Santini Barsa, 3rd year product design, 20 yr old
Santini is an experience maker with the Arduino system. He has done many project with Arduino. He also very interested in the field of physical prototype
I have found this interview to be rather reassuring of the direction of my topic. I think there is a real need for this. Here is the full intervie
How would use or create a functional prototype?
"before you prototype, you need to make sure that your concept is solid before you do. You don't spent the whole project trying to make beautiful prototypes"
me - Is it because of the time?
"It about taking time to do - also if you make a prototype and you spent too long doing i. You'll become much to careful about the thing you own and you become much to precious with it and you won't be able to kill it"
"I think that prototypes are kind of a tools for feedback, unless you make a prototype for your final feedback which then it become the tools for your client to understand"
"I think they are important but secondary to the concept, specifically with Arduin"
"I have created a drinking game with arduino, using tilt sensor and sound on and off thing. I made a wearable device that make a flash when you see something. Now, I just made a project that plant can talk to each other through using sensor. different input and output and sensor helps to tell them when to exchange information"
"I do have an understanding now what Arduino is about. But it was very complicated at the start"
Me - In what kind of way?
"I think you need to understand that arduino is a platform containing input and output and essentially - that's all it is."
"When it is not explain to you in a simply way like that you start thinking 'oh, I have to stick this wires in here and that's in there' if you write the code - and again, Its a different language to you."
"If you come up with an idea, you need to figure out what are the input and output. You need to figure out the component that you needs and then you need to figure out how to wire them up. Wiring is one side and then you have the coding which is on another side and it get different when you have components that required different wiring to the normal standards one."
Is there a need for us (designer) to be able to do programming or electronic?
"I don't think there is a need for us to be able to do it but I think there is a need for us to get feedback in every possible way we can and this is one of the way we can us to get feedback"
Do you find the feedback to be different from making functional prototypes and other kinds (form, video etc..)?
"I never actually used Arduino in a proper project when I have to do big amount of research, I always been quite a light project. The projects (that's involve Arduino) tends to be about learning how to use Arduino themselves. So I cannot answer that truthfully. I can speculate but I don't know"
If you need to approach the project using Arduino. How would you start?
"I always start with concept. I tried not to limit myself on what I can do in Arduino and then I will seek advice. You can get the one from the school or or to the hacking community (outsorucing). I would say that in a proper project, I would try and avoid Arduino unless it was something very simple to make. Its use up so much time. In the last project we did, one week was coming up with the project and two weeks just to make it and I HATE spending so much time on making something"
Why do you think it is so hard? why do you think it takes so much time?
"The more experience you have, the more its complicates it. because you know you can do it. You always push yourself. its get easier but you try harder things"
Can you tell me about the way you approach your 'Plants' project?
"So, this is a group project and obviously you do all the research at the beginning and you get the concept. We made a video prototype of what we want it to be. Then we made a diagram showing what are the input and the output. You have to think about it in this ways output and input. Then we get the components that we need. We got a bit of help with this."
"We have Roy to help and we try to make sure that he was helping us not doing it for us. This is one of the things that if someone doing some bit for you and you don't understand anything, You stuck."
"We split the project into two Matt - doing the sound part and Im doing the Arduino part. We got the code, we wrote from scratch. We use a few example codes to help me start. I then start to modify the basic of the example to from turning the light on to making a sound when a button is pressed. I kind of did the process flow in my head but I made almost the same diagram as I did with the input and output."
How long did you spent coding?
"You dont sit and write it. You have to write a littlebit and test them out. I think we spend two weeks trying to get the whole thing to work. The coding is just the small part of it, Once you understand code. It doesn't take long to do it."
"We had issue with the wiring because everything is working apart from the keyboard. We found that the contacts on the keyboard wasn't strong enough. Then we have to use hair clip to snapped in the keyboard. We couldn't solder things because it keep snapping off"
"At the end of the three week, we didn't get it to work"
What went wrong?
"We just got the heat sensor to work. It took so long to get one bit working and it would has takes as long to get another bits working. We just ran out of time"
If you have a chance to go back or reflect on it, which is the most problematic part?
"It was trying to connects the wires to the keyboard. Arduino works on its own with typical Arduino components - works really well. but things that aren't nescessary works for arudino, you have to solder it on to them and it become unpredictable once it comes to that"
What kind of things that you use that wasn't build for Arduino?
"It was the keyboard chip. We plugged that in to our laptop. so If the temp went over certain level then it would press spacebar and then the sound would came on. But, it didn't have things you could plug into. So you would have to solder on to it and that was really trickky because the material wasn't sticky so we have to use the hairclip to stick them together"
Would you still describe you Arduino as Try and Try and Keep Trying?
"Yeah, its like try and fail and learn."
Do you think this is the reason why we dont use Arduino in the real project?
"I think there is a different between project in University and in real life. You have deadline here and it really fast pace. If something doesn't work and you spent so much time doing it then it becomes kind of a waste to spent all that time on something that is not working. I think we have a very basic understanding of Arduino. If you are an Artist then I think you can spent time making it works."
"I think it is not that there is no need for us to learn but the gain is not necessary representative of the amount of time that we spent learning it. You can also make video prototyping which you might not have the same feedback but it wouldn't take as much time.
How does it different from Video prototyping?
"Yes, video prototypes help they understand the concept but it doesn't mean they can interact with it."
"I think it would also help the people to understand the concept much better"
Any other platform?
"Makey Makey but I dont really have the time to play with it. If I can have something that is faster and doesn't take so much time to learn. Rasberry pi - but you have to learn Python and you can do so much more with it."
"The other danger is that not every project required arduino prototyping and people needs to know when to and when not to"
Is there like a thing tell you, you cannot use it in this project?
"Well, things that are responsive or have that element then it make sense to use"
When you do electronic what are the problem that you have?
"You don't really fully understand how everything works. When things goes wrong you don't know whether its your fault or the things fault. Often things goes wrong when they shouldn't be wrong and that's a very tricky one to get around"
How do you fix your problem or attempt to fix your problem?
"Well, usually you have to test every little component seperately to check that they're working and if you find ones that is not working you have to find a new one. You need to check that all the wiring is right, you need to go through all the coding. Check all the component and connect - If that didn't fix it then I don't know what do you do after that.
"I think organization is very important. You have to make sure that the wire are in different color. I would try to use red wire as positive and black as negative. but then you usually run out of black wires and then you uses different color and then its gets too complicated. You need to remember and also organized what each wires is doing. when you have too many wires, well, you just have no clue"
What is the hardest part coding or wiring?
Coding is harder but basic coding is easy. All these If then Else statement is quite easy but you need to understand them individually. While wiring is more like trial and error.
Why is it trial and error?
"Because once its goes wrong you can change something. With coding you need to know what should be. you cannot just change things and you need to know what you are doing. With wiring you can just switch the wires around and see whether its work"
Do you use any example on the internet?
"Yes, usually I do. I have to learn how to do a charlie plex. Where you hook up more LED than you have the output in the arduino. So I have to learn. That is the great thing about arduino is that it is open. If it wasn't like this everyone would have been fucked."
"It is great coz often everyone has done something similar to you"
Would you then try to use arudino in every project you do from now on?
"No, I have used it. I will only use it if it is very simple. I wouldn't even bother making my final prototypes using arduino because I'm assuming that my final idea will be very complex and so required quite a lot of time. I don't feel I am confident using Arduino and it is a huge risk to spent so much to make something that just won't work. that is something that worries me"
Do you trust the thing that you make?
"No, it will work for a while but then after a week later it doesn't work anymore. I don't trust anything that I've made myself electronically."
Is it because your experience taught you so?
"Yes, its my experience. I never made anything with Arduino that does not have any troubl. There's always somethings wrong."
"Connection often imperfect. Somethings work one day another day it didn't. When you move something around it might not work. Moisture fucked my project up. When you try to put your prototype into the enclosure then it can also goes wrong, something comes loose. You cannot get to everything and you have take it all out and then do it."
"One things that pissed me off, is when something goes wrong - you have to deconstruct the whole thing."
"You cannot diagnose what is wrong straight away, you have to take it all out. Check everything."