Category: Interactive Devices

Interactive Devices – Final Project Research 1: Brainstorming

For Interactive Devices Project, I Intended to do it as a solo project so that I could possibly learn more through the exploration process.

After some research, I’ve got 3 general ideas in mind which I might consider:

Wearable Devices:

  • Could be for Fashion

    – Something that look nice

  • Could be for Entertainment

    – Something that is amusing to the user/viewer

  • Could be for Practical uses

    – Something like an Air-condition system

  • Could be for medical purposes

Musical Devices:

  • Could be a totally new instrument that is not available in the market.

  • Could be a system which plays existing instruments:

    – Strum Guitar
    – Blow Pipes/Flute
    – Ring Bells

  • Incorporate the pendulum

    – Pendulum is a interesting object which produces beats
    – is rather amusing

  • Reads Music sheet and play it automatically

    – Could be like a music box

Magnetic Devices:

  • Magnets have really interesting properties
  • Could be a combination of permanent magnets and Electrical magnets.
  • Magnetic could result in levitation of objects which are really amusing

Conclusion

Overall, out of the 3 main categories of Wearable, Music Instrument and Magnetic devices, I like the idea of making an musical instrument more and my initial idea is a device which could read music sheets like a music box. I shall explore more on music box in the next research post.

Device of the week 1 – Pokemon Go Plus

Pokemon go plus is a small bluetooth device that allows the user to play the mobile game “Pokemon Go” even when not looking at the phone or while the phone is in the locked screen, it will notify the user about the events in the game in realtime like the appearance of Pokemon which the player could catch or the Pokestop where the player could get items from just by clicking the button when the LED flashes and the pokemon caught or item received will be added to the player’s inventory instantly.

Since I own one of these devices, I thought that I could open it up and study the component and how does it work.

Pokemon Go Plus in Bracelet form, it could be changed to a clip form.

It runs on CR2032 coin battery which is a 3V, 210mAh and could run for weeks before the battery dies.

when fully opened, the components are really simple.

Thats the basic component that does all the function it needs to, Flash in RGB, Vibrate, press the button and connect to the phone.

While researching on this device, it showed that the Pokemon Go Plus could be built by using Arduino, however the hardest part was the encryption to the Pokemon Go game as it is really complicated and every user have their own encryption, more info on the project Pokemon Go Plus Reverse Engineering and an ongoing tutorial built on the reverse engineering link – Pokemon Go Plus DIY.

Also, I’ve done modification to my Pokemon Go Plus Device where I remove the circuit to the Vibration Motor and linked the connection to the push button, this way, every time when the motor is supposed to vibrate, it will send the signal to the push button, removing the needs for me to press the button physically and hence having the “Auto Catch and Auto collect Item” mode. As long as I am connected to my phone and having the Pokemon go App running in the background, I will have a chance to catch everything in my path even without touching the device or game at all.

Overall, Pokemon Go Plus is a very simple device which does what it was supposed to do and is a great add-on for the Pokemon Go Players which save a lot of the phone’s battery as the app only need to be ran in the background. I think this idea of producing a special device that links to an app in the phone could be possible for FYP and although it may seems easy, the connection and encryption between the app and the device might be really difficult.