Schedule
10:00 Introduction
10:30 Design concepts
11:10 Meet with neighbours
11:30 Initial construction
12:45 Reflection
13:00 Lunch break
14:00 Integration of electronics
15:00 Final construction and testing
16:30 Installation of inorganism ecosystem
17:30 Reflection
What is an inorganism?
noun
1. A portmanteau of inorganic and organism.
2. A silicon and copper-based creature displaying some characteristics of living, organic organisms.
For NORDES 2015, our inorganisms will be simple creatures, capable of basic sensory perception and then, after a delay, a basic sensory response. They may have one of two sensing organs, one of which detects sound and the other of which detects light. As well, they may have one of two responding organs, one of which creates sound, and the other of which creates light.
What are we practising?
Designing with complexity and as a part of a larger, complex system. Open Source Electronics/Design.
First steps
To begin, we will each decide on a story for our inorganism. Where does it live? What does it want? How does it communicate its emotions and needs? Is it shy? Boisterous? Does it blend into its space, or try to stand out?
The Inorganism behavioural model
We are going to use structures called State Machines for our behaviour model. Basically, this is when something has a number of modes of operation and jumps between them over time.
This is the most basic response model. The inorganism is in its sense state until it receives a stimulus, then it moves into its response state.
Basic Inorganism response consists of a sensing state and a response state.
The model with a pause is only slightly more complicated. Instead of moving straight to the respond state when a stimulus is seen, this model includes a delay state which waits for a pre-set amount of time before responding after a stimulus is received.
Adds a delay between receiving a stimulus and responding.
Instead of just delaying, this next model measures the sensor repeatedly between when the stimulus is received and the response is triggered, so that the measurements can be used to modulate the response behaviour.
One of three different responses is triggered depending on what stimulus is measured.
In our final example, a more complicated system is presented. A stimulus triggers the measure state. Depending on what is measured during that state, one of three different responses (R1, R2, or R3) is triggered.
Code
Finite State Machine Library: https://github.com/dkadish/FiniteStateMachine or Download ZIP
Basic Example, Sensing Sound, Responding with Light: https://codebender.cc/sketch:122321
