Raven Rothkopf

Project overview

This project displays alternating candy hearts with random valentine's themed messages and colors on a TTGO T-Display ESP32. The display was embedded in an envelope and suspended from the ceiling on the Barnard College Milstein Library 5th floor CSC Lounge on 2/13/2024.

Documentation

Artistic vision

I wanted to capture the spirit of Valentine's Day with this project, and candy hearts are a quintessential symbol of Valentine's Day. I chose to randomly generate the messages and colors to invoke the generative aspect of this assignment. The heart displays every 5 seconds, then the display goes into deep sleep mode to conserve energy for 5 seconds, and then the screen turns back on with a different randomly generated heart. For practical reasons, I chose to allow the user to display the battery life of the device by pressing the green battery button in the bottom-left corner. I wanted this project to be bright, but also clear and not too busy so that it was inviting, but not overwhelming to the viewer.

Technical challenges

The biggest technical challenge was changing the display little by little until it looked exactly how I wanted it. This meant adjusting and readjusting position of the shapes that made up the heart, the background heart, and the text over and over again. Every little change required a re-compile and re-upload to the board. I also had to figure out how to make the display go to sleep and wake up again via button press. I consulted the TTGO T-Display documentation to figure out the right pin to use for the battery button, and on what signal to detect the button press.