Houndball in action

Press Release

HOUNDBALL

Rolling and jittering independently, recklessly emitting a series of 8-bit sounds; Houndball has a mind of its own. This unique toy is every dogs dream.

Houndball was created by Product Design students, Linsey Lawson and Morna Macpherson (DJCAD, Engineering at the University of Dundee). It is a playful dog toy designed to entertain your dog independently. Simply switch it on and the ball does all the work for you! Houndball has been programmed to run a motor, which drives the ball to roll and jiggle around in various directions, exciting and encouraging your dog to chase and play with it. As well as the visual element of Houndball it emits a series of 8-bit cheeky sounds that go up and down a scale, giving out a high pitched and excitable call to your dog reinforcing his interaction. This innovative and fun toy runs in cycles keeping your pup on his toes. There is a 5 second delay allowing you to hide the ball somewhere so your dog can seek it out when the frantic happenings begin again. The cycle runs for a 30 second duration, pauses and keeps on going. With its soft and colourful finish and easy to locate switch, there is no end to the fun your dog will have chasing this wild ball. 

The working prototype video

Adding the switch

Because we wanted to cover houndball, we have decided to add a switch in to the circuit. BAD MOVE!
We have wired the switch between the battery and the voltage regulator. For some reason we cant seem to get it to control the circuit. Houndball is dead!

After days of moving the switch and experimenting with new bits of code. We are back to the drawing board!

The Ball and circuit

Once all the parts were joined, the circuit had to be glued into the ball. We had worked out the sizes previously so everything would fit tightly in place.

Transferring the circuit

We copied the circuit over from the breadboard onto this new board which we cut into a circle to fit into the ball. We had to remember to break the connections between parts on the circuit. This whole process pr proved more difficult than it looked!

Final code

main:

high b.3

pause 1000

pwmout b.3, 255, 200

for b0 = 85 to 130

sound c.1, (b0,2)

next b0

for b0 = 85 to 130

sound c.1,(b0,2)

next b0

pause 1000

for b0 = 80 to 125 step 1

sound c.1,(b0,2)

next b0

for b1 = 125 to 80 step -1

sound c.1,(b1,1)

next b1

pause 1000

for b0 = 90 to 125 step 1

sound c.1,(b0,3)

next b0

for b1 = 120 to 90 step -1

sound c.1,(b1,2)

next b1

pause 5000 

pwmout b.3,255,0

low b.3

pause 8000

goto main

Our final working piece of written code! This combines commands to make the speaker work alongside the motor. The motor begins and the speaker follows with its series of sounds. When the speaker stops the motor continues to run for a further 5 seconds. There is an 8 second pause where everything is silent and not moving before the sequence begins again.

Sound code

main:

for b0 = 99 to 120 step 1

sound c.1,(b0,3)

next b0

for b1 = 120 to 99 step -1

sound c.1,(b1,3)

next b1

pause 2000

for b0 = 88 to 127 step 1

sound c.1,(b0,3)

next b0

for b1 = 127 to 88 step -1

sound c.1,(b1,3)

next b1

pause 5000

goto main

This is a more advanced sound code going up and down scales.

Speaker test

main:

sound B.4 , (200, 1500)

low B.4

pause 1500

goto main

A basic sound test to ensure that the speaker was connected correctly.

Basic motor test

main:

high b.3

pause 4000

low b.3

pause 6000

goto main

This is the code we used to test that the motor simply worked.

Motor Code

main:

pwmout b.3, 255, 400

pause 3000

pwmout b.3, 255, 0

pause 3000

goto main

We worked the motor into the circuit, it was running too fast so we had to slow it down.

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New ideas to make the ball roll!

We have come up with the idea of attaching a disc to the motor. The motor will be attached in the center. This will then be fitted into a ball. At a point on this disc we will have a weight, which when the motor is spinning, will give the ball the momentum, driving it to roll independently and in random directions.

Building the circuit

The Capacitor

A capacitor is a device which stores electrical charge. In our case it helped to reduce the sound coming from the motor.

Power for the motor

Using our laptop as a power supply proved too little for our motor!

The diode

A diode is a "two terminal electronic component". We soldered one across our speaker. The main purpose of this was to allow the electrical current to pass through in one direction whilst stopping it from travelling in the reverse.

How will the ball roll?

This is proving very difficult for us! We have tried attaching a motor to an axel with wheels at either end. The idea was that if this was placed in a ball with some weight, it would cause the it to roll (like a hamster in a ball!) We thought that if the wheels were more round like beads, if the ball was to bang into anything the motor would keep it rolling as the wheels would just turn causing the ball to change direction. 

Pesky Motor!

It's proving more difficult than expected to make this work! We are having to use "pwm" in our code in order to slow the motor down (we're using batteries for our ball, the high speed will use the power too quickly!) We will start the motor off fast initially to give it that extra push to begin and then slow it down to a constant steady speed  once we've got the ball rolling.

The Motor

The circuit is all set up, ready for the motor to be tested!

Dogs and sight

A dog's eyesight is extremely sensitive to light and movement. They can recognise moving objects at a much further distance than we can and their field of vision is much wider. As the dog's sense of sight enables them to be very good at spotting moving objects, our rolling ball will be sure to catch their attention!

Dogs and sound

Although a dog's sense of hearing is not completely dissimilar to that of humans, it is much better developed. They can hear at - unbelievably - four times the distance that we can! A dog's ear has 15 different muscles so they are able to move their ears in all directions accumulating more sounds.

Dogs can hear low notes in the same way as we do but the sounds are much more intense. Unlike us they can hear much higher frequencies and sounds. 

It is important that we take this into consideration when producing our 8-Bit sounds!

MOSFET

The MOSFET is a transitor which is used to amplify electronic signals. In this case we connected our motor to the pin on the chip via this transistor. The MOSFET has three legs; the gate, source and the drain which are each connected to different parts in the circuit.

More 8-bit sounds!

We experimented with a variety of different sounds and sequences of sounds until we found some we liked. We were learning how to change the frequency and speed of each note or sound so we could create arrangements that we liked.

8-bit sounds

Audio

To get us started we set up a circuit on the breadboard which contained a speaker.We began playing about seeing what 8 bit sounds could be created by adjusting the code.

For this demo product we want to keep it simple! So sorry to the worlds lazy dogs this is not the toy for you! (watch this space the ball that rolls back to you when you bark will come!!!)

But for now.... we are gonna look at creating a toy that interacts with the dog. Using movement and audio. A toy that can keep your dog entertained, for ages, without much imput from you.. Lazy dog owner!

Now to get on with our final idea....

Having had a play about with the chip and various components now its time to work out our concept.

Lazy ball, for owners that just don't have time to play with their pesky pup! OR is it the ball for the lazy dog that dosnt want to fetch the toy his owner just keeps on throwing!

Monster Code!

Monster new and improved!

 We used this system to make our 'Monster in a box'. Setting the LED's in a plastacine model to create eyes. When it got dark the LDR would activate a motor that would lift the monster out of the small box, and his eyes would flash!

Monster

Play

We did a series of little demos to get used to the chip and the program. So we started off using LED's getting them to flash, then putting in an LDR, as it got dark the LED'S would be activated. First we made a  simple card model.

The chip

The chip we are using is picaxe-18m2. We will program the chip using MacAXEpad, to create our audio and physical inputs and out puts

The Final Idea

We finally chose the one idea which we would develop further . . .

. . . Down to 20

Here are just a few of our 20 ideas . . .

From 200 ideas . . .

Our 200 ideas were soon narrowed down to 20 chosen by which seemed most interesting and challenging as well as achievable.

Idea Generation

At first it seemed quite difficult to each come up with 100 ideas, however, through the various research methods and influential designs we came across, we were quickly inspired and were soon coming up with ideas of our own. We found that by working together to come up with ideas, it was much more effective than working individually.

The Fun Theory

http://www.thefuntheory.com/
Our ideas were also influenced by this idea of The Fun Theory. By turning an everyday activity into an interesting task or by adding an exciting element, the differences in the public's behaviour was clear to see and really quite fascinating to watch.

Crispin Jones

Our research lead us to a designer called Crispin Jones. His work has an exciting and playful element, that we really liked. His projects are wide and varied, but it was his macabre sense of humour that really appealed to us!
www.mr-jones.org/

Ikeamania

Some more of Crispin Jones’ more extreme ideas. More installation design than product but the fun element caught our eye. Ikeamania was a stall set up in the style of the old fashioned travelling fairs, It would measure, then consequently cure you of your level of addiction to the well known ‘Swedish furniture retailer’. You were required to place your hand on a plate which would then judge by way of a spinning wheel your level of ‘mania’. Your score was then set on the electropathic machine. To be cured of your unforgivable addiction you were then touched by the ‘electric lady’ (the said lady was wearing a glove that was wired to the electropathic machine) where she would then cure you, by stroking you, with the appropriate level of shock therapy!  A certificate was received at the end to confirm your reform.

Katazukue

Crispin Jones' Katazukue is a table with conveyor belts embedded into the surface. Without warning at random intervals the conveyor belts will move clearing anything on the table onto the floor. It is a twisted way of ensuring a tidy desk. In Jones’ design the roles are reversed; instead of having power over the object, Katazukue is controlling you.

Over the last few weeks we have carried out a lot of research in order to help generate our ideas. In looking at existing products and the many interesting concepts which incorporate playful and interactive design (some which contain other hidden meanings and messages) we are discovering that the possibilities for our interactive product are increasing rapidly.

In the beginning....

So our first challenge is to come up with 100 ideas.