Denis Z – Journal Entries 1-2

Greetings and salutations all. I’m currently in my 3rd year at City Tech majoring in Entertainment Technology with focuses on Sound and Show Control (with a side order of Video). I’ve been very hand-on with everything and always had an inquisitive mind. I was that little kid that took things apart just to see how it worked and then put everything back together. A few years back I started a path into object-oriented programming (C++) for game design. However, I just couldn’t escape my passion for the technical side of things for live theatre. I’d like to expand my knowledge on microcontrollers as it would apply to theatretronics (totally made that up). Below is a video of me showing off my (technically) first completed hobby kit of a Ramsey “Blinky Eyes Animated Display” I built for my Electricity Lab class. Although I had a bit of experience soldering modding/repairing xbox’s and controllers, I wanted to try and challenge myself for this project. The kit consists of over 70 LED’s, that blink in varying patterns depending on where the jumper is set to. What’s especially cool about the kit is its photosensor. The LED’s ‘behaved’ differently depending on whether the lights are on or dimming. Skip to the 4:00 minute mark to skip the explanation and see the board in action.

In terms of having a project to work on during this class, I’d like to work on something that includes the use of a joystick/fight stick. I was already in the processing of building my own fight stick, so why not make it do something else while I’m at it?

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Journal Entry 2

With the power and ease of Arduino I hope to be able to enter the world of home automation. I’d like to accomplish this through the use of my arcade stick.

Sure, it would look like the world’s biggest universal remote controller.

But I can’t be the only gamer that uses a fight stick and is need of a universal remote controller that will turn on the tv, cable box, audio receiver, fan, lights, and even a Keurig coffee maker.

When I’m not gaming, I hope to be able to make use of android app that would take care of the logistics. Like this guy:

Here is a hardware mod tutorial I plan on using for the fight stick which includes quality components. As for the home automation component of this project, the following tutorial seems pretty valuable.

Being able to control electrical equipment in my house through an android app is, admittedly, pretty cool. But if I could achieve this with my fightstick, that would be an even sweeter deal. Here is an image of what the Optimum remote controller looks like. Below is my tentatively proposed button layout for my fightstick:

PS button = ON/OFF (Tv, Cable box, Audio Receiver) Hold to lock device

(small led indicator pulses when engaged)

Start + Select = Switch modes (PS3, Cable, Audio System, TV)

Cable Mode:
Left = View current channel’s previous time slot details

Right = View current channel’s next time slot details

Down = View next channel’s details

Up= View previous channel’s details

Select = Change to previously viewed channel

Start = Favorite Channels

L1 = Volume Up

L2 = Volume Down

R2 = Mute

Square = Channel Up

X = Channel Down

I realize this is an ambitious project. But I prefer to start this way so it that it pushes me to learn to more.