Making Conversations

and Finding Things

CS4062 - Eoin Brazil - Semester 2 - 2009
 Communications
Wired Wireless
XPort TCP/IP for Infrared
Ethernet connectivity Bluetooth
Serial "RF"
I3C WiPort TCP/IP
CAN Cell Phone Data GPRS
ZigBee & 802.15.4
802.11b,g,n
 Examples

Linking an Arduino ethernet shield, parallax RFID reader, and

 Examples - SL <> RL

Linking an Arduino ethernet shield, parallax RFID reader, and

 Examples - SL <> RL
SL to RL
LSL script for SL
objects
LSL to PHP
webserver with
connected Arduino
PHP to Arduino’s
serial port

Linking an Arduino ethernet shield, parallax RFID reader, and

 Boticalls @ ITP
Botanicalls, thirsty
plants make phone
calls for human help.
Wired & Wireless
Light & Soil sensors
Arduino
XBee
XPort
Asterisk

http://itp.nyu.edu/show/winter2006/detail.php?project_id=912
http://www.botanicalls.com/twitter/index.htm
Boticalls @ ITP
Examples - Blogject

Botanicalls
Sensors to
Arduino
Arduino to
XPort to Twitter
Examples - Blogject
Examples - Spimes
Examples - Spimes
 Examples

Wind-up birds is an installation of networked mechanical woodpeckers.

Each woodpecker consists of a woodblock and pushmagnet, a custom-made electronic circuit and a radio modem.
All the woodpeckers are connected together in a zigbee wireless network.
Every 5 minutes one of the woodpeckers start pecking, and the others answer.
 Examples

Motors and a toy glockenspiel

 Beware
Communications Troubleshooting
use wired versions of your project or idea first, debugging a problem is hard when its
wired directly together, wireless adds an additional layer of problems
chatter, too much or too fast can result in loss
wireless is slower than wired
more expensive approaches can improve speed and reliability but all are battery hogs
NAT, routers, and traversing firewalls

Sessions or Messages
TCP or UDP
Session makes connection, does handshaking, information is transferred, and then closed
Datagram, similar to physical letter or postcard
Point to Point, Point to Many (multicast), Point to All (Broadcast)
 802.15.4 Topologies

Single peer

Broadcast

Multi peer
 ZigBee Topologies
Peer

Star

Mesh

Routing
 Protocols and Proxies
Proxy: Conversion of Protocol: Structured
communication to another type conversation
Network serial (Serial to TCP) Midi / OSC
TinkerProxy / Griffin Proxi DMX512
osculator X10, INSTEON
Girder (Windows)
Shion, Indigo
Sydewynder

http://www.digitalartistshandbook.org/node/10
 Sources for Parts
Hacking / Disassembly
use existing high-tech, but inexpensive, objects, toys and devices as cheap source of parts
for your projects
little specialist knowledge is required, photograph and document the disassembly
``Low tech sensors and actuators for artists and architects’’ provides examples, by Usman
Haque and Adam Somlai-Fischer

Purchase / Stores
Many parts are available locally in UL, ask.
Online vendors for electronic parts include farnell.com, mouser.com, and digikey.com
Sensors, shields, kits, servos can also be found from sparkfun.com or parallax.com
Many others, just small selection that I’ve used.

http://lowtech.propositions.org.uk/
http://ie.farnell.com/