Today we're going to make an interactive house that can react to sound.
You can use this same design to make a jacket sleeve, hat, or tapestry
respond to sound.
NOTE: Although we use an earlier version of the
Sparkle board (called Schemer), the wiring and behavior is the same.
First build up the structure of the house according to the instructions,
and figure out where you want your components. In our case, we chose to put
Schemer
by the little chicks, and lightboards and microphone will be arranged on the
hedge.
Schemer to battery
This part is really easy. Just connect the plus of the battery holder to the
plus of schemer, and then connect the minus of the holder to schemer.
If you insert a battery, you will see a default flashing pattern to let you
know that it's working.
To better hide the thread, do short stitches on the top side, and long stitches
on the bottom side. You can later cover them with decorations.
Lightboards
Next, arrange your lightboards in order from 1 dot, 2 dots, all the way to 5
dots. Now connect all the holes with dots together to schemer using one length of
thread, then connect all the minus holes with another length of thread.
Basically, you need to connect all the top holes of the lightboards with
the top dot on schemer (gray lines), and do the same thing with the bottoms
holes (black lines).
Get more details about how to hookup components
here.
Sound sensor
Hooking up the sound sensor is also pretty easy. Just connect it to the
lightboards by sewing the holes just as if you were attaching another
lightboard (dot on the sensor to dot on Schemer). We attach it to the back of the hedge opposite the lightboards.
Even though we use a sound sensor for this project, you can easily swap it
out with a light sensor, or vibration sensor, etc.
Final steps
What, we're done already?! Pretty much... all the hard work of configuring,
sensing, PWM control, bus protocol has already been done. The idea
is for you to
mix and match components and get your project working quickly.
Finish up the house by mouting the hedge and placing flowers in front of all
the lightboards. It helps to cutout small circles in the middle of the
flowers so all the lights are more visible.
Programming
When you first hook up your Schemer, it will flash a blinking pattern. To
make it react to light or sound, go to the
programming page, on your
computer or smart phone. There you can adjust the settings to
look like this, hold it in front of Schemer, and send the program.
