Week 2: Blinking Lights, Turning Knobs, and Making Noise
- Alexandros Barbayianis
- Jul 21
- 3 min read
Exercise 1: Digital Input and Output with an Arduino
A simple intro to Arduino. My main takeaway: the short leg of the LED always goes to ground, not necessarily the resistor. I copied the code from the lab but understood it easily
thanks to what I’ve already learned in p5.js—the logic of turning things on and off felt familiar.
Exercise 2: Analog In with an Arduino
This one clicked with me. I followed the instructions through the potentiometer example where I controlled the brightness of an LED using analog input. It felt like a natural extension of the digital input exercise, just with more nuance (and smoother fading).
Again, I copied the code from the lab but understood how it worked because I’ve worked with variables and mapping values in p5.js before. The logic felt familiar even if the syntax was slightly different.
I stopped right before the examples with other types of variable resistors—the monkey, flex
sensors, etc.—but I understood how I could now use analog input to manipulate a wide range of outputs.
Exercise 3: Tone Output Using an Arduino
I was the most nervous about this one since a lot of my classmates said they struggled with it. Shout out to Crissy—she figured out that changing the mapping range from 200–900 to 0–1023 made the sensor readings behave as expected. I’m not entirely sure why that fixed it, but copying her solution worked for me.
I followed the lab through all the steps:
Checking the sensor readings through the serial monitor.
Confirming the speaker was working using tone outputs.
Combining both to create a simple interactive sensor-to-sound project.
Step 2: check if speaker is working using tone outputs Bonus:you can hear Crissy figuring out that "it has to do with the code"
Even though I copied the code directly, I understood how the logic worked—using the sensor values to control the frequency of the tone—because I’ve already worked with similar map()
functions and input/output relationships in p5.js. It helped me see how these coding fundamentals translate from screen-based work to physical computing.
I stopped before the Play it Loud section, but I felt confident with what I learned.
PROJECT I/O - Thought process
List of Sensors and Actuators I’m Interested In
Sensors (Inputs):
Actuators (Outputs):
Sub-micro Servo Motor (SG90 style) (small and easy for prototyping)
I/O Project Idea: Motion-Activated Sound Maze
For this project, I’m interested in building a maze-like hallway structure out of cardboard and potentially 3D-printed elements. As a small human figure (or even just a hand) passes through the maze, it will trigger motion sensorspositioned throughout the space.
Interaction Plan:
As the figure passes each PIR motion sensor, music or sound plays.
If there’s no motion detected for more than 8 seconds, the sound stops and lights turn on as an indicator.
This creates a relationship between movement, sound, and light that feels reactive and responsive to the user.
Logic Concept:
If motion is detected, sound plays.
If motion stops (sensor inactive) for more than a set time, stop sound and turn on lights.
Using if/else conditional statements to control the output:
If motion detected = true → play sound
If motion detected = false for > 8 seconds → stop sound, turn on lights
I understand this may need some trial and error with timing and the sensor’s sensitivity, but this is the direction I want to explore.
Why this Idea?
This project ties directly into early ideas I’ve had for my future thesis, which have been with me since undergrad film school—long before I knew about ITP/IMA or interactive art as an institutionalized field. I’ve always been interested in creating an interactive music video experience in a physical space, something that unfolds as you physically walk through it.
The idea is to build an environment—a long corridor or gallery space—that takes roughly 2-3 minutes to walk through, where your movement triggers and shapes both sound and visuals. By the end of the walk, you’ve not only listened to the full track but also actively participated in the unfolding of the music video through both screen-based and physical interactions.
This simple motion-triggered sound maze is a small prototype of that larger concept: exploring how movement and physical space can control sound, light, and narrative time.
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