Kale's BCT

Rush:

Studio VI - Intro to Rush:  

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188403654361/studio-vi-intro-to-rush

Rush - Week 3 Presentation:  

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188403578646/rush-week-3-presentation

Rush - Mechanical Screen and Interaction Play Test:  

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188403899536/rush-mechanical-screen-and-interaction-play-test

Rush Week 4 - Visiting Rush Again: 

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188510497741/rush-week-4-visiting-rush-again

Rush - Preparing for the Final Pitch:

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188512665431/rush-preparing-for-the-final-pitch

Rush - The Final Presentation:

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188512823021/rush-the-final-presentation

Flip Matrix:

Not Rush - We are NOT Rush:

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188512967356/not-rush-we-are-not-rush

Interactive Ethos - AUT Live Survey: 

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188513143461/interactive-ethos-aut-live-survey

Interactive Ethos  - Mechanical Display Research:

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188513223306/interactive-ethos-mechanical-display-research

Not Rush - Connective Board Interface Playtest:  

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188404280631/not-rush-connective-board-interface-playtest

Flip Matrix - Week 9 Pitch: 

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188513575276/flip-matrix-week-9-pitch

Flip Matrix Week 10 - Test for a Treat:

We’ve taken the opportunity to pitch our Studio idea to Hannah Rogers. It was a good opportunity to get feedback on the project. We are no longer Rush, therefore our name ‘Interactive Ethos’ didn’t really fit anymore. Now that we’ve progressed away from being Rush we are calling ourselves ‘Flip Matrix’ which is also a work in progress and ironically similar to my first ever BCT project ‘Cards for Play’ called Flip (as long as Flip Matrix doesn’t get shortened to Flip I’m happy).

Cards for Play, Flip created by Brambury, M., Newick, M., Driessen S. & Buchanan, K. (2017)

Context:

Why is this important? Why Steam? Studies have shown that STEAM education is essential for preparing the 21st century workforce. There has been lots of research into developing a more integrated curriculum approach by integrating the Arts into STEM-based education at schools. 

To tackle this STEAM challenge, there have also been many initiatives targeted at primary and secondary school aged students such as Nanogirl Live, OMGTech, EarSketch, and STEAM Carnival to name a few. Our work will build upon these existing initiatives but will focus specifically instead on people considering tertiary education. Thus our general audience will be youth aged 16-25. Moreover, our work will be designed to be used at events such as career fairs and university open days.

Reference:

“Today, there is a wellspring of opinion that combining science and the arts in the form of STEAM education is essential for producing a creative, scientifically literate, and ethically astute citizenry and workforce for the 21st century” (Boy, 2013; Edwards, 2010; Feldman, 2015; Piro, 2010). 

Precedents:

Drawing on RGB LCD pixel screens, our work looks at using flip mechanics to create an ‘over-engineered’ approach to display simple inputs in a sensational way. We’ve decided to take an ‘over engineered’ approach because it puts STEAM on a pedestal by showcasing its capabilities whilst also sparking curiosity about how it works. Examples of flip mechanics include the Flip Dot display and Automated Colour Field.

Regarding user interaction, we plan to draw on principles from modular design and tangible user interfaces. We envision combining this together with concepts and principles from visual programming in which users will connect together ‘blocks’ of code. A key inspiration for us is Palette Gear, which is a customisable modular hardware device, and Reactable. 

This will help create a virtuous feedback loop in which users will engage with a STEAM-based artefact using STEAM concepts.

We plan to excite young prospective tertiary students to engage within the STEAM field. We aim to do this through an interactive visual programming tangible user interface (TUI) that communicates with a mechanical split flap display. The TUI will consist of physical methods and classes in which the user can explore, discover and learn about certain basic concepts within the STEAM field. The output is then mechanically displayed on the flip panel, inspiring participants to consider working within STEAM.

We aim to create a physicalized visual programming language. Using playful and friendly techniques for the users we will use its simplicity to create excitement toward getting people wanting to be involved in STEAM for a career. 

We will utilize this physical programming to control an over-engineered mechanical screen which will visualize the outcomes of the users ‘physical code’.

References:

[ii] STEAM-based interventions: Why student engagement is only part of the story. (2016). 2016 Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), 2016, 1. https://doi-org.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/10.1109/RESPECT.2016.7836171

[i] Taylor, P.C. (2016). Why is a STEAM curriculum perspective crucial to the 21st century? 2009-2019 ACER Research Conferences. 6. Retrieved from https://research.acer.edu.au/research_conference/RC2016/9august/6

Feedback from the Presentation:

We all decided to research a different topic to come together and discuss our findings. Mine was to research both the workings and different techniques of mechanical screens. 

I found various interesting techniques which will hopefully be helpful moving forward.

As none of us could be present in Studio on the day of AUT live, we set up a test in Studio which could be completed if people coming into BCT could complete if they chose to. We created three tests, all of which received answers.

The first was a visual graph which compared how logical/creative people thought they were for us to see where potential BCT students saw themselves.

We developed this information into this graph:

Left: Image of data physicalization set-up in Studio. 

Right: Plot graph version (created by Andrew)

The second asked, which area of STEAM excites you most?

From that activity we created this chart:

We also found the most common combinations were tied equally between STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Mathematics) and TA (Technology & Art).

Lastly we also asked people how they imagined the future of tech -

Talia, Andrew and I discussed our future direction now that we have completed the provocation with Rush and we have decided that we don’t want to pursue our project ‘Interactive Ethos’ with Rush. It was become increasingly challenging to work with Rush and it will be better for the result of studio if we decide to work as a normal studio group for the remainder of the semester. 

We are building upon our ideas from Rush to create a potentially modular playful interactive installation. We will continue to build on our ideas from the content of the Rush space using our previous work in transition spaces and space activation to potentially transfer into a space of a transition of head space instead.

The display will pivot from the context of the Rush space to instead be a device which can succeed and be used in many spaces. Moving from the original context also makes it easier to for fill the projects sustainable legacy. However, as we become generalized we will still uphold our prior themes of working in the space of using an over-engineered mechanical display through physicalisation. The theme of process visualization explored throughout the time with Rush can also be adapted into a different context or move more toward the space of data visualization.

These changes will allow us to extend our target audience away from Rush’s clients and potential employees to general creative practitioners.

This means we have lost some time, but I’m sure we will make up for it. We are wanting to use the precedents and research that we already have, as well as our RGB theme from Rush to move forward.

From Rush we are bringing over:

Part of the Rush ethos through Excitement.

Carrying across the use of space activation

Data visualization

RGB colour combination

Now, we are re-defining the project and we have created an elevator pitch together. We all created one then came together to merge them in a group to ensure we were all on the same page.

Originally I said:

“We plan to excite young people to work in STEAM through the use of a collaborative way to combine and ‘leave their mark’ on the display. This could be achieved with the use of, but not limited to RGB color combination and the use of physical pixels. We want to utilize our previous research into the tangible interactive installation to equally consider what we display with the importance of how we display it”.

Our agreed version is:

“We plan to excite young creatives to work in the STEAM industry by inviting them to contribute a physical ‘pixel’ on a data physicalization interface. This could be achieved with the use of RGB colour combinations, interlocking tiles and flip mechanics”.

As young creatives are our target market, we hope to design a quick play test which we can use at AUT live to gain feedback and data. That is this week (in two days at the time of writing this) so we need to do this quickly!

Tools we may use for the project:

Mechanical screen.

Potentially modular.

A tangible user interface.

Sensation and spectacle.

The focus for the first half of the week was getting the presentation ready for Rush. We successfully presented today and gained feedback from Ben which can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rSQymMN1xl_qoYYpozaJgLCXIcCGU4gc/view?usp=sharing

It will be exciting to get feedback from Rush, and see if they are interested in taking our idea further. However, equally as that is exciting I have the feeling even though we are on track for studio, Rush don’t seem to have their heart in taking on ours or any of the student projects. All the same I thank them for the opportunity they gave us to kick start our studio for the semester.

The presentation was written as a group so the content below belongs to Talia, Andrew and myself.

Elevator Pitch:

Andrew, Talia and I have now formed a group and are now creating our concept for our final pitch to Rush. It beginning to seem like Rush is not fully committed to taking on any of our ideas, and its looking like working in with students is beginning to become a drag for them. However, we’ve come this far and if Rush is interested, I would be interested in working with them.

Next week we are going to pitch to Rush and we need to create that pitch in a way which works both professionally, and for assessment. Though its not final we’ve coined the team name ‘Interactive Ethos’ for our presentation. Simply because our project will be interactive and capture the Ethos of Rush.

We are:

We want to:

“Excite new clients and employees about RUSH through a tactile playful experience which introduces RUSH’s ethos and design process.”

We are currently working on different sections of the pitch, the two sections I’ve taken ownership of are the Method and Feedback Plan and the Sustainable Legacy of the project. For now I have written my components explanation in full and next week I will condense and visualize it for the pitch.

Method and Feedback Plan:

We’ve used the IDEO design kit to follow the guidelines of the Rush sprint process which was assigned to us in the beginning of the semester. We used the IDEO design kit to begin in the inspiration phase where we worked in a large team to create a high amount of converging and diverging outcomes. In the inspiration phase we used tools such as empathy mapping, analysis, employee interviews and the site visit to inform our ideas.

https://www.designkit.org/

After the original presentation to Rush, we progressed into the ideation phase where we have spent a lot of our time. In the ideation phase we used tools such as the lotus blossom, bodystorming and role playing to simulate the space. The team also play tested with a demographic who simulates the audience. A core technique which we used in this stage was the extensive high frequency low fidelity prototyping which we undertook.

Between these phases we iterated between the inspiration and ideation phases and have slowly entered the implementation stage of the design. We are now nearing the end of the ideation phase as we begin to finalize the concept the begin to implement the design. Going forward we will refine the concept to inform the design. We will design the outcome for Rush and for BCT Studio using design and high fidelity prototypes. In the implementation phase will utilize the DCT Feedback Day as a way to gain valuable feedback.

Sustainable Legacy:

Firstly to define the sustainability of the work we need to have finalized the concept of the work itself. We are not currently at the stage of defining the materials or final scale of the outcome so it is difficult to truly define whether or not the work can be ‘sustainable’. This in itself a difficult term to define in the context of an interactive piece created largely for the purpose of entertainment. “Two of the foundational challenges of sustainability are the lack of a standard definition for the term and the variety of synonyms that are used in the literature.” Moore, Mascarenhas, Bain & Straus (2017).

However, as Wheal (2013) discusses in the context of building construction it is important “embed sustainability in from the beginning” and that there is more to sustainability than a building's environmental impact. This statements transfers to our context of the building of an installation. It is important to consider the lifetime and the outcomes ability to be repurposed in the design to ensure a sustainable outcome. 

To create a sustainable legacy for the project we will continue to design the interactive wall display with the premise of it having as long a lifetime in the Rush space as possible, but with the ability to move it outside of the Rush space into other exhibition spaces such as AUT Live, Auckland Art Museum and Auckland Live after the duration of its lifetime with Rush.

Though we haven’t fully defined the materials of the project as of yet we would try to make the project out of reusable modular pieces where possible. For example if we included the use of servo motors to create digitally controlled mechanics, we would attempt to integrate the use of generic servo motors. These can be repurposed into future projects in a space like the AUT BCT where all first years require a generic servo motor for the ‘Physical Computing’ paper.

 Moore, J. E., Mascarenhas, A., Bain, J., & Straus, S. E. (2017). Developing a comprehensive definition of sustainability. Retreived on 26/08/19 from https://implementationscience.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13012-017-0637-1

Wheal, R. (2013). There is more to sustainability than a building's environmental impact. Retrieved on 24/08/19 from 

This week we had the opportunity to visit the Rush space for a second time. It was a helpful experience to get a second look at the space. I had remembered the space slightly differently in my head and I didn’t have a chance to take proper measurements in the first session. While we were there I had the opportunity to explore how realistic executing my idea would be. 

We also had the opportunity to talk to some of the employees which helped confirmed some of our assumptions about the target users and answered some unknown. Talia took notes for the group and let us use them to help further form our ideas. Two insights she found were:

They do not see the Rush entrance space as their space, but a space for potential workers and clients. 

They want us to showcase excitement – the kind you get when you make/see an awesome project – and this doesn’t necessarily have to be showcasing their work itself. 

Throughout the week, Andrew has let me use his awesome mock up of the Rush Space, this has helped me brainstorm my concept and has allowed us to both pitch a concept to Rush and allow them to visualize it. Andrew pitched his plug concept and I pitched my concept visualization concept.

I created a digital low-fidelity prototype of my concept which also showed to Rush as a photo alongside the version of the concept inside the Rush space which we bought along.

My concept:

A way to visualize the Rush space using their concept diagram to dynamically move between a painted and digital drawing of their process visualization. The digital elements would change through a yet defined user interaction to show Rush’s past projects in their various stages of their projects.

This week we entered a prototype of the Flip Matrix in the ‘Test for a treat’ to give ourselves an opportunity to test our project with students from wider AUT and outside of BCT. It was a great opportunity and lays the foundations for our ‘final’ studio outcome. Andrew has been developing the panel prototypes and they are coming along nicely. Talia has created a beta digital version of the panel which we play tested with and I have been creating the code blocks which will be used to control the panels in the completed proof of concept flip matrix.

 While we play tested I recorded some notes - 

Shapes need to be more obvious that that some code doesn’t fit together.

 A block which creates a new line would be useful. 

Use of shapes are not obvious. 

Need to define shape more. 

Would be good to connect on different connections. 

Feels like for primary school (tester said).

Integrate challenge and increase difficulty. 

Feature to change a large amount of the colours at once would be good.  

Perhaps the design creates challenge?

We also asked some questions in a survey in the data can be found here:

We are still trying to find how the flip panels will be interacted with.

Taking from our iteration where we moved away from Rush last week where we -

“Get young people excited to work in STEAM through the use of a collaborative way to combination and leave a mark on the display through RGB color combination and the use of physical pixels. We want to achieve this through the utilization of the previous efforts into the tangible interactive installation. Here, what we display matters equally with how we display it.”

Over the last week I have been researching puzzle design in games so we move toward defining how the project will be interacted with.

Taking from that, I found puzzle design incredibly interesting, but also incredibly complicated. Talia and I created the play test and realized it was flawed before we started when we tested it on Ben before the others. However, we still thought that it could generate helpful feedback for us and since we had spent the time designing and synthesizing it we decided to go ahead with the test.

Designing the test:

Executing the test:

We play tested on five people and collected a range of feedback. The full data set can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q92SGYrIseRkL18OBIkCH_9ymtkY8reGH80wJibvnVE/edit?usp=sharing

We simply wanted people to complete three provocations set by us -

Connect the icons together. 

Connect the icons into pairs.

Create a closed looped circuit between two of the coloured icons (R G B).

After the week three presentation with Rush we discovered two main target audiences.

Potential Rush Employees

Potential (and existing) Rush Clients

We took that information and in week four when we visited Rush we took the opportunity to body storm some of our concepts in the actual space we will be using and gained feedback from Rush on the ideas.

While at Rush we gained feedback on Andrew’s plug idea and he let me use his mock up space to gain feedback on my idea, which would visualize the process using four screens (two simulating it in the picture below) and based from the diagram on Rush’s site below.

Andrew’s idea was interaction based and well grounded, but didn’t have a clear outcome yet. My idea had a clear outcome but the interaction still isn't clear. We wanted to find a way to combine these ideas which bought us to our current iteration which we are play tested.

I asked what do I like about the visualization of the process? 

I found more than I liked the literal interpretation of their graph I liked the stages. This lead me to designing the interaction panel for our play test, which would be a series of ways to interact with a display based off the stages of Rush’s process.

The interaction would be with the flip panel display which Talia designed.

The Play test:

We introduced each creative practitioner who was in our play test to their role in the role-playing scenario. Each person was either a prospective client, or prospective employee based on their background and personal choice of who they would like to see themselves as. We then got them to play with the board a bit and while Talia and Andrew took notes I operated the panel display outputs for the testers.

After some tinkering we explained how we envisioned each interaction works and gained further feedback. We asked -

Could you explain your thought process during the playtest? (Supported by video recording)

Does the design encourage tactile play?

Is it exciting?

What do you think the design says about the company?

Do you think the design illustrates their process? 

Who they are as a company?

As a potential client/worker does the design make you excited to work for Rush?

Above is a link to the working version of the project and below are links to all of my documentation for the semester.

Week 1:

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188294169611/space-image-sound-week-1

Week 2:

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188295832941/space-image-sound-week-2

Week 3:

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188294820896/space-image-sound-week-3

Week 4:

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188295480591/space-image-sound-week-4

Week 5:

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188295745801/space-image-sound-week-5

Week 6:

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188296072831/space-image-sound-week-6

Week 7:

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188307058611/space-image-sound-week-7

Week 8:

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188308027706/space-image-sound-week-8

Week 9:

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188308595891/space-image-sound-week-9

Week 10:

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/188311351936/space-image-sound-week-10

Week 11:

This is insane. 

I have thirteen versions of code to write by Friday and ideally Wednesday as well as about 3-5 hours of soldering in Mechatronics, which is increasingly challenging with it’s limited opening hours. Throughout this week I will definitely be burning some serious midnight oil getting this done, and I’m going to have to ask Tim and Simon for help, even though the technical side of the project is not their job. 

Tim has agreed to help me with the soldering which is awesome as it will cut down the time I need to spend on the project, and also helps to even out the effort that we are all putting in. I’ve peeled off the music program in Processing to them. Tim & Simon have finished all of the music, and I really want to get this working for the amount of work I’ve put in, and they’ve put in so far. If I can’t solve the technical issues, then the project does nothing. Better get to it.

Time is getting very tight and by the end of week 11 I need we need to have this finished. Due to time constraints we’ve decided to definitely only use five consoles in the outcome. I’ve now coded 1 out of 5 controllers and I’ve completed the AV switcher. This means I’ve completed 2 out of 6 tasks I needed to complete in 10 weeks and I now have two (including this week) to complete the rest.

Originally I was going to be completing the installation, however since the weight of the roles has changed dramatically since I agreed to take on all physical and technical parts of the installation and Tim and Simon only have to make the sound, Simon has agreed to design and create the installation. Tim and Simon are also going to write the code for the music in Processing now. Both of these tasks together is a massive weight off my shoulders and helps even out the workload which has lately become a bit uneven.

I feel like I have by far done the most work on the project, however this is completely my fault and not the groups fault. They have been creating great music and we are all completing the tasks that we agreed to earlier in the semester. 

My next task for the week was to create communication between the Arduino and the SNES controller. As I had hoped earlier, I plugged the SNES controller into the Arduino and ran the NES code and it worked.

The only compromise was that because the NES controller has eight buttons and the SNES controller has 12, 4 of the buttons on the SNES controller are inactive in Arduino. I asked the group if the compromise was okay in the long term and they agreed.

This compromise isn't too much of an issue as the B button on a SNES controller is in the same position as X on a Playstation controller and A on a Xbox controller, which are by far the two most common controllers that people are used to using nowadays. Because of this ‘B’ on SNES is going to be the most commonly pressed button, so hopefully the inactive buttons A, X, L,R won’t even be noticed.

This is because if any one button is pressed on a controller then the ‘glitching’ to that input will begin and the button connections to the console are separate, so the controller should still work fine in the console.

The N64 controller has been much more difficult than I could imagined. I saw it and thought - awesome, it only has three wires so its going to be easy. Unfortunately, this makes coding the controller incredibly complicated, and unlike the other controllers, the code isn't easy to manipulate. The code in the tutorials for the N64 controller all use a method of turning the Arduino into a USB-HID compliant device (which also means its no longer an Arduino) and then uses Processing and a modified Command Prompt to interpret the button presses. This is way over my head, so I have been attempting to modify the Arduino part of the code to run the controller in the Arduino IDE, without success. This controller has sucked away days of my precious time, so for now I’m going to ignore it and hopefully get it working later, until then I need to focus on the main code and getting the other four controllers working.

Moving on from the failure of not getting the N64 controllers to work, I moved onto the Playstation controllers, which luckily I already had some understanding of from a past project I did before starting BCT, where I interfaced Playstation 1 controllers with a Raspberry Pi.

Interfacing the Playstation controller gave me a bit of trouble, as after ensuring I had the wiring correct and using multiple pieces of sample code I still couldn’t get it to work with the Arduino. After reading documentation for hours I finally found that the DATA pin needed a connection to the 3.3V power line with a 1K resistor in series.

http://www.billporter.info/category/source/arduino-source/

After finding Bill Porter’s website with this information, who is the person who wrote the Arduino PSX_2 Library, I began to have success and I had control of the PS1 controller, and then also the PS2 controller as they used the same code.

As of the end of week 10, one week out from the deadline I now have Arduino communication with The NES, SNES, PS1 and PS2 controllers, which is all of the controllers except for the N64. I have a massive amount to do to meet the week 11 deadline (which for some reason I thought was week 12) so I wrote this to do list which will take me through to having my section of the project finished.

Tim has finished his 10 tracks, so he is finished with his aspect and Simon is working on both his tracks and the installation. There’s a lot to do in the next week, but hopefully it turns out well in the end.

The AV Switcher is operational.

At the end of last week I got the AV switcher working, after spending nearly an entire day frustrated at my code and circuitry it turned out I was using a faulty power supply. Now, it works!

My code can now turn on NES by press 1 on the keyboard, turn it off by pressing 2, turn on the SNES by pressing 3 etc.

It’s great to have this working now, however I have just become aware that we only have three more weeks to complete this, and I have only done about 1/7 of what I promised the group I would do. I did prior research on the controllers and found the tutorials on how to get the controllers working. From my research the NES seems simple, and it looks like the SNES controller is essentially the same controller as the NES controller. What I am hoping at this point is that I will get the NES controller working with Arduino and then just port the code straight to the SNES controller. 

I loaded the code to the Arduino and followed the diagram below:

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/projects/nes-controller-interface-with-an-arduino-uno/

I plugged it in and it didn’t work. We are currently using the spliced ends of the extensions, which are not made to be cut and I just assumed that the wires on the inside would match the wire colours on the actual controllers. I couldn’t have been more wrong. 

I had wires like this:

Tim and Simon helped me identify the colours of the wires and created this key which helped me greatly and saved me time while I was busy with the rest of the project.

A layout which might look similar to the final installation I created before the break to keep the gear safe during AUT Live

I haven’t been able to progress with the transistor AV switcher any further, instead over the break I researched electro-mechanical relay switches and found how much easier they are use to achieve my outcome. These switches move a contact to create a clean break in the circuit and don’t have ‘voltage leakage’ in the same way the transistor did. My circuit with the transistor could turn on and off an LED, because when it was LOW, the resistance was so high that the LED couldn’t turn on. In this case, and with the AV switcher  there was still some power running through. Electro-mechanical relays are usually used with higher voltage, and I could literally run 240V through them if I wanted, however with the AV signal which runs between 0 - 1V I needed I a switch which would cleanly break the circuit as even the slightest ‘leakage’ as I was experiencing with the transistor wasn’t going to be acceptable.

https://www.galco.com/comp/prod/relay.htm

I’ve based my new AV switcher plan directly off the old version with the transistors which I’ve shown below. We are now most likely down to only five consoles, however we are still not 100% sure which ones. I was planning to  buy five relays, but they only come in boards of four or eight, so I bought I board of eight and began coding and building the AV switcher. This leaves us room to expand if we want to, but if not its easy to keep it at five.

Now that I am almost done creating the AV switcher I also need to consider how to build the ‘interaction panel’ using the controllers into the Arduino. I did some research online for making the controllers work with arduino, and I found we didn’t need the USB adapters I had originally planned for and instead we could use much cheaper extension cables, and splice them into the Arduino.

Here, price started to become the limitation of what we could do -

“I just checked Trademe and to get all of the required cables and one person sells them, which is nice. Including it is shipping like this - all 7 consoles $58.60, 6 consoles (no Gamecube), $52.60, 5 consoles (no Xbox) $42.10, 4 consoles (no PS1/2 $35.20).”

The weeks are beginning to creep up on me now and at the end of this week the break is coming. I’ve created the design for the AV switcher, and now I just need to code and build it. I designed it to work on the eight consoles we planned to include, however, for the scope of the project we’ve since decided its best to remove three of the consoles. We now just have the NES, SNES, N64, PS1 and PS2.