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Erin Abernethy BCT
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Foundations Sprint One - Identity, values & strengths documentation
My core personal values:
Evidence of core values:
Self awareness:
Self awareness is a deep rooted value that I have practiced over the past few years while growing into an adult. I use self awareness to keep me grounded, respect other people and “be interested, not interesting” - in other words, “the world doesn't revolve around you”. I started practicing self awareness and self reflection when I started University in 2018. As part of my degree, we were required to keep a blog and continuously document our work and reflect on our progress. From this, I began getting in the habit or self reflecting through journaling. I found this a great habit to get into as I began to become more self aware of my actions throughout the day, rather than reflecting on all of my actions at the end of the day.
Dr Jordan B. Petersons 6th rule in his book, 12 Rules For Life: an Antidote to Chaos, includes; “set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world”. To me this means no one is perfect and neither are you - I think it is important to remind yourself of this everyday.
Evidential feedback from my mother, Carol:
Erin was an amazing kid – pretty smart and good at sports. She got glandular fever at about 12 yrs old and since then I notice that when she is tired/busy/stressed she doesn’t always take good care of herself physically and mentally. My observation is that she is at her best when she does good/extensive physical exercise and then she sleeps better and is better prepared for life and it maintains a positive mood. I think she recognises this sometimes.
Feedback from my friend and past project partner, Gabrielle:
Here is my interpretation of Dr Jordan B. Petersons rule "Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world". I interpret this as
People can choose to do good or bad, and often it can be tough to do good, and easier to do bad. Lyrics from Morrisey of the band The Smiths reflect this same sentiment "It's so easy to laugh, It's so easy to hateIt takes guts to be gentle and kind".
People often focus on the bad things happening around them and the people doing it. You have to find your inner strength and choose to do good, so that your life can be infinitely better, so that you can lose your bitterness and resentment, and that the lives of those around you can improve. Focusing on the bad part of life, the world, and people, can get you down into a bad downward spiral of thoughts that will make you feel like revenge towards humanity and being.
Obviously, people have every reason to be bitter about these things, but it does not contribute to a healthy state of mind. This is why people need to focus on the small things they ARE able to change. Living well and being successful in your personal life WILL have a positive impact and influence on those around you.
Yep.
Gratitude, empathy, and mindfulness:
I was first introduced to gratitude, empathy and mindfulness when I started my job at Mecca in 2018. Mecca dedicated paid training hours to introduce new staff to practicing gratitude, empathy and mindfulness (gem) in both our working lives and personal lives. I found this felt like a therapy session, it really opened my eyes to appreciating what I have, listening to and respecting the people around me, and being mindful of my actions and words. This also ties into my value of family and friends and being grateful for the amazing people I have.
Evidential feedback from my mother, Carol:
I see in Erin a calmness when she is doing something mindful like painting, where she has to concentrate and that is a good thing for her. Passively watching videos, etc is not always ideal and she could explore a balance there. At times, I see that Erin is very grateful for all the opportunities she has had and everything good that has happened to her but sometimes I do see she takes things for granted.
Cherishing life with no zero days:
I truly believe in hard work and seeing life as an opportunity to learn, grow, succeed and enjoy it. One of my goals for 2021 is to have no zero days. This means doing or creating something each day, no matter how small it is as long as it contributes to my self growth.
Evidential feedback from my mother, Carol:
Maybe also included in the no zero days would be physical challenges/activities as these are important for a balanced life.
Being a self-reliant and competent individual:
I still live with my parents (I am 21, please don’t judge) and they recently went away for three weeks which left me with myself and their sick cat. During this time, I learnt a very valuable lesson, again from Dr Jordan B. Peterson, where you must “treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping” - Rule number 2. I took full responsibility for household including cooking and cleaning and chores, taking full care of a sick cat, feeding her, giving her medication each day, and disposing of her kitty litter waste, and then eventually, taking proper care of myself through diet, exercise, taking care of mental health and being completely self reliant.
Evidential feedback from my mother, Carol:
I see Erin as being very self-reliant and competent. She has always got on with her uni and paid work without really any pushing from me. She is less inclined to be competent when it comes to looking after my car unfortunately, as the rubbish and dirt has grown in it. Thankfully the cat survived her imposed stay with Erin very well and Erin did everything we asked of her in looking after the house and keeping it super tidy, as we had open homes during our absence. I guess it is fair to say that Erin can be a very self-reliant and competent individual when she chooses to be and it is about something she cares about.
My core personal strengths and limitations:
Evidence of strengths:
Communication skills and decision making:
I think I have always had good communication skills when working with other people. I have lead team projects in Uni because I could communicate well and make decisions. I enjoy working with other people and companies, as well as getting to know people in my personal life.
I am good in job interviews and can communicate clear and concisely.
Self awareness, self reflection, and honestly:
As mentioned in my values, I believe a strength of mine in my professional life is self awareness including honesty and self reflection. This ties into my communication skills where I can happily work with people and remain “interested, not interesting”.
Project management and time management skills:
In my final year of University, I completed a paper called Creative Workflows”. This paper consisted of how to management your time, money, task responsibility etc using a creative workflow model in a long term project. I genuinely gained an interest in this paper and still practice the methodologies and management skills when working on personal projects.
Creativity and generating creative ideas:
I have always enjoyed art particularly paiting using acrylics, digital art on my Ipad, creating and editing videos, and more recently, photography (which I am really bad at). All of these artistic skills I use in both my daily habits, hobbies and also my professional/educational life.
I began the Creative Technologies degree because I knew I was a creative person and thrived in a creative environment - not because I was particularly tech savvy when I was 18... I loved coming up with creative project ideas that generally included a mixture of art and design and interactive technologies. This included my final project in Uni which was a group project called Horotiu. Horotiu was a screen-based, interactive installation In Aotea Square that educated the public on the Maori mythology and history of Auckland CBD. This was done through hand-drawn animation (my project partner), lighting design and interactivity.
Task: Using the evidence gathered, describe your strengths and limitations.
Explain a situation where you have had an ethical decision to make. Discuss how you weighed up the values involved in that decision, the decision you made and the consequences of the action you took.
When I was in first year of Uni, I was absolutely desperate for money and decided to work 3-4 days a week while studying full time. This did have an impact of my learning journey and grades and I definitely regret it. That's what Studylink is for!
Describe how your culture has influenced your values and identity.
I think what is most notable about Kiwi culture, stemming from Maori culture, that has influenced my values and identity is kaitiakatanga (being one with the environment, and respecting the land) and manaakitanga (being hospitable).
Kaitiakatanga has influenced me to value respectfulness of myself and others, and further having gratitude, empathy and mindfulness for the people around me; collegues, friends, family.
Manaakitanga has influenced me to value the people around me as individuals and treat them as my whanau. This also ties into self aware in my actions of treating people; being welcoming, “interested, not interesting”.
Evaluate your strengths and limitations in terms of your learning and career development
In a learning or career environment, my communication skills and decision making skills has helped me become the young, ambitious person that I am today. I strived for a degree with high grades that I absolutely loved, I worked alongside individuals, other businesses and industry standard mentors to further my learning and career development. I am grateful to have an ambition to connect with the people around me - everyone has something to offer, everyone has a talent.
What I noticed in studying Creative Technologies is when working in groups there always needs to be a chief decision maker. This was something we practiced in the first year or so. When it is hard to come up with project ideas or move into the next phase of a project there can be several difficult decision on where to navigate the project i.e do we include this feature? is it useful? I found it was a good skill to quickly analyze the situation and make a decision to continue the flow of project. Our lecturers would always say, “just make a decision on something and START IT, whatever it is, and then make more decisions and KEEP GOING”
Identify which of your strengths might help you in your learning journey and how they might intersect with learning obstacles.
One of my strengths, being a good decision maker, I think will help me in my learning journey. But I am not necessarily a good problem solver (that I have noticed) which is what a developer is when programming. I am hoping to grow my problem solving skills throughout this course with all of the individual and group projects.
Share an example from your experience of where you were trying to work productively with others, but there was resistance or tension. Discuss the strategies you used at that time, how effective they were, and your reflections on what other strategies you would try now, and why.
I remember in a group project in uni where we were creating a hypothetical application called Ecocery. Ecocery was a phone app to help users purchase environmentally food products when grocery shopping. You would scan the barcode, and information on the products ingredients, packaging, water footprint and carbon footprint, and how environmentally the brands company is as a whole, would pop up on the screen and give it an overall rating.
I decided to create the hypothetical app using Wix, which contained a section dedicated to informative article on how food impacts the environment. One team member wrote an article about transport for the website which I felt was not relevant and shouldn't be on the website as it is about food. This did create tension between the team member and myself but we came to a rational decision to re-write an article together that was more relevant. We got an A for the project!
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Foundations Sprint One Daily Reflections 03/02/21
AM
What are my goals for today?
Today I would like to complete Sprint 1 and begin the stretch tasks. If I finish early I still want to complete eight hours of work.
What are my challenges for today?
Yesterday my biggest struggle was probably remembering all of my notes. I wrote a todo at the end of the day which included printing of my saved cheat sheets and putting them on my wall infront of me and drawing out and printing diagrams of each task I have done so far (kind of like visual analogies of how each command etc works).
PM - to be completed EOD
What excited me today?
What drained me today?
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Foundations Sprint One Challenge - Ko wai koe?
I found this challenge really difficult to navigate and wrap my head around. Why? Literally why?! Now that I have completed it (hopefully up to standard) I realise that it is not so difficult at all - I was on one hell of a steep learning curve.
Firstly, the timebox recommendation for this challenge was 30 minutes, and I ended up spending about three hours on this challenge. The challenge began with cloning the Ko wai koe repository from GitHub to a local repository on our computers, then create a new branch through the command line. I found this not too difficult but I did end up googling pretty much everything... even though I have completed tutorials on these commands... oops. The next step was to create a .md file that contained our individual mihimihi. For some reason, this step confused me. I tried googling around to see how one creates a .md file via the command line and I couldn't really find an answer, and to be honest I still don't know! Nonetheless, I created my mihimihi on the Notepad app on my Windows computer and converted this file from a .txt file to a .md file. Is that right? Is it cheating? I don't know... I then downloaded this file, made some changes and moved it into the ko wai koe repo. I moved this file to the staging area, then committed it and eventually pushed to the remote repository. <- This step took me a while - I didn’t want to f*ck it up! Once the file is up on GitHub, we were required to create a new pull request so someone can merge my branch with the main branch. Now, I haven’t really been looking around GitHub all that much, so I was suuppper confused. I ended up clicking some things (that did nothing), asked a team member to merge my pull request (which I didn't even complete) and luckily a team member replied mentioning I probably haven't done it properly - classic. So I went back onto GitHub, clicked around some more and then it worked (somehow) and I can’t even remember what I did.
Anyway, I feel like I am not quite grasping some key information quite YET. I am trying really hard and trying to stay optimistic - I just hope I begin to get into the rhythm of things soon...
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Foundations Sprint One Daily Reflection 02/02/21
AM
What are my goals for today?
Today, I would like to grasp a good understanding of using Git and GitHub and where HTML, CSS and JS come in to play. I would like to get started on the assignment, Ko Wai Koe?
What are my challenges for today?
I struggled yesterday to stay focused on the tutorials. I got much more sleep last night so definitely feeling better today.
My back is getting quite sore from sitting all day and my posture is terrible.
PM - to be done EOD
What excited me today?
I actually got a handle of things! I definitely felt my flow and concentration was much better today and actually ended up self navigating myself around the tasks instead of having to Google everything!
This morning I began learning about branch, pull and merge. I learnt how to create a new branch from the master branch in a repo, how to send a pull request and how to merge other developers pull requests back to the main branch. I found this a little tricky (still getting used to working with the command line) but I definitely felt accomplished at the end of today and very happy with the work I had done.
I then completed three lessons of the Git-Real tutorials from the explore section and found these really helpful and took lots of notes. I found that when I was stuck or not sure of something will work, I just assumed, went with gut and “faked it til I make it”. Worse that can happen? Nothing. Literally nothing will happen cause it just wont work, so I tried something else. If its still nothing ill use the git help x command, google it or look at my notes.
Upon reflection, this is not a sustainable problem solving habit to get into. To be honest, this wasted a lot of my time and I didn’t really learn anything new in the process. I had another look at the eda handbook and re-read the problem solving framework and approach reccommended:
- get intentional and habitual
- start your timer (timeboxing)
- understand: get clear on what is being asked
- Plan: plan your approach
- Divide: break into small steps
- make an attempt at solving it (write and initial solution)
- get unstuck
- improve your solution
- Learn what you learned (reflect)
- Practice!
The first lesson included Git basics which was a nice recap of yesterday and I also did the following; create a new directory in local folder, create a repo, create a README.txt file and LICENSE.txt file in the repo, run git status, add the files to the staging area, commit the files and push the files to the remote repo.
I also learnt how to add staging files to an already committed file, to reset or bring back a commit from the repo back into staging, and bring back a file from staging. As well as how to completely undo a commit including all of its changes.
In lesson two I then learned how to create a new repository remotely and then add this repo to a local repo.
In lesson three I then learnt about cloning and branching and put this into practice using git clone URL in the command line from the remote repo I was cloning. I then learnt how to create a new branch off of the master and navigate between the two using git checkout branch.
I then moved onto the eda tasks which further included forking and cloning. This is where I completed the Ko wai koe task which took me a while to complete.
I then moved onto the final task that included creating a new repo, creating a github page and begin building a reflection blog using. For this I used the command line to bring my remote repo into a local repo and start editing the files from there. Then staging these, committing these, and pushing these to the web!
Who knows if I got all of that correct but nontheless, I did something!
What drained me today?
Just after lunch I started to feel incredibly sluggish and tired (maybe a crash from for four coffees?) so I took a little 15min nap and felt a lot better.
During breaks I tried not to scroll through my phone and found this really helpful as well.
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Foundations Sprint One Assessment Reflection - Track and Commit
How would you describe stage and commit to your non-tech-savvy friend?
In a Git repository there are three main areas; the Working Directory, the Staging Index, and then the Repository itself. In the working directory, this is where you or your collaborators can make changes to your project through HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Once these changes are completed they are moved to the staging area where Git recognizes a new file. These files are ready to commit. Once they are committed, the files are safe and can be returned to at any time.
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Foundations Sprint One Assessment Reflection - Git
What is a GitHub work flow?
In Git, each project has its own repository. A repository is full collection of all the versions of the project. The repository also contains the hidden .git directory that contains specific information based on the repository. The act that telling Git a version of your project is finished, is called “committing”. Once you have committed a version to your repository, the repository contains the following helpful information: what order the changes occured, a description of the changes, who was responsible for each change etc (when collaborating).
What did you notice about your own learning? What did you do when you were confused or blocked?
I felt incredibly confused in a few instances from the more complicated steps or when something didn’t quite work how I was expecting it to. I found when I got to this stage I had a hell of a lot of tabs open, I was struggling to focus on the task and my brain started turning into mush. After a little bit of panicking I closed the tabs, went back to the very first step of the task and read the instructions very carefully (my answer was right in front of me half of the time!). If I still was feeling confused I would google for a solution (as a developer does) and praise the Lord when I found my answer.
When I started to feel more stuck more often, it was time for a break. I would take a 5-10min break and try not think about it.
Is there anything you'd do differently if you were to repeat the learning exploration again?
I really should have gotten more than five hours of sleep last night. I did really struggle to focus for on quite a few of the tasks and know that I definitely did not get enough shut eye. Minimum eight hours for tonight!
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Foundations Sprint One Assessment Reflection - Command Line
In a couple of sentences, how would you describe the command line in plain English? Can you think of an analogy for it?
Conversations with your computer and being the bossy one.
Did you stick to the timebox guidelines? If not, what change would you make next time?
Yes I did. The timebox for this task was 70mins (including reflection). This was the perfect amount of time to look through the linked tutorials and then self explore for a little bit. I will definitely need to practice daily!
Name 5 commands you used and what they do.
cd - change directory
mkdir - make new directory
rmdir remove directory
pwd - print working directory
cd .. - back to previous directory
cd ../.. - back two prev directory
Did you learn anything unexpected?
GUI = graphical user interface
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Foundations Sprint One Assessment Reflection - Version Control
What's the difference between Git and GitHub?
Git is a software tool that is downloaded to your computer. Git is a distributed source control repository to collaborate with other developers. The purpose of Git is when collaborating, a history of changes, edits etc is stored to not overwrite other developers code or files and perfectly merge these files together.
GitHub is a web server that you sign up to. GitHub is where developers store and share code. You can push and pull code from Git to GitHub or use each platform completely separately.
Can you think of an analogy to describe them?
I might need to come back to this one - watch this space
Do you think you would still remember the difference a week from now if you didn't revisit the material?
Yes, I will continue with the suggested videos. The Coding Trains introduction to Git and GitHub videos on YouTube are incredibly useful and quite entertaining.
Did you stick to the timebox suggestions? If not, why not?
Yes I did. The timebox was 65mins. I found this a great amount of time to read the content, conduct individual research and reflect upon them.
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Foundations Sprint One 01/02/21
AM
What are my goals for today?
Today, I would like to grasp an understanding of the eight hour work day in my personal time management practices.
Today I will be focusing my flow (getting in “the zone”) and identifying any factors that distract or interrupt my flow. I am also trialing scheduled breaks. I am currently using Toggl to time myself, and set a notification for every 35mins to have a five minute break. And every 2.5 hours or so, I will take a 20min break.
What are my challenges for today?
I am worried that my workflow will be too slow. I am hoping I can get a grasp on Sprint One today and not feel confused and sad for the rest of the sprint.
PM
What excited me today?
Today I definitely learned a lot. I felt I stuck to my time management goal pretty well and have completed over eight hours of work.
I learnt about Git and GitHub and how they function and interact with each other. I spent some time on the terminology for both Git and GitHub and noted the essentials down. I find Git pretty easy to navigate but I feel I do fall behind often when following the tutorials (I get frustrated easily) so I think ill keep going on with the Udacity tutorials, they are quite handy.
What drained me today?
The fact that I got five hours sleep was definitely a big mistake. I found it quite difficult to focus on my tasks and found I was getting distracted quite easily. This is a mistake I will never make again.
I also just went on my phone during my timed breaks and in a way I felt like I was rewarding myself by doing so but it just made me feel more tired, more hopeless and did not keep me mentally tough for the day.
Changes: Phone to be not on my desk or easily accessible, to not give in to 10 sec notification dopamine hits, and use my time more wisely - make a tea, check emails, ready my book etc
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Daily Reflection Template 2021
AM
What are my goals for today?
What are my challenges for today?
PM
What excited me today?
What drained me today?
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Research Growth Mindset
Discuss what it is and why it is relevant
The growth mindset encourages students to understand their placement on learning curves in any aspect of their lives. The growth mindset is relevant as it helps students to understand that their intelligence, basic abilities and talents are not up for judgement - this is from using the power of “yet”
In this exploration, did anything surprise you? Change for you?
I agree with the young boys letter to Dr. Carol Dweck, “I have wasted my life” - Intelligence is not hereditary, ones traits are not fixed.
How will you integrate growth mindset into your learning journey?
Understand that I will be on a constant learning curve, and the power of “yet” moves you up that curve a little bit faster.
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Research Neuroplasticity
Discuss how understanding the principals of neuroplasticity benefits people
Gives people the understanding that intelligence, abilities and other traits are all malleable.
Discuss how you might engage with the principals of neuroplasticity for your own benefit
Repeating an activity, retrieving a memory, and reviewing material.
What are some of the ways to increase your neuroplasticity
Putting information into context and recognizing that learning is the formation of new or stronger neural connections.
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Evidence of making - References
Foundation, P. (n.d.). Video Tutorials. Links to videos that cover the Processing basics. Retrieved October 21, 2020, from https://processing.org/tutorials/
Spaceship Interface. (2013). In Arduino projects book. Place of publication not identified: Arduino.
Sam. (2020, October 14). Arduino Workshop for Beginners - Tutorial. Retrieved October 21, 2020, from https://core-electronics.com.au/tutorials/arduino-workshop-for-beginners.html
Arduino Programming - Loops. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2020, from https://edu.workbencheducation.com/cwists/preview/34860x
B, T. (2020, March 05). Guide for WS2812B Addressable RGB LED Strip with Arduino. Retrieved October 21, 2020, from https://randomnerdtutorials.com/guide-for-ws2812b-addressable-rgb-led-strip-with-arduino/
Button Video Playback Project. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2020, from https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=366754.0
Connecting Arduino to Processing. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2020, from https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/connecting-arduino-to-processing/all
Nikos. (2018, May 31). Trigger the video player when processing read a defined number. Retrieved October 21, 2020, from https://discourse.processing.org/t/trigger-the-video-player-when-processing-read-a-defined-number/559
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Theory and practice in controlling and creating an RBG LED strip through Arduino IDE -part two
Arduino sketch:
// include library
#include<FastLED.h>
//define number of LED and pin
#define NUM_LEDS 300
#define DATA_PIN 3
// create the ld object array
CRGB leds[NUM_LEDS];
// define 3 byte for the random color
byte r, g, b;
void setup() {
// init the LED object
FastLED.addLeds<WS2812B, DATA_PIN, RGB>(leds, NUM_LEDS);
// set random seed
randomSeed(analogRead(0));
}
void loop() {
// loop over the NUM_LEDS
for (int cur = 0; cur < NUM_LEDS; cur++) {
// chose random value for the r/g/b
r = random(0, 255);
g = random(0, 255);
b = random(0, 255);
//set the value to the led
leds[cur] = CRGB (r, g, b);
// set the colors set into the physical LED
FastLED.show();
// delay
FastLED.delay(100);
}
}
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Theory and practice in controlling and creating an RBG LED strip through Arduino IDE
Here is a sketch when first using an individually addressable LED strip.
I found using the Fast LED library in Arduino IDE very helpful for this.
Arduino sketch:
#include <FastLED.h>
#define NUM_LEDS 2
#define DATA_PIN 3
// Define the array of leds
CRGB leds[NUM_LEDS];
void setup() {
// typical
FastLED.addLeds<WS2812B, DATA_PIN, RGB>(leds, NUM_LEDS); // GRB ordering is typical
}
void loop() {
// Turn the LED on, then pause
leds[0] = CRGB::Red;
FastLED.show();
delay(2000);
// Now turn the LED off, then pause
leds[0] = CRGB::Black;
FastLED.show();
delay(500);
}
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Practice in achieving Processing to open and play a video file once the Arduino is interacted with - fail part three
Here are three trials at using a button sensor in arduino to trigger and play a video file in processing
This is part three
Processing sketch:
import processing.serial.*;
import processing.video.*;
Serial myPort; // Create object from Serial class
int val = 99; // Data received from the serial port
String PATH = "\\Desktop\SEM3\Processing\sketch_VIDLIB3\data\Horotiu.Trailer.mp4"\;
Movie myMovie;
String inData = "";
int THRESHOLD = 100;
boolean playing = false;
void setup() {
size(1920, 816);
frameRate(23.98);
myMovie = new Movie(this, "Trailer.mp4");
myMovie.speed(1);
myMovie.volume(30);
myMovie.pause();
String COM1 = Serial.list()[0]; //change the 0 to a 1 or 2 etc. to match your port
myPort = new Serial(this, COM1, 9600);
}
void movieEvent(Movie m) {
m.read();
}
void draw() {
background(255);
if (0 < myPort.available()) {
val = myPort.read();
}
image(myMovie, 0, 0);
if (val == 0) {
myMovie.speed(1);
} else {
myMovie.speed(0);
}
}
Arduino sketch:
int switchPin = 4; // Switch connected to pin 4
void setup() {
pinMode(switchPin, INPUT); // Set pin 0 as an input
Serial.begin(9600); // Start serial communication at 9600 bps
}
void loop() {
if (digitalRead(switchPin) == HIGH) { // If switch is ON,
Serial.write(0); // send 1 to Processing
} else { // If the switch is not ON,
Serial.write(1); // send 0 to Processing
}
delay(100); // Wait 100 milliseconds
}
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