Inspiration
Our inspiration to create this glove, C-S (Color to Sound), was the realization that there are many people who do not get to experience the beauty of paintings and direct contact with artistic projects that require one to see. To us, it was unfair that someone of any age would not be included into a world so heavily reliant on a human's vision. Therefore, we created a glove that allows a person to hear the colors they encounter with the help of websites such as Adafruit.com and Progammingelectronics.com (see sources below).
What it does
The C-S uses a color sensor to register the RGB values of the object or material placed in front of it. Within the Arduino program, the C-S uses the RGB values picked up from the color sensor and places them into a frequency slot in order for the buzzer to read the values. This allows for the frequencies to have a direct access to the RGB values the color sensor registers.
How we built it
The C-S uses a TCS34725 color sensor and a CEM-1203(42) buzzer hooked up to a Adafruit half-size breadboard and a 2.4 Squarewear. We then soldered the color sensor and buzzer to the breadboard and placed a resistor between the currant of the Squarewear and the color sensor to ensure a balanced voltage goes to both components. Once we had the hardware correctly placed, we split up the research to find the best codes for the color sensor and buzzer to use for our glove and then modified them to work with our hardware types.
Challenges we ran into
Most of our challenges revolved around the software programming since our team are pretty new to coding and have only encountered two programming languages each. Some of those challenges include implementing the use of the color sensor values to frequencies and incorporating multiple libraries. We also tried to set up a visual color monitor with Arduino's serial monitor using either Java or Processing, but we were not able to complete the programming for it. One hardware challenge we ran into was correctly setting up a resistor for the multiple components connected to the Squarewear.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Due to all of us having little to no knowledge of creating the Squarewear as well as programming it, it was a huge accomplishment for to finish this project in the 24 hours given. While it may not be as groundbreaking to some, it was an amazing moment to watch it work!
What we learned
In this project, the main program we used was Arduino, a programming language that only two of us knew and the other learned during this project.We were all very excited to work together on this project, but none of us truly worked in hardware. We all went out of our way to learn a part of creating the Squarewear and seeing how to calibrate the color sensor.
What's next for C-S
Hopefully, a higher sensitivity and input factor that would allow for people who can not see to experience complex paintings as well as a more pleasing sound that reveals the color being displayed. The ideal C-S glove would provide ambient tones with a wireless connection to headphones for the user to experience. The physical appearance would also have a higher quality with a light-weight material that incorporates the hardware where only the sensor is seen through the glove. This will require a higher understanding of which hardware would be best for transforming color to sound as well as how quickly it could complete this process for the person using the C-S glove in order to get closer to the ideal CS glove.
Main Sources
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-color-sensors?view=all#test-the-sensor https://programmingelectronics.com/an-easy-way-to-make-noise-with-arduino-using-tone/
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