Prototype 1

Code and Chaos

I’ve often wondered about the manner in which we interface with a computer. Although we do interact with it through buttons, gestures and other interactions, one of the purest forms of communication is through writing code. Writing code helps us understand the nature of the computer, and how it operates. The experience of coding can often feel quite clean, and composed–it helps quantise my thoughts into a rigid structure. What happens below the surface however, can be quite chaotic. Getting into the weeds with physical computing, I realised how it feels nothing like code. Trying to get small physical computing components to function as intended is often a messy experience. That is when I understand the flow of electrons, energy and the nature of materials. A simple direct current (DC) motor may appear simple, and operating one is indeed quite a simple process. I code the motor to switch on with a single line, a few words and it does as it’s told. However, the interactions of the motor with the circuit, electrons and other elements can be tumultuous.

I wrote down some of my observations and thoughts in a simple hypertext (synthetic) document.

Here are a few images from the document.