Sunday 19 February 2012

Wireless version of the earlier paper prototype

This was done by reviewing the previous single-arduino code and incorporating it into the wireless system. I had to wire up a new sensor and adapt the code on both ends. I had some trouble at the beginning as i couldn't get the other radio to respond to both of the sensors independently: instead it wanted to ignore one of them entirely or have the same response to both.

I referred to 'Building wireless networks' for help, but i couldn't find any suitable code. I looked in the Arduino  reference guide in case it was a syntax error. I noticed that I was reading directly from serial.read rather than storing it in another variable, so declared 'char val;' and used this instead and it the whole system works perfectly.

What I like about the new system is the flashing light: it really does bring attention to the chairs rather than just having a steady light. I had to change the light setting from 300 to 400 as it wasn't quite sensitive enough. I feel like this should be an option that users can change if it was to be implemented into the real thing.


Now that a working system can be implemented some more conceptual and academic research needs to be conducted to explore the value of this concept, why it is needed and what it should be and for whom.

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