README.md

WeAreNotNumbers 2

Physical pixels 100 servo motors controlled by an Unity3D Android app for Internet Festival 2016.

Concept

Starting from the idea to tell the emotions expressed on some social networks, We Are Not Numbers II is an interactive kinetic installation that creates a connection with the user who is invited to create a visual pattern through an Android application placed alongside the installation. The texture created will be displayed in real time on 100 physical pixels represented by the servo motors installed on it, through a hardware and open source software. The composition of the pattern is a grid of 100 inclined wooden pieces of 45 ° or -45 °. Each user then compose different views and then will be posted each account facebook We Are Not Numbers in real time. Internet Festival Link

Tech Rider

• 1 Arduino UNO rev3
• 1 EthernetShield
• 7 ADAFRUIT 16-CHANNEL PWM/SERVO SHIELD
• 100 SERVO MOTORS
• 1 LINUX UBUNTU 16.04 LTS
• 7 POWER SUPPLY 5V 16A

Unity3D Linux Editor

The project was developed by using Unity3D Linux Editor and basically I create a simple matrix of gameobjects which will be send later to the pyshical screen

void Start () 
	{
		grid = new GameObject[patternResolution,patternResolution];
		status = new bool[patternResolution,patternResolution];

		for(int i = 0; i < patternResolution; i++)
		{
			for(int j = 0; j < patternResolution; j++)
			{
				grid[i,j] = Instantiate(quad, new Vector3(i * gap, j * gap, 0), Quaternion.identity) as GameObject;
				grid[i,j].transform.localRotation = Quaternion.Euler(new Vector3(0,0,rot));
				grid[i,j].transform.parent = this.transform;
			}
		}
		this.transform.localRotation = Quaternion.Euler( new Vector3(0,0,-90));
		this.transform.localPosition = new Vector3(-3.61f,26.5f,0);
	}

Every time I touch each wood strip on the screen with the mouse left button with ScreenPointToRay I save the value of the rotation and I trigger to 45° -45°

ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay(Input.mousePosition);
		if(Physics.Raycast(ray, out hit) && Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0))
		{
			for(int i =0; i < patternResolution; i++)
			{
				for(int j=0; j < patternResolution; j++)
				{
					if(hit.collider.gameObject == grid[i,j].gameObject)
					{
						indexX = j;
						indexY = i;
					}
				}
			}
			if(hit.collider.gameObject.transform.localRotation.eulerAngles.z > 180)
			{
				rot=45;
				valueMax =0;
			}
			else
			{
				rot=-45;
				valueMax = 1;
			}
			
hit.collider.gameObject.transform.localRotation = Quaternion.Euler(new Vector3(0,0,(int)rot));
iShield = ( ( patternResolution * indexY) + indexX) / 16;
jServo = (((patternResolution * indexY) + indexX ) - (iShield * 16)) ;

Finally we are ready to send the value to Arduino by using the OSC protocol

OscSendReceiver.SingleServo(iShield,jServo,valueMax);

SingleServo is a public static funtion from OscSendReceiver.cs script. I send the message "/unity/single " and the 3 osc values oscM.Values.Add(iShield) , oscM.Values.Add(jServo) , oscM.Values.Add(MaxValue) which will be decoded by Arduino software.

	public static void SingleServo(int iShield, int jServo, int MaxValue)
	{
		string msg = "/unity/single ";
		OscMessage oscM = Osc.StringToOscMessage(msg);
		oscM.Values.Add(iShield);
		oscM.Values.Add(jServo);
		oscM.Values.Add(MaxValue);
		handler.Send(oscM);
	}

Arduino

I used these main libraries in order to control servos and OSC packets:

#include <Wire.h>
#include <Adafruit_PWMServoDriver.h>
#include <SPI.h>
#include <Ethernet.h>
#include <ArdOSC.h>

declaring the OSCServer, OSCClient and the PWM driver shield

Adafruit_PWMServoDriver pwm[NUM_PWM];
OSCServer server;
OSCClient client;

this is the callback to receive osc from Unity3d

server.addCallback("/unity/single", &UnitySingle);

when message incoming I get the 3 arguments of the OSC message

void UnitySingle(OSCMessage * _msg)
{
  int iShield = _msg->getArgInt32(0);
  int jServo = _msg->getArgInt32(1);
  int MaxValue = _msg->getArgInt32(2);

  Serial.println("shield n");
  Serial.println(iShield);
  Serial.println("servo n");
  Serial.println(jServo);
  Serial.println("to max");
  Serial.println(MaxValue);

  updateSingleServo(iShield,jServo, MaxValue);
 
}

Finally I'm ready to send to the physical pixels to any servo motors

void updateSingleServo(int iShield, int jServo, int maxValues)
{
  if(maxValues == 1)
  {
     pwm[iShield].setPWM(jServo,0,SERVOMAX);
  }
  else
  {
     pwm[iShield].setPWM(jServo,0,SERVOMIN);
  } 
}

Mobile Android User Interface

Feel free to contact me to any info. studio@robertofazio.com

Thanks to Enrico Viola for part of Arduino sketch and help me to find always the best solution! Thanks to my IED students Michel Collina, Jacopo Rosano and Giuseppe Tano.