Making Conversations
and Finding Things
CS4062 - Eoin Brazil - Semester 2 - 2009

Communications
Wireless
Wired
Infrared
XPort TCP/IP for
Ethernet connectivity Bluetooth
Serial \"RF\"
I3C WiPort TCP/IP
CAN Cell Phone Data GPRS
ZigBee & 802.15.4
802.11b,g,n

Examples
Linking an Arduino ethernet shield, parallax RFID reader, and

Examples - SL <> RL
Linking an Arduino ethernet shield, parallax RFID reader, and

Examples - SL <> RL
SL to RL
LSL script for SL
objects
LSL to PHP
webserver with
connected Arduino
PHP to Arduino’s
serial port
Linking an Arduino ethernet shield, parallax RFID reader, and

Boticalls @ ITP
Botanicalls, thirsty
plants make phone
calls for human help.
Wired & Wireless
Light & Soil sensors
Arduino
XBee
XPort
Asterisk
http://itp.nyu.edu/show/winter2006/detail.php?project_id=912
http://www.botanicalls.com/twitter/index.htm

Boticalls @ ITP

Examples - Blogject
Botanicalls
Sensors to
Arduino
Arduino to
XPort to Twitter

Examples - Blogject

Examples - Spimes

Examples - Spimes

Examples
Wind-up birds is an installation of networked mechanical woodpeckers.
Each woodpecker consists of a woodblock and pushmagnet, a custom-made electronic circuit and a radio modem.
All the woodpeckers are connected together in a zigbee wireless network.
Every 5 minutes one of the woodpeckers start pecking, and the others answer.

Examples
Motors and a toy glockenspiel

Beware
Communications Troubleshooting
use wired versions of your project or idea first, debugging a problem is hard when its
wired directly together, wireless adds an additional layer of problems
chatter, too much or too fast can result in loss
wireless is slower than wired
more expensive approaches can improve speed and reliability but all are battery hogs
NAT, routers, and traversing firewalls
Sessions or Messages
TCP or UDP
Session makes connection, does handshaking, information is transferred, and then closed
Datagram, similar to physical letter or postcard
Point to Point, Point to Many (multicast), Point to All (Broadcast)

802.15.4 Topologies
Single peer
Broadcast
Multi peer

ZigBee Topologies
Peer
Star
Mesh
Routing

Protocols and Proxies
Protocol: Structured
Proxy: Conversion of
conversation
communication to another type
Midi / OSC
Network serial (Serial to TCP)
DMX512
TinkerProxy / Griffin Proxi
X10, INSTEON
osculator
Girder (Windows)
Shion, Indigo
Sydewynder
http://www.digitalartistshandbook.org/node/10

Sources for Parts
Hacking / Disassembly
use existing high-tech, but inexpensive, objects, toys and devices as cheap source of parts
for your projects
little specialist knowledge is required, photograph and document the disassembly
``Low tech sensors and actuators for artists and architects’’ provides examples, by Usman
Haque and Adam Somlai-Fischer
Purchase / Stores
Many parts are available locally in UL, ask.
Online vendors for electronic parts include farnell.com, mouser.com, and digikey.com
Sensors, shields, kits, servos can also be found from sparkfun.com or parallax.com
Many others, just small selection that I’ve used.
http://lowtech.propositions.org.uk/
http://ie.farnell.com/