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Here’s a video of part of my talk and performance at the Sonoma County Museum. The people who came asked really good questions and were really into it. We had a bunch of scientists and electrical engineers. I think they liked the lightning. There’s more video of other parts of the lecture to come. Not only is there great video of the Engine working, but I also explain how it works kinetically, as well as some of the physics behind the effect. I hope you enjoyed the preview of The Rocket Stop audio system. The harsh marine environment and rain has taken it’s tool over the past year, but the upgrades went realyl well, and the Stop is looking much better now. The new audio system is working (as of now), but is not quite as loud as I’d like it to be. Here are some quick photos and video I shot while doing the upgrades:
Best rotate your owl video ever. I think we can all agree this is pure internet awesome, but few will will find as much value in it as I do. <via Art or Science>
I gota admit, I love that there is a Radioshack two minutes from my house, and I go there often for emergency electronics. But every time I’m there I just wish it was just a bit better. I know it will never be great, I know that, but it would not be hard for it to be just a bit better, and this is a step in the right direction. They even have some nifty projects you can do including an RFID door project. It does not say they will be selling them at the stores (and the more I think about it the more I realize they probably won’t), but it’s a step in the right direction. And hopefully it will turn some people on to playing with microcontrollers.
Well, I finally got around to processing most of the photos and video of a great project I worked on over the summer. I created a portfolio page for it here, but since I never really blogged about this piece as I was building it I figured no one really knew anything about it so I’m writing this massive post with everything in it. When Five Ton Crane was commissioned to build an art car version of The Nautilus, the classic submarine from 2000 Leagues Under The Sea, I knew there were going to apertures involved, I could have never guessed it would be this big. As we started talking about the project a few things started to become clear. First, this was a great opportunity to wholly revise my original aperture designs to make them more durable and more precise. I’d learned a few nifty techniques since I built my first set of apertures in 2007. Second, not only were we going to use apertures in the windows, but we also wanted to incorporate a big one into the door, which we were estimating would need to be about 4′ in diameter. Third, since incorporating a huge aperture into the door was going to be a major challenge all the other elements if the door would need to be designed around it, so it only made sense that I would build the entire door. Fourth, I would need to add some new elements to the project to keep it interesting for myself so I decided that I’d not only custom machine the hinges, but I’d also motorise the aperture in the door, and use a RFID system to control the locking mechanism. Oh, and I’d need to build two of these doors, one for each side of the sub (only one aperture though). The four small aperture windows went together easily, and as gorgeous and cool as they are, honestly, they are so deep in the shadow of the 4′ door aperture that they are hardly noticed. I was really amazed at how well the 4′ aperture worked, in fact, this large one is mechanical smoother then the small ones. See each of the blades needs to overlap several other blades. If you image the blades being very thin and flexible then you can see that when they are all stacked up atop each-other the stack is very thin and there is not a lot of torsion on the blades. Now since these are made of brass, the material can only get so thin before it lacks the strength to be constantly twisted without deforming. Usually I use a brass in the 0.03″ range. This thickness works well when they are small but works even better when it’s large, because the important metric is not the material thickness but the ratio between the thickness and size of the blade. I also found a new much stronger method to attach the pins to the blades (this is the hardest part of the design). The motorization of the large aperture was surprisingly easy. I used two small DC motors with spur gears and nice torque mounted on either side of the cam ring. I then welded chain around the cam ring turning it into a giant gear. It worked the first time I tried it. I controlled the two motors with an Arduino and a motor shield, two limit switches and a few lines of code. I then modified an old positioner and inserted a set of buttons, so that when you pull the handle of the positioner it trips the buttons and turns the motors. The RFID was super easy. I got a D12 RFID reader, hooked it up to another Arduino, and used it to flip a 40A relay attached to a 30 lbs pull automotive solenoid. The solenoid was coupled to a super beefy industrial latch. The latch keeps the door closed until is sprung by the solenoid, when to door is closed it pushes the spring latch back into its locking position. Just like the trunk on your car. I love the result. The door is rock solid closed with no visible way to open it. Then you wave your fob by the reader and the door literally pops open. When you close the door there is solid, satisfying snap as it latches in place. The hinges are one of my favorite parts. Not only did they come out really nicely but they are so smooth and stable, and add just enough friction to give opening the door some nice tactile feedback. I modeled them on old harpoon heads and went to great lengths to hide all the welds. I love when I catch people staring at them and wondering out loud how they are put together.
An interesting read on the relationship between science fiction and technological research and development by Paul Dourish Read the whole paper here.
This quote is from a great essay by Neil Stepheson published in the World Policy Journal. There are tons of good thoughts to be had about many issues while reading this essay, but what really resonated me with is the quote above. I’m a voracious consumer of on-line information, and any time I have an idea I immediately google/wiki it and dive into all the links. While I love all the information and influence I get on-line I’m also constantly fighting the impulse to set aside a design/idea/concept because someone has “done it” already. I often have to tell myself out loud “It’s you execution that’s valuable/original/worthy not the design/idea/concept its self.” When I saw this 5DOF robotic I fell in love with it, that was in the 80s when I was just a little kid. I aways wanted one. So the other day when I saw it collecting dust and longing for the days when it was cutting edge I knew I had to resurrect it. It’s really just controlled by 6 stepper motors so I stripped out all the electronics and hooked it up to two EasyDrivers under Arduino control and wrote a simple Processing program to interface with it. I only had two drivers sitting around but I’ve got more coming, so soon I’ll have full control of this 80s wonder. Not sure what I’m going to do with it yet. But I’m toying with the idea of having it play with a mouse … a real mouse. You know at events like Maker Faire I’m constantly being interviewed and videoed, and then I totally forget about them. Well this afternoon during a quick lunch break I checked in on Make and while I’m scrolling along eating a chicken drum stick I suddenly relise that I’m looking at a video of myself. Yep, although it was months ago Make has just posted an interview the did with me about The Uira Engine. Thanks Make! Below is scanned clipping from the San Francisco Chronicle featuring the RGR and The Rocket Stop. Yeah, it was also posted on-line, but its still cool to see your work printed on real paper.
Hey look! The Simple Act of Making a Mark is featured on the official Arduino blog! Sweet! We love the Ardunio!
The work of Pe Lang (via Triangulation) I’ve got some ideas for kinetic sculptures involving genetic algorithms. The specifics of of the sculptures are still in flux, and I’m waiting to see which ideas gel. In the meantime, however, I’ve started build a code base to begin to see what I can do with GA. Here is one of the first little Processing sketches I’ve done to get the basics working. This is a continually evolving population of Lines. Each row is a member of the population called a Line. A Line is defined by a string of random numbers (0-1) that makes up its “DNA”. When the Line is born, its DNA is translated in chunks of two numbers, each two number chunk defines a single segment of that Line, and an Line is made of multiple segments. The two numbers determine the color and length of a segment. The DNA is read until the Line is complete at the edge of the screen. All the lines on the screen at a given moment represent the population. Once the population is complete, each is evaluated for fitness, as defined by the controls on the bottom, and the most fit members of the population are mated and mutated to generate a new population. The controls at the bottom allow the user to select for a lines color (purple or green) and segment length (long or short). The sliders allow you to adjust to population size and the mutation rate. So, really not much interesting looking happens as you click the buttons. Select for short-segmented green Lines and you get them. But keep in mind that the changes that you are seeing are based on the probabilistic evolution of the population. You can click here or the images below to run the program yourself. This GA code is based on the work of Daniel Shiffman
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Social experiments in progress:
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