CTRL ALL
Authorship & Interaction Sensory Engagement & the Haptic
Introducing Ctrlall, Bringing intuitive interaction with your home. The console allows you to control your house in new ways never experienced. Giving the user a seamlessly easy device to control bringing gestures and voice interaction to a ground breaking innovative user interface.
Content Components & Software Design Concept Design Features Design Development Production
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Software I downloaded the Capacity Sensor Library for the Arduino Code. The Capacitive Sensor library turns two or more Arduino pins into a capacitive sensor, which can sense the electrical capacitance of the human body. Once built the bread board as specified the IR LEDs I had removed from the two regular TV controllers did not work once i uploaded the code it still did not react to gestures unfortunately that impeded me from meeting my goal of creating the device. Utilizing Arduino to create voice and gesture integrated interaction was a challenge through my limited knowledge on electronics and financial budget I failed to realize the final design I did not attempt to integrate the voice control because it was a minor and more complex feature from my original gesture control plans.
Components used 1x IR Reciever
1.
30x Red LED
220k Carbon Resistor
Jump wires
Infrared LED
Bread Board Plan 30 LED Diodes
Bread board
Microphone
(for voice recognition)
Infrared receiver
Arduino Uno
Resistors
Positive & negative Jump wires
Infrared Sensor/Or IR LED (for Movement tracking)
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Concept Art Evolution
Control Unit Device Initial sketch Concept Art.
Prototype Made
Initial multimedia sketch Chrome look.
Built from Wood with Arduino Components inside.
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Front and Side View of Control Unit Device Digital Concept Art. Case made of Brushed stainless steel. Tinted glass cover for LEDS and IR sensor. .5
Features
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Turn On/Off Lights
Play music
Lock Door Front/Back Sets house Alarm
Close/Open Curtains
Sound Proof Room
Make Phone Call Front Door Telecom
Control Thermostat
Play Voicemail
Timer
Controls Ctrlall is very basic and natural to the user, which makes the console familiar and effortless to navigate through. There are a series of different gestures you can make to use the device.
wave up
Ctrlall has no screen but the lights on the Panel have small pictograms displaying what application you have control of. The lights turn on when the Application is selected. Navigation You can select the applications by simply waving your hand in specific directions across the device, the IR sensor reads your every movement. The control only varies to select an option, where you have to push your hand towards the device. (no physical connection must be made).
wave left
Changing Volume When changing the volume wave towards device and hold for 2 seconds the volume option will appear. the volume is increased and decreased through side waves.
wave right
Voice Control Ctrlall can also be controlled by voice by waving towards the device and holding for 5 seconds once voice control is activated you can verbally command your home.
wave down
wave towards (select) .7
CTRL ALL Creating CTRLALL was quite a journey and I wanted it in a format that would show my steps not from a technical side but conveying my thought patterns. I began with intentions of creating an LED Cube which has been majorly overdone, just check youtube if you don’t believe me. so as I ordered the components the wait made me re-think and re-design my whole idea. The issue of bringing purposeful, creative and natural interfaces to Arduino challenged me on what had not already been done. which brought me to a stage where everything I wanted to add had to help make the user’s life better and easier. my research brought me to the implementation of a interface that would not require study to navigate but rather brought familiarity and confidence to the user. I chose the environment where we are most at, the environment we most treasure, our home. CTRLALL is designed to connect the user and their desired environment.
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Researching InForm’s Dynamic Shape display Inspired me to take the use interaction beyond the screen. Looking at the Kinects capabilities of tracking movements my goal became to recreate it, in a device that would control a familiar environment. My research led me to believe that haptic and gesture were the most powerful controls we have. Along with our voice being tools to direct, communicate and interact. Having those basic but powerful things in mind I began looking at examples of tools created to enhance life focusing on our physical gestures. The idea came about while i was watching a movie called Last Vegas, i saw one of the characters playing with an LCD screen on a wall while to other characters tried to manually open the hotel room’s curtains and I began thinking this situation could have gone a lot smoother.
With that Last Vegas scene in mind I began drafting ideas of things that would be helpful to control through a single device. with scenarios of arriving home, being lazy in pyjamas to making a big meal for the family, I added the features in accordance to need/comfort of the user. Allowing their individual mood or personality dictate their environment. How the device would be connected to the house? I have research and found many videos from windows to closing automatically through train tracking to motion censored lights to automatically locks the technology we have today can make this devise real Unfortunately I did not have the means to myself whilst the duration of the project.
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Production
10.
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The hardest Part about building the
CTRLALL unit was not knowing anything to begin with. The ideas were there but the knowledge of the terms used related to electronic engineering was unfamiliar. It took a lot of research on description of components and actual difficulty levels when assembling parts and codes As a graphic designer I left my comfort zone and explored into this electrical component field.
12.
I began with basics bread board + LED + Wires + Resistors + Arduino = blinking wires, most of that stuff i had picked up during workshops that were held is University, but funny enough it was the only thing that actually worked .
The LED lights serve the purpose of indicating what options are selected they have been connected in rows of 3 the design itself has 6 slits in the outer case. which divide the device’s applications within them. For the prototype I programmed all the lights to stay on in order to show the pictograms within each slit.
The concept would be for the light of the application only to be on when selected through gestures. When the device is not in use the lights would remain off.
Image of Breadboard wire connection pattern all positives connected to slot 13, negatives connected to resistors and ground. INFRARED LED Diodes extracted from two TV remotes.
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When ordering
the components I had a rough idea of what I required to complete this project but half way through the assembling I had ran out of money from the budget I had set aside for the components. Although most parts are cheap they are very hard to find specially if you don’t know where to look. While doing some research I found out that one of the key parts for the de vice was sitting at home, Inside a TV controller I no longer used.
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Once the IR LEDs were Removed, I connected the Arduino Board back to the Coding software and Tried up loading the capacitive sensor code. Unfortunately I did not figure out why it was unsuccessful imagine it must have been something to do with the IR LEDs which I had taken out of the two controllers with the iron solder.
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Case Plan
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Making the Case was not my strength you can clearly see that on the prototype. I used the workshop available at university to cut the wood around the design. Once I had done that I glued the box together with wood glue. I had little time to execute the case, which led me to taking harsh decisions on the materials I was going to use. The front cover was originally to be made out of wood and the lights covered with a tinted glass or acrylic sheet with engravings of the icons on them. Also the case would have come out a lot better if it was laser cut. The style and logo would have been much easier to create while giving the prototype a professional look. With the Icons I ended up using three layers tracing paper it covered the bright lights so it is easy on the eye and displays the hand drawn icons fairly well. Another issue I encountered was drilling a hole on the top of the case for the usb cable, the biggest drill head was too small to fit the cable through so I used a scalpel blade and made a ugly looking mess to connect the power. I did not include the holes for the IR sensor and receiver because i did not manage to get it working.
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Interact with the things you LOVE Experience your HOME. CTRL ALL
Ctrlall Š2014 RZR Graphics Designed & Produced by Rodrigo Z. Rodrigues Authorship & Interaction Module (2013) MGRA 501.1 Off Screen Interaction Sensory Engagement and Haptic Student ID: W1394486 University of Westminster Ctrlall was designed in conjunction with this booklet and www.rzrgraphics.hotglue.me as a final project.
Designed By Rodrigo Z. Rodrigues Authorship & Interaction Module (2013) MGRA 501.1
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