Refuge, Final Project

After many struggles we finally finish our final project. Here is what I came up with, since it was related to sound pollution i decided to create a place where people could get a away from all the noise created all around, a Refuge for people as well as a place for wildlife and habitat. A place surrounded by nature even if it is man made, it is still a place to get out of most of the commotion around mostly from the freeway. My sensor would be implemented on throughout the site to see if there was a difference in noise levels and where the best place to rest peacefully would be found.

Another way of showing noise

http://www.amusement.net/2014/07/16/nils-volker-transforms-trash-bags-pixels/

This image of Mr. Nils was one of the inspirations of a different idea it gave me, that would represent noise in a different perspective. I was planning on using bags to inflate and deflate bags according to the different noise levels on the landscape. So it would also be like a spectrum wave with bags coming out of the ground. A bag forest in a way appearing and disappearing with the decibel levels.

Visible Sound

Finally after many trials and errors I was able to build my circuit. It was hard work to put it together since I never had used an ironing gun before nor program anything. Although most of the files are online it wasn’t easy to put everything together for some reason. Seen the final work was really a nice feeling of our hard work and our perseverance. I was able to make sound visible through a microphone and an LED matrix.

First steps, Arduino

At the beginning we were all lost in creating a circuit that would work with our Arduinos, mostly because it was out or our field. We continue working on practice ones until we were ready to work on our own ones. This is one of the practice ones we built, it was an LED light that changed colors. It gave me an idea of what circuit to build for my own. I decided to build a circuit to detect sound and will show it with light, the next step is to get that circuit ready.

La Verne’s Noise/Sound Pollution, making it visible.

The reason that led into trying to sense noise levels in La Verne was when I read an online article about residents who lived near the 210 Freeway. The people complained about how strong the noise levels coming from the freeway were as well as the vibrations and pollution they created, the worst was in the morning or in the night. This led to me trying to create a sensor that can record this readings and also display them in an spectrum wave or form. The first step was to figure out where the most noise was concentrated in, so I created a map to find out.