inmotion.pt

You can now buy the Phidgets sensors in our online store

My new Arduino Diecimila boards arrived today I still remember the first time i’ve came across the arduino.cc website. It was probably a “lucky accident” since i was searching the web for something completely different. However, in my web experience, most of the interesting things come from “lucky accident’s”. This time i just found a small, affordable and a easy to use micro-controller? Something similar as occurred in my mind long before but it never come up into a solid design. I just took the chance and bought 3 Arduino boards. How easy would it be to code and use a board? Would it interface with my favorite tools? In the next months, i’ve setup some concepts with Arduino and it was easy, very easy, to interact with my dusty hardware.

Most of the time i use Max/Msp as the programming tool for interactive concepts and a connection from Max/Msp to the real world had become a essential part of development process. For Max/Msp users there was the I-CubeX which turned input from sensors into MIDI events, however, it was quite expensive. With the Arduino, i could (and did) make a shoebox MIDI controller in one afternoon. You can’t go more LO-FI than this, turning sketchy concepts into reality. In the following summer i had the opportunity to give a two-days course in Arduino in the Bienal de Cerveira, 2007. It was a good experience with mixed reactions from my students. After all not everyone likes to hold a soldering iron …

Inmotion.pt has been invited to do a presentation on the CDVJ08 under the title “Prototyping Physical Interations”. We have teamed with the dobleMV team to do a brief of the technologies used across the history of videogames and to present a series of demos based on rapid prototyping using the Phidgets sensor’s and the Arduino board. The CDVJ08 is an annual conference in videogame development hosted by the Faculty of Science, University of Oporto.