So attached below are the bill of materials and Fritzing diagram for my final project.

Starting with the B.O.M:

Item	Amount	Cost
Plastic Baseball Bat	1	$3.09
Arduino 101	1	$39.95
Mini Motor Disc	3	$5.85/$1.95 each
Haptic Motor Controller	1	$7.95
Force Sensing Resistors	4	$31.80/$7.95 each
Full sheet 1/2″ Ply	1	free
Fake Grass/Turf	2	free
Batting Helmet	2	$59.90/$29.95 each
		Total: $148.54

As of right now, the plan is to replace the Arduino Uno that was used for the mid-term with an Arduino 101 and its built in accelerometer. My group and I are also interested in possibly making a custom built bat but as of now, we’re going to stick with the plastic model. The force sensing resistors will be placed on top of home plate and will be used to change game modes and the mini motor disc and haptic motor controller will be placed inside of the bat so that they can vibrate whenever the user gets a hit. The ply will be cut to make a more realistic batters box and will be covered in fake turf. This is solely an aesthetic choice, one that hopefully makes the atmosphere a bit more vibrant.

In terms of the Fritzing: I feel like this will change a lot because my group is interested in getting away from the Arduino 101 but I figured it would be helpful to include the schematic used for the mid-term in case it was needed in the future. Unfortunately, the Fritzing software doesn’t include the proper model of accelerometer used (the ADXL335 is included but looks drastically different from the one I used) nor the proper Bluetooth but I think it portrays a somewhat accurate schematic.

 

 

 

So for my lab I wanted to take the first step towards my mid-term by adding a sensor value to a baseball sketch that I had made**. Here is sketch pre serial-communication addition (the code for both sketches is featured at the bottom also turn your sound either off or really low: if you’re reading this at 4:00 am the last thing I want is for this loud crack of the bat to wake up Noodles):

As you can see, a ball is pitched from the mound and then the bat is swung using mouseY. When the bat makes contact with the ball, you record a hit and the crowd goes wild. For this assignment, I decided to replace mouseY with a potentiometer as I felt it would add a nice level of realism to the game.

Going further with this in the days to come, I’d like to replace the potentiometer with an accelerometer that is attached to an actual (mini) bat but I’m a bit concerned. I talked with Matt Romein about trying to make it so that when the bat is swung in real life, the bat is swung in the p5 sketch. He had mentioned that may be very difficult and would be best to make it so that when the accelerometer reaches a certain velocity, the bat is swung. I would then have to make sure there is an incredibly minimal delay between the velocity being reached and the bat being swung. Hopefully you’ll be reading about my solution to this project in the mid-term blog!

** Don’t want you to think I made Mona do a baseball project or that I have a one track mind. I totally just posed the idea to her as nothing more than that: an idea and she thought it would be a good way to showcase physical computing. I suppose I’m getting a bit insecure about that so I just wanted to mention it.

P.S Here is a link to my final Fab project which involved some physical computing.

Code for Sketch 1:

var x = 320;
var y = 235;
var speed = 3;
var speedb = 0;

function preload() {
img = loadImage('battersbox.jpg');
mySound = loadSound('Cheer.mp3');
image2 = loadImage('Bat.jpg');
image3 = loadImage('baseball.jpg');
}

function setup() {
createCanvas(600, 600);
img.loadPixels();
image2.loadPixels();
image3.loadPixels();

}

function draw() {
background(220);
image(img, 0, 0, 650, 500);
baseball();
pitch();
returnball();
bat();
swing();
}

function baseball() {
fill(255);
ellipse(x, y, 25, 25);
image(image3,x-15,y-10,25,25);
}

function pitch() {
y = y + speed;
x = x + speedb;
if (y >= height) {
y = 235;
}

}

function returnball() {
if (x > 600 || x < 0 || y > 600 || y < 0) {
baseball();
x = 320;
y = 235;
speed = 3;
speedb = 0;
}
}

function bat() {
translate(135, 400);
rotate(mouseY / 600.0);
fill(100, 100, 100);
rect(40, 30, 160, 20);
print(mouseY);
image(image2, 40, 30, 160, 20);
}

function swing() {
d = dist(x, y, x, 430);
if (d < 1 && mouseY/100 < 0.25) {
mySound.play();
speed = speed * random(-4, -1);
speedb = speedb + random(-10, 5);
}
}

 

Code for Potentiometer Sketch

In p5

var x = 320;
var y = 235;
var speed = 3;
var speedb = 0;
var serial;
var sensorValue = 0;

function preload() {
img = loadImage('battersbox.jpg');
mySound = loadSound('Cheer.mp3');
image2 = loadImage('Bat.jpg');
image3 = loadImage('baseball.jpg');
serial = new p5.SerialPort(); // make a new instance of serialport library
serial.on('list', printList); // callback function for serialport list event
serial.on('data', serialEvent);// callback for new data coming in
serial.list(); // list the serial ports
serial.open("/dev/cu.usbmodem1411"); // open a port
}

function setup() {
createCanvas(600, 500);
img.loadPixels();
image2.loadPixels();
image3.loadPixels();

}

function draw() {
background(220);
image(img, 0, 0, 650, 500);
baseball();
pitch();
returnball();
bat();
swing();
}

function baseball() {
fill(255);
ellipse(x, y, 25, 25);
image(image3,x-15,y-10,25,25);
}

function pitch() {
y = y + speed;
x = x + speedb;
if (y >= height) {
y = 235;
}

}

function returnball() {
if (x > 600 || x < 0 || y > 600 || y < 0) {
baseball();
x = 320;
y = 235;
speed = 3;
speedb = 0;
}
}

function bat() {
translate(135, 400);
rotate(sensorValue / 600.0);
fill(100, 100, 100);
rect(40, 30, 160, 20);
print(mouseY);
image(image2, 40, 30, 160, 20);
}

function swing() {
d = dist(x, y, x, 430);
if (d < 1 && sensorValue/100 < 0.25) {
mySound.play();
speed = speed * random(-4, -1);
speedb = speedb + random(-10, 5);
}
}

function printList(portList) {
for (var i = 0; i < portList.length; i++) {
// Display the list the console:
println(i + " " + portList[i]);
}
}

function serialEvent() {
var inString = serial.readLine();
if (inString.length > 0) {
inString = inString.trim();
sensorValue = Number(inString/4);
}
}

for Arduino:

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
int sensorValue = analogRead(A0);
Serial.println(sensorValue);
delay(1);