Bleeber - a Physical Layer Between Data and Action.

This project is a contribution to the first belgian Arduino Jam (2012).

First of all we would like to thank the organisation and especially the main sponsor, Capgemini, which made all of this possible.

Bleeber is a physical way of interacting with data trough oobleck.
In Belgium it's commonly known that the train schedule has its own will. During peak hours, catching a train on time is a rare thing.
Sometimes we just had enough and would love to stand up and shout it out.
But we don't. We're a calm and modest nation, so we keep it to ourselves.

Unless! We can make technology have its say!
We found a way to stand up, without even have to get out our couches.
Let the blubber do it!

First we analyze train schedules trough neat project. (Check some news articles about iRail, in function of internet freedom)
This data is than transfered to our non-newtonian fluid trough a speaker, which makes it stand up (even dance a little).
According to the right frequency (which is determined by the amount of delays of all trains) the substance rices higher, and triggers a counter by interrupting a laser beam. Because laser beams are pretty awesome. If the counter hits an amount, we had enough! Now the machine is so mad it automatically tweets a message! That'll show them...

Enjoy the pictures and clips,
once again, thanks to all the Arduino Jammers...
We had a great time!

(Frederik, Zenio & Dries)

Step 1: Making the Non Newtonian Fluid

We spent hours and hours on research how to make the best 'blubber' and this is what we found out.

You will need:

- cornstarch (Maïzena)
- water

Mix it up till it's what you want. You want it to feel like water when you stir it really slow, and when you try to stir fast, it resist.
The right ratio is top secret. (And we don't really remember)

Step 2: Build the Box

Our prototype was built on an active speaker connected to a laptop.
We mounted a green laser low over the speaker cone, and on the other side a photoresistor (LDR).
This sensor was connected to an Arduino board. Every time the blubber interrupted the laser, the Arduino gives a signal to our software.

Materials used:
- Active speaker
- Laser
- LDR
- Arduino
- Non-newtonian fluid

Step 3: Write the Code!

In the attached files you can find the source code.

The arduino code is quite simple. Every time the laser gets interrupted we add to a counter.
When the counter hits 100 it resets itself.

We read this signal trough a serial port with Processing.
Connection with twitter is done with twitter4j: a java library.
Here is a good tutorial how to make it work.
The processing code sends a tweet when a specific byte is read trough the serial port.

Step 4: