Published October 21, 2022

Interruption Binder

A binder for women to protest how much they get interrupted during conversations.

IntermediateShowcase (no instructions)28

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Interruption Binder Demo

Video link: https://youtube.com/shorts/HzNHfYI2s0k?feature=share

1 / 12 • Measuring binder and cutting out fitted piece of cardboard

This project surrounds the "Interruption Binder". This idea behind this project is to create a tool that could be used by women discreetly during meetings or general discussion to point out and protest male dominated environments that usually result in women being interrupted or dismissed during conversations. While this tool could be used to track various forms of interruptions by virtually any person, the goal is to highlight the social inequality between genders and how is negatively impacts women. The binder receives a input via capacitive touch on a foil button that juts out from the housing. Users touch this button every time they are interrupted, and then at the end of the conversation open their binder to release annoying tones for each time they were interrupted. This aims to invoke in others a glimpse of how annoying it is to be interrupted over and over again.

The binder is equipped with a housing unit that can placed into any binder via it's binding mechanism. The housing itself is supported together by spring like pieces of cardboard to allow for the size of the housing to be compressible for extra discreetness when fitting within a binder. A removable circuitry panel( made for ease of debugging and fixes) is fastened to the housing by two securing flaps that fit into slits on the housing. The circuitry panel includes a flap covered in foil that acts as a button connected to the circuity board. The circuit board is fastened into a spot on the panel below a hole in the housing where light can shine in. Once the foil button is touched a signal is sent to the circuit board to increment a value tracking interruptions. Once a high light value is sensed by the light sensor by the opening of the binder, an annoying tone is placed for every recorded interruption.

The part of the code that uses a function that can be used to detect capacitive touch from various pins is taken from an Arduino tutorial.

InterruptionBinder.ino

#include <Adafruit_CircuitPlayground.h>

#define CAP_THRESHOLD 700                                     //Sensitivity of Capactive Touch
#define DEBOUNCE 5000                                         //Global Value for Post Action Delay

int interruptionCount = 0;
int lightValue = 0;

boolean capButton(uint8_t pad) {                              //Function that returns whether the foil button is touched
  if (CircuitPlayground.readCap(pad) > CAP_THRESHOLD) {
    return true;  
  } else {
    return false;
  }
}

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  CircuitPlayground.begin();
}

void loop() {
  if (capButton(1)) {                                         //If touch is detected, gives a notification to serial monitor,--
      Serial.println("Touched.");                             //--increments interruption count, and shows how many interruptions there has been
      interruptionCount++;
      Serial.print("Interruptions: ");
      Serial.print(interruptionCount);
      Serial.println();
      delay(DEBOUNCE);
  }

  lightValue = CircuitPlayground.lightSensor();               //Light senor input
  Serial.println(lightValue);                                 //Light value serial output

  if (lightValue >= 15){                                      //If light is detected, hence the binder has been opened, begins playing--
    for(int i = 0; i < interruptionCount; i++){               //--an annoying sound for each interruption that was endured
      CircuitPlayground.playTone(200, 300);
      CircuitPlayground.playTone(900, 600);
      delay(1000);
    }
    interruptionCount = 0;                                    //Resets interruption count to 0 after sounds have been listed off
    while(true){                                              //While loop that keeps touches from being detected and immediately playing until--
      delay(DEBOUNCE);                                        //--the binder has been closed again
      if (CircuitPlayground.lightSensor() == 0) {
        break;
      }
    }
  }
}

Interruption Binder

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