the ping to the reception of its echo off of an object.

    pinMode(pingPin, INPUT);

    duration = pulseIn(pingPin, HIGH);

  

    // convert the time into a distance

    inches = microsecondsToInches(duration);

    cm = microsecondsToCentimeters(duration);

    

    Serial.print(inches);

    Serial.print("in, ");

    Serial.print(cm);

    Serial.print("cm");

    Serial.println();

    digitalWrite(13,HIGH);

  

  

    int freq = duration;//sensorReading*10; // the warning sound has a pitch, it depends on the volume of the input sound.

    //delay(inches);  // Making an echo effects

    buzz(4,freq,cm); // the output, make a warning sound.

    digitalWrite(13,LOW);

}

}

long microsecondsToInches(long microseconds)

{

  // According to Parallax's datasheet for the PING))), there are

  // 73.746 microseconds per inch (i.e. sound travels at 1130 feet per

  // second).  This gives the distance travelled by the ping, outbound

  // and return, so we divide by 2 to get the distance of the obstacle.

  // See: http://www.parallax.com/dl/docs/prod/acc/28015-PING-v1.3.pdf

  return microseconds / 74 / 2;

}

long microsecondsToCentimeters(long microseconds)

{

  // The speed of sound is 340 m/s or 29 microseconds per centimeter.

  // The ping travels out and back, so to find the distance of the

  // object we take half of the distance travelled.

  return microseconds / 29 / 2;     

  }

  

  // class to make buzzer work.

  void buzz(int targetPin, long frequency, long length) {

    long delayValue = 1000000/frequency/2; // calculate the delay value between transitions

    //// 1 second's worth of microseconds, divided by the frequency, then split in half since

    //// there are two phases to each cycle

    long numCycles = frequency * length/ 1000; // calculate the number of cycles for proper timing

    //// multiply frequency, which is really cycles per second, by the number of seconds to 

    //// get the total number of cycles to produce

    for (long i=0; i < numCycles; i++)

      { // for the calculated length of time...

        digitalWrite(targetPin,HIGH); // write the buzzer pin high to push out the diaphram

        delayMicroseconds(delayValue); // wait for the calculated delay value

        digitalWrite(targetPin,LOW); // write the buzzer pin low to pull back the diaphram

        delayMicroseconds(delayValue); // wait againf or the calculated delay value

       }

}