If you build it they will come

So after getting used to the Makey Makey system and playing around a little bit with some initial ideas. I got further into paper prototyping in the hope of building something more to scale that would work.

Paper Prototyping

After some more work with paper I felt that my basic concept of the lock was going to work with the Makey Makey system. However, the issue that I kept hitting upon was the contact points and ensuring that they were triggering accurately.

Paper Prototyping

I had build a larger scale system with two points so that I could move my dial through the two gates and see what response would come from the digital prototype. Despite changing my code to listen for KEY_UP inputs rather than KEY_DOWN inputs I was still having issues with accuracy.

Paper Limits

While the Key down looks to see what the keyboard button is lifted before executing the block of code the issue that I kept running into was that the paper and materials I had been using were too flexible. They were not strong or rigid enough to ensure a smooth contact and disconnect. Rather they were making and breaking contact multiple times when moving through a gate. Resulting in the digital lock moving a minimum of two to three points when it should only have moved one.

Take two

Fast Forward a few days and it was time to try something more durable. I Found some wooden kebab skewers laying around at home and quickly took to hacking them up to try and create some kind of frame which would be able to hold my lock points. Unfortunately the construction process was longer than anticipated and with a presentation for another subject looming this was the limit of my progress for last week.

Now its time to enjoy the week off and really get stuck into construction phase.