Ardiuno is an affordable microcontroller and software that uses coding/ javascript. At the workshop in the creative technology lab the basics of Arduino were explained. I haven’t used Ardiuno before and don’t feel it would be most appropriate for my project, since researching the sound and music codes that are open source it seems very complex and not very suitable for my practice. I prefer the sound making within pure data. However one feature I like is the ability to easily upload MP3 files, this is something I want to explore further.

Using an ultrasonic microphone to control LED lights. The ultrasonic sensor is a microphone and speaker, the microphone measures distance this signal is then received by the arduino board and then sent to the LED lights, the code used was open source, by going very near the sensor the LED is off when nothing is covering the sensor the LED is on by waving in front of it it is on off on off. Ultrasonic sensors can be affected by many variables such as not enough light or interference from other devices. It would be fun to experiment with the ultrasonic sensor to control sonic variables such as volume, frequency or speed.

Simple circuit with conductive thread included – ground to negative digital 8 to positive. I tied the conductive thread to the positive and negative componanents on the speaker, I was think I could add male wire ends to the conductive thread and then be able to surpass the alligator clips. Now I understand this and how conductive thread could potentially be incorporated into my E-Textiles project – through sewing the thread into the speakers and male wire ends into the microcontroller which could be sewn using regular threads into the screw wholes.