Calascere: a Modular Electronic Tile

Calescere is a culmination of ideas and projects Majenta and Erika have been developing over the last couple of years. When Erika was asked to develop a concept for an interactive audio recording studio lobby, she and Majenta envisioned a space ripe with passive and active synchronized interfaces, these would seamlessly be integrated into the lobby’s furniture, floors, and walls, and they would control the ambient audio experience in the space. Imagine walking into a lobby where the ambient music is controlled by the footsteps of the people around you, the nervous tapping of the person waiting in the chair, the excited swaying of the artist leaning against the wall. More recently, at CES 2020 Majenta and Maddy, Loomia Founder, discussed how heated furniture has the potential to be a more sustainable strategy for heating in homes.

We’ve seen through individualization of personal electronics (an app for everything evolving into now a device for every app), the appreciation of glowing aroma diffusers (sometimes combined with audio experiences), and through the design style of Google home and other products, that people are interested in interactive hardware experiences that go beyond the same rectangular touch screens over and over. People enjoy connected visual and audio feedback, and are looking for softer, less abrasive interactions with technology. We intend to address this through designing tech that inspires a return to the core sensations of touch, light, heat, and sound.

We’re not sure exactly what we will discover, but we would like to use this residency as an opportunity to explore the creation of modular electronic tiles that are soft, have a Tempurpedic sort of pushback, can warm up, have a diffused light element, and a framework that can integrate these tiles with musical compositions and a circular (ideally kinetic) energy system, that will be programmable but come with a default setting.

With the isolation caused by the current pandemic, we’ve personally found the desire for warmth and touch is more pertinent than ever. Calescere would never hope to replace the warmth we get from the sun on our skin, or from a loving embrace, we just hope we can supplement these experiences when there might be some time before we get our next hug.

This project is still under construction, some links and files may not yet be available.

Please note: this is a project which will require moderate to advanced soldering and programming skills as well as some experience with troubleshooting, debugging, and the Arduino platform.

Here are some of the tools we used:

• Cutting Mat

• Clip leads

• Hook Up Wire

• Wire Strippers

• Multi-Meter

• Tweezers

• Flush Cutters/ Clippers

• Arduino Uno Bread Board

• Black Sharpie

• Kapton Tape

• Soldering Iron

• Solder

• Heat Shrink

• Hot air

• Helping Hands

• Magnifying Glass

• Computer

• USB A/B cable

Electronic components:

• 1 x Loomia Large Pressure Matrix
• 3 x 1k Resistors
• 2 x Heating Elements (Adafruit Product ID 1481)
• 1 x 12v 4amp AC/DC power supply unit (2.1 mm DC barrel jack with center positive)
• 1 x 16x16 LED RGB Matrix (Adafruit Product ID 2785)
• 1 x Arduino Uno + USB A/B cable
• 1 x Mating panel mount DC barrel connector (Adafruit ID 610)

Materials:

• 1 x Soma Foama 15
• 1 x 18" by 24" piece of acrylic or cardboard (for mold making)
• 1 x 1/16" silicone sheet

Tools

• 3d printer
• laser cutter (optional, not necessary)
• box cutter (if using cardboard instead of acrylic)
• packing tape

Taking advantage of the Matrix on every level… We chose to forgo any serial LED lighting components in lieu of RGB LED flexible matrix to align with the Loomia Large Pressure Matrix component as a way to leverage and optimize the code to scale for multiple tiles to be added in the future or interfaced later. We used Arduino IDE to develop the code and Adafruit’s library to create the point touch rings for the RGB LED MATRIX.

We tested everything using clip leads, jumpers, and a breadboard before soldering anything to be sure every component was working properly.

A simple schematic sketch of our circuit from the Arduino board to the large pressure matrix is pictured above along with the pinout guide for the large pressure matrix.

This is also a good time to test the LED Matrix using Adafruit sample code which can be found on their website. Doing this step will also help you determine the orientation of the LED matrix.

https://learn.adafruit.com/32x16-32x32-rgb-led-mat...

Tips:

• Use kapton or some type of tape to mark which corner of the LED matrix is top left or your origin.
• Be sure to also check out the Loomia QuickStart Guide to get familiar with the Large Pressure Matrix component and confirm it is working with the Arduino ahead of final assembly.

Once everything is tested we can go ahead and solder the connections, assemble our circuit, and stick our large pressure matrix to an acrylic surface. Note: The component comes with an adhesive backing. Just peel and stick!

a. Prepare all your hookup wire e.g. strip the ends and tin the leads. We kept ours longer than necessary so we could easily access the components for future hacking and other modifications. Here’s a tutorial on how to prepare your hookup wire:

https://www.instructables.com/Strip-and-Tin-Wires...

b. Solder your connections between the components. We used a small breadboard in our build to keep everything a little bit cleaner. You can solder everything point to point based on our simple schematic/block diagram/ sketch - IMPORTANT - Be sure you wire your DC barrel jack with the correct polarity for your power supply LAST. We want to wait until the final assembly to solder it into the circuit. https://www.instructables.com/How-to-solder/

c. Double check all connections and make sure to add Kapton tape or heat shrink to any areas that might cause electrical shorts, damage, and harm the electronics or YOU!

https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Check-Continu...

d. Power it on and test. Tip: Make sure your power supply has a kill switch or is connected to a power strip with an accessible power switch.

Step 5: Load The Software which you will find on our github here: GitHub: https://github.com/eviltechnology/Calascere
NOTE: This project requires some experience with the Arduino + IDE platform.https://www.instructables.com/Beginner-Arduino/

a. Power the main circuit and connect the Arduino to your computer. The USB cable will carry power from your computer to the Arduino for this portion.

b. Disconnect the arduino from the computer and reconnect it to the circuit. Power it on, press on the tile, and see if it works! The tile should warm up and light up with touch.

c. REMEMBER: the heating elements / heaters will get HOT when the circuit is turned on so be careful. We used a silicone placemat for crafts when testing the circuit outside the protective enclosure, it was non-slip and heat resistant.

a. Download and 3d print this file

(Settings are up to you, we went for a fine finish since we wanted it to be as sleek as possible, and a 20-30% infill so that it would be pretty durable. Make some samples with your printer if you're not sure what finish you want.)

[Insert Link]

b. Cast the Soma Foama 15 piece

-You can purchase Soma Foama from here: https://www.reynoldsam.com/product/soma-foama/

Next, build your mold:

-We built our mold from laser cut acrylic pieces but you could use cardboard lined with packaging tape if you don't have access to a laser cutter. The piece needs to be 17 x 17 x 1.27cm (6.693 x 6.693 x 5in) so here is the file with dimensions for the laser cut mold:

[Insert Link]

Once you have your enclosure printed you will need to install the DC barrel jack into the hole and solder the power connections/hookup wire to your circuit board/bread board. You will then insert the breadboard and Arduino into the back of the enclosure. Hide the wires in the bottom/back of the stack up. The order of the layers starting from the bottom is as follows:

1. Enclosure Base
2. Large Pressure Matrix + Acrylic
3. RGB LED Matrix
4. Silicone or Teflon transparent pad
5. Heater elements
6. Soma Foma Pad
7. Frame insert
8. Silicon top cover
9. Enclosure top