THE BROKEN STETHOSCOPE

About Project

The Broken Stethoscope is a physical representation of the vulnerability of strained relationships between 2 people. These strained relationships are usually caused by emotional abandonment of one party, leaving the abandoned party in confusion. However, when trying to solve this abandonment, the abandoned party is often faced with silence, and a lack of interaction. In the perspective of the perpetrator, this silence can root from a lack of understanding of the other party’s situation, or not wanting to risk the negative consequences if he/she answers.

Me and Mun Cheng thus decided to use a stethoscope as our object. Similar to how a doctor checks on his patients, we have the perpetrator and the victim doing this interaction instead, where the victim asks the questions to the perpetrator.

Observational Documentation (user-tests)
Videos
  1. Play-test
  2. Peltier tests
  3. Peltier test on chest in class
  4. Peltier test with stethoscope attached
Design Process Documentation

Initial Ideas (please click the attachment below)

IDEAS FOR EXPERIMENTAL INTERACTION FINAL PROJECT

Process documentation

Initial circuit set-up
installing the circuit along with the stethoscope
Final set-up

 

Initially, we wanted to install the stethoscope head below the Peltier module (which we encased), but we realised that the sound of the cooling fan overpowered the sound of the heartbeat, thus we decided to remove the stethoscope head altogether and just replace it with the Peltier.

 

Final Presentation

Final Presentation Video

Final set-up

For our final presentation, we created a set of questions for the two participants, The participant who is wearing the pulse sensor is the one asking the questions, and the other participant who answers feels the coldness from the Peltier module. We also gave disclaimers and instructions, such as to take out any jackets and earrings so that the pulse sensor can be installed properly, and that the participants can feel the coldness.

Instructions and Questions (please click attachment below)

THE BROKEN STETHOSCOPE instructions and questions

 

Instructables

Materials required

  1. Peltier module
  2. Heat sink
  3. Cooling fan
  4. AC to DC power adaptor
  5. Female power connector
  6. Pulse sensor
  7. Breadboard
  8. Relay
  9. Arduino module
  10. Laptop / power bank
  11. Electrical tape
  12. Thermal paste
  13. Stethoscope
  14. Acrylic

Step-by-step

  1. Connect power and ground sources from arduino to breadboard
  2. Connect pulse sensor to breadboard and arduino
    • Purple wire: any analog pin
    • Black wire: ground rail (blue)
    • Red wire: power rail (red)
  3. Connect relay to breadboard and arduino
    • IN: any digital pin
    • GND: ground rail (blue)
    • VCC: power rail (red)
  4. In each slot within the female power adaptor, attach 2 positive and 2 negative wires.
  5. Connect relay to female power connector and Peltier (from top view – screws are at the top)
    • Left-hand outlet: insert positive Peltier wire
    • Middle outlet: insert positive female power connector wire
  6. Connect negative wire of Peltier and female power connector together using crocodile clips
  7. Connect female power connector to power adaptor
  8. Using the other set of positive and negative wires on the female power adaptor, attach the fan to the circuit.
  9. Paste Peltier module on top of heat sink and cooling fan at the bottom.
  10. Encase the Peltier, heat sink and cooling fan with an outer casing (in our case we used acrylic)
  11. Line the wires along the stethoscope and cover it up with tape/ tubing
Codes and circuit design

Circuit design

Codes

Peltier test with a button

Final code for the Peltier and the pulse sensor

 

Issues and troubleshooting

We had many issues regarding the sensitivity of the Peltier module and the pulse sensor. Initially, the Peltier became very hot in a short span of time, when it was supposed to stay cold throughout the duration when the circuit was closed. Also it was only able to work once, and last for about 1 minute. We then realised that the heat sink and the cooling fan was too small to dissipate the heat produced fast enough, thus, we changed both of these components to bigger and thicker ones. That solved our issue about the heat dissipation. The one issue we could not really solve was the pulse sensor. Because the pulse sensor is partly a photocell, it senses light to activate the Peltier and has a threshold. However, the sensitivity of the pulse sensor is extremely high, and it triggers the Peltier to turn on and off at very high frequencies, and the Peltier module cannot keep up with it. We managed to find a more controllable threshold at 800, but that limited its sensitivity to sense ones pulse all the time.

Project 2 – The Improbability of Vision

Project Information

For this project, we had to create an optical illusion or an optic image that confuses the mind. I decided to do research on Kokichi Sugihara, a Japanese mathematician and artist who is well-known for his three-dimensional optical illusions that seem to defy logic.

Chosen Optical Illusion

I decided to try out his triply ambiguous object as i felt that it would be interesting to challenge myself to create a two-dimensional plane and make it seem like a three-dimensional object.

The triply ambiguous object is a set of cuboids drawn on a piece of paper, and are seen to be stacked on top of each other. On plain sight it seems like a drawing, but when placed in a space with only 1 colour with 2 mirrors, it appears to be three-dimensional, and each angle seen from each mirror looks like a different object.

The key to creating and perfecting this illusion is the angle in which the cuboids are drawn. Usually, cuboids are drawn with a 90 degree angle on each side, but in this case, to make it appear 3-dimensional, we have to draw the cubiods with an angle of 120 degrees instead. The 3 main axes of the drawing are connected by a 120 degrees angle. Thus, in order for it to appear 3-dimensional in real life, this illusion must be seen from a certain angle.

The PDF guide for this illusion is below:

triply ambiguous object

Limitations

I realised that the triply ambiguous object did not look as 3-dimensional in real life than in pictures. Probably that is because our cameras flattens certain dimensions and aspects that our eyes usually comprehend, thus allowing us to see the object as 3-dimensional through the phone screen.

Improvements that can be made would probably be engulfing the whole set-up in a black backdrop/ put the set-up in a box with 1 light source.

Documentations

Set-up of project

Video of object can be found here

 

ZINE: LOCALE! – PART 1 (Research and Presentation)

About

For this project, we are tasked to choose a location and do extensive research on it, followed up by a presentation/ infographic presenting our findings, including interviews, photos, videos, statistics, etc.

( PDF of my infographic is attached below! )
TOA PAYOH INFOGRAPHIC
Chosen Location

I decided to choose Toa Payoh as it was where i spent the majority of my childhood in (10 years), plus the nostalgic atmosphere that this location provided resonated with what i wanted to convey in my presentation.

Concept & Process

I decided to start with an overall research on the history of Toa Payoh (its origins and its achievements), followed by narrowing it down to the certain aspects that makes Toa Payoh an attractive location to live in, considering that most of its residents have stayed there for a long period of time.

         

          

Following this research, I proceeded to make an online survey that has questions regarding impressions of Toa Payoh, and what people think is the different aspects which would appeal them to stay in Toa Payoh.  I managed to gather a total of 31 participants, and the statistics helped greatly with my overall research.

( Online survey can be found here )

From this survey, I decided to focus on 2 aspects that makes Toa Payoh such a prime venue – transportation (accessibility) and community.

To further support these two aspects and gather more research, I decided to make my way down to Toa Payoh again to do physical interviews with members of the public. I didn’t manage to get much, but the feedback given is similar – many old folks and humble community.

I also focused on future developments that Toa Payoh is making to become a more vibrant location – mainly government improvements and housing projects by private firms. I managed to find more information about Gem Residences, a huge housing project that is located at Lorong 4 Toa Payoh, and the Remaking Our Heartland programme by the government.

Thus, my infographic started with the overall history of Toa Payoh, marking some significant time periods for Toa Payoh. Next, I focused on transportation and community, and input the results from my online survey, and feedback from the physical interviews. This led to my thesis statement, that Toa Payoh is a run-down neighbourhood. And finally, I countered my thesis with future housing developments, showing efforts of improvement, and that Toa Payoh hopes to bring in the younger generations to stay.

Style

I decided to have handmade slides, thus i drew and formatted the information and vector images (motifs of Toa Payoh). I chose a pastel colour scheme, with a cream background, to show a more nostalgic tone, thus emphasising on Toa Payoh’s “oldness”.

Project 1: Bristle Bot

Bristle bots was the idea i used for my drawing machine idea. I encountered the making of the bristle bot through a kids science website and decided to try it out with bigger brushes.

B R A I N S T O R M I N G

Bristle Bot Perspectives

Orthographic Drawings of the Bristle Bots

Drawings made by Bristle Bots

Links for the videos of the drawings made by the Bristle Bots

Bristle Bots round 1 with permanent marker here

Bristle Bots round 2 with permanent marker here

Bristle Bots round 3 with permanent marker here

Bristle Bots round 1 with acrylic paint here

Bristle Bots round 2 with acrylic paint here

Bristle Bots round 3 with acrylic paint here

Bristle Bots round 1 with permanent marker and acrylic paint here

Improvements
  • Can put a pen holder for the permanent markers so that the markers can be replaced when they run out of ink
  • Start the bristle bots from a common starting point and then let them run
  • Use a smaller canvas for more equal distribution

Micro-Project 3: Together-Split

F U L L  V I D EO here

B L O O P E R S here
P L A N N I N G

For this micro-project, my group and i did a story about the travels of a coin across ADM, using Instagram’s video call split-screen function. The objective of our video was to document a coin travelling from different screens and ending up in each member’s hands at a certain point of time. Having only an hour to do the activity, there was quite a lot of time constraint, thus our video did not turn up as smooth as we expected. Nonetheless, it was a good job done and the coin still flowed between each screen.

C H A L L E N G E S  F A C E D
  • Coordinating each other’s movements and timings through the video call as each of us were at different venues of ADM.
  • The receiving of our messages and instructions were sometimes delayed due to connection issues, which affected our overall flow
  • The overall planning of how the coin flows from one screen to another and deciding the order of which we must be placed on the video call.
T A K E A W A Y S
  • Despite how smooth or fast recent technology has advanced to be, if we could not connect and coordinate within this virtual space, nothing could be achieved. Thus, beyond the advantages that technology provides, a good sense of teamwork is still required to make this work a success.
  • Using a virtual space to create a story is actually harder than i expected it to be, as we had to deal with electronic interruptions and connectivity issues
  • As we are so used to having face-to-face interactions and doing physical works that are physically interactive, we are actually not as adept with technology as we think we are, and in order to create fresher and more virtual works, we must embrace this technology and its challenges.
O V E R A L L  E X P E R I E N C E
  • All in all, it was a very fun project and I would like to try works that involves this kind of unfamiliar medium

 

O U T  O F  T H E  3  M I C R O  P R O J E C T S,
1. which project did you feel you had the most creative control? Why?

I felt that micro-project 2 allowed me to have the most creative control, as we had the freedom to create any content about any topic we want, as long as it is on a crowd-sourcing platform.

2. which project had the most unpredictable outcome? Why?

I felt that micro-project 3 had the most unpredictable outcome, because we were not familiar with the split-screen function, and was not sure how smoothly our story will flow out, due to unexpected challenges such as connectivity and order of screens.

3. which project best illustrates the concepts of DIWO & Open–Source? Why?

I felt that micro project 2 best illustrates the concepts of DIWO and open-source as using crowd-sourcing techniques meant that our audeince had to take part in our artwork, thus incorporating DIWO. Also, the fact that we used 1 social platform to execute our artwork meant that our audience had to congregate to that social platform to answer our questions, thus incorporating open-source.

MICRO-PROJECT 2: CROWD SOURCED ART

In this micro project, Charmaine, Mun Cheng and I explored the various functions of Instagram’s story page to test out how people answer our questions. We went with the theme of asking about how people feel and if they were willing to share about their day. We used Instagram question, Instagram poll and Instagram live to gather our crowd, which was our followers from each of our accounts. The willingness to participate or answer our questions depends on how convenient it is to access these functions, and the level of privacy in which they are able to share their problems on a social platform. Instagram live provides the most viewers, as there would be a notification of the person going live to each of her followers, however, the comments and answers that participants give on the live would appear on the screen for other viewers to see as well, thus eliminating the privacy part. For question, there is more privacy as answers that participants give can only be viewed by the owner, and it is the owners choice to share that reply in public. For poll, the privacy is the same, but there is less flexibility of options to what the viewers can choose. However, there is a choice for the viewer to decide to privately message the owner to share his or her problems.

Instagram question

 

Some people replied by clicking the question button and their replies only appear on our story feedback page (which we can only see), while some people personally messaged us to tell us more.

Instagram Live

Full video here

We had control of the type of questions to ask and what our topic was for our Instagram audience. However, we could not control the degree of authenticity in the answers given to us by our audience and that we may not know who is sincere or not. There is a constraint towards the topic as it only centers around how they feel about their day and can only talk about events that happened to them. There are 2 ways at looking at how a limited interaction will strengthen or weaken our results. If we had limited our functions to a live session, we would have gathered many viewers to one platform, but it limits the authenticity and length of replies through the live comment session. However, limiting the interaction by using a questionaire could have gathered more lengthy replies, and hence a better understanding to why that person is feeling this particular emotion today.

In addition, as compared to a crowd-sourced work created by a single artist, using 3 accounts on the same social platform provides a larger reach towards our different followers and the flexibility to use the different functions at the same time.

 

Research Critique 1 — Open Source Thinking (Write-up)

Essay (slides are below)

Since the time technology has been thriving and gaining recognition in society as a tool for efficiency and business, the concept of open-source has been going hand-in-hand with the creation of new software and technologies. Open-source as a culture refers to the free sharing of information and source codes, which can be distributed to anyone and for any purpose, and can be developed in a collaborative public manner. These systems represent an insurgent model of commercial activity and information policy, which challenged the entrenched status quo (page 24 lines 8 – 11).

The usage of open-sourced software was disrupted when the notion of proprietarianism and copyright came into view. Proprietarianism refers to a belief that property is an absolute right, sometimes to the extreme of considering it to overrule the human rights of others. This all sparked when Bill Gates sent an open letter in 1976 declaring that his new company, then spelled “Micro-Soft”, would aggressively assert its intellectual-property claims against those who would trade tapes that carry the company’s software (pg 25 lines 18 -21). This declaration was an act of going against the concept of open-source, by claiming all algorithms and source codes to be theirs individually, and is thus illegal for other creators to use the same codes to create their own software. This created many limitations for other programmers and creators, who depend on the sharing of information to innovate and improve. Not only that, but the rise of copyright and proprietarianism have created an unhealthy society, one which can generate suboptimal levels of investment, asset allocation, and policy choices (pg 26 lines 9 – 11).

Therefore, in order to restore the concept of open-source software, Richard Stallman, an American free software movement activist and programmer, created the Free Software Foundation to provide liberated software that he created to other peers, and Linus Torvalds, a Finnish software engineer, led a group of hackers to create Linux, a software that allows an array of programs to work in coordination (pg 27 lines 4 – 8). This not only revived the open-source concept and benefitted many programmers, but it also served as the push for the creation of many open-sourced software that we use today.

 

Free Software Foundation by Richard Stallman

Linux Operating System, led by Linus Torvalds

 

One prominent software that uses the open source concept is Wikipedia, which allows peer to peer interaction through the ability to edit data on the webpage. This also benefits viewers, who receive up-to-date information and is seen as an open access journal where information is shared with everyone worldwide freely. This software has sparked controversy in the art world through a work called “Wikipedia Art” by artists Nathaniel Stern and Scott Kildall. Wikipedia Art was aimed to be a piece of art composed on Wikipedia, and it can be changed and edited by artists worldwide, at any time, creating a “loop of “performative citations”. This work is extremely subjective, and the subject matter, intention and composition of the work can change, depending on who edits the work at a certain point of time, as compared to traditional proprietary modes of artistic creation and production that has a designated subject matter, location and composition. The use of peer to peer social interaction creates unpredictability in the overall outcome, and reactions given by the viewers is subjective to what work is currently posted on that page. In addition, the impact of the work was stronger through peer feedback and reactions from interactions with the work. Although this work was taken down 15 hours after the initial posting, the reactions and comments regarding this art piece continued to spread and multiply, including multiple interviews with Nathaniel Stern and Scott Kildall. Natheniel Stern quotes, “On the one hand, it’s a beautiful art object – an artwork that lives as a WIkipedia page, and is thus “art that anyone can edit”. On the other hand, it intervenes into the hidden power structures of the site.”  Hidden power structures refer to the restriction of accessibility to Wikipedia if sources cited are ot credible or mainstream. This thus also challenges the notion that Wikipedia Art is something that “anyone can edit”.

Deletion of Wikipedia Art 15 hours after the initial release

 

All in all, open source thinking is greatly beneficial in providing a platform for peers to collaborate and innovate, dispite it being slightly limited by “hidden power structures”.

References

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/proprietarianism

Wikipedia Art, Nathaniel Stern and Scott Kildall, http://nathanielstern.com/artwork/wikipedia-art/

Open Source as Culture/ Culture as Open Source, Siva Vaidhyanathan, https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/17s2-dn1010-tut-g05/wp-content/uploads/sites/2251/2018/01/OpenSourceCulture_reduced.pdf

Wikipedia Art image: http://netescopio.meiac.es/en/obra.php?id=167

Linux image: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fs24255.pcdn.co%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F02%2Flinux.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unixmen.com%2Flinux-basics-script-command-records-whatever-you-do-in-the-terminal%2F&docid=jsgFbuTHLT9DXM&tbnid=3wHQlWxFeusYOM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwizlMSPsvnfAhVMknAKHfxNCkgQMwh0KAowCg..i&w=998&h=679&bih=546&biw=644&q=Linux&ved=0ahUKEwizlMSPsvnfAhVMknAKHfxNCkgQMwh0KAowCg&iact=mrc&uact=8

Free Software Foundation image: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnu.org%2Fgraphics%2Flogo-fsf.org.svg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnu.org%2Fgraphics%2Ffsf-logo.html&docid=YlGkW374uFwBrM&tbnid=7Z4VQLBPvNv1SM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjHucT6sfnfAhXFtI8KHYRYBg4QMwg5KAAwAA..i&w=4521&h=527&bih=546&biw=644&q=free%20software%20foundation&ved=0ahUKEwjHucT6sfnfAhXFtI8KHYRYBg4QMwg5KAAwAA&iact=mrc&uact=8

 

Open-source thinking and Wikipedia Art

Wikipedia Art SCRIPT 1