Aida
October 31, 2009
I love Audi even more now!
SNIFF after hours
October 15, 2009
Most shops close and thats the end of it; the lights go out, the staff go home, and the premises is left lifeless till the next day. SNIFF is an engaging, interactive installation which pulls in customers even after hours when the shop is closed. An interactive dog is projected on to the window of the shop and is programmed to react to people walking by and interpret their behavior as aggressive or calm and react accordingly. The project was thought up by Karolina Sobecka and developed by Jim George. I wont go into too much technical information as Sobecka has been very generous as to how the project was created here.
Sorry its been so long!
October 15, 2009
The last couple of months after graduating have been rather “interesting!” I have been employed as a bin man, labourer and multidrop van man. These jobs have served their purpose as to paying off much of my immediate debt but they didn’t leave me oozing with creativity or bursting with innovative ideas. Things have taken a radical change for the better as I am about to enter the realms of perpetual studentism! I am going back to uni but this time instead of paying for the pleasure the uni is going to pay me. I have accepted a job as a technical instructor for new media at Falmouth University and I can’t wait to start. It is vital for me to keep upto date with new media and technology developements so I have decided… no more neglecting my blog!
here’s a little something to tease the technology taste buds and kick start a new beginning for this blog:
The Talking Piano was conceived and built by Peter Ablinger. Utilising Fourier analysis and an automated piano Ablinger is able to recreate speech. The speech is a little distorted but with the help of captions the speech is very recognizeable.
We have movement
May 4, 2009
I didn’t want it to come to this! After many attempts to get the printer to go forward on its own accord (many resulting in ruining the control board and having to buy a new printer) i have brought out the secret weapon – ARDUINO. I also bought a heavily geared down DC motor from Tamiya. These factors combined result in some serious direct to everything progress!
The video shows the printer stepping forwards at a pace set by the Resistance registered by a potentiometer. Later on the potentiometer will be very important in tweaking the printer so it outputs correctly. The DC motor has more than enough power to move the printer.
Circuit:
The black and red wires go directly to the dc motor. The power is switched using a simple transistor.
A lesson in failure
April 16, 2009
Recently I have been working on making a standard ink-jet printer free from the usual constraints of desktop printing. Looking at examples of direct to garment (DTG) printing and some of the ink-jet to 3d printer hacks out there i began tearing to pieces my desktop printer. The plan was to make the print heads as close to the bottom of the printer as i could. I also wanted to have the printer placed on wheels with the paper feed pushing the printer forwards. The result so far looks like this:
Although it looks the part so far it less than fulfills the part. I think in the build process i may have damaged the control board or something which is causing the results to be fairly unpredictable. I have been stressing and struggling with this thing for ages and have got any further. I was just about to abort the project when i started to look back over everything i had done one last time. What i realised was that although what i had first envisioned had not been realised some of the results were pretty damned nice.
Scanimations
April 14, 2009
If you don’t know what a scanimation is then here is a youtube clip by the creator -
If that has got you curious, excited or you are just plain bored then check out a little tutorial i wrote on how to create a scanimation. Please ignore the indexhibit sites style for the moment i have not had the time to style it yet.
The Sound Database
April 9, 2009
I have almost finished a project which I have been working on for the last few months so i thought it was about time I posted it up here. The website is written for Peter Cusack of CRiSAP (Creative Research in Sound Art & Performance). He approached me looking for an online database to show case sounds around major cities in the UK (which eventually turned into the world) and here is the result: The Sound Database
There are a few bugs and usability features that I am working on but the base of the site pretty much finished.
The site uses a number of different languages and API to achieve the end result.
Languages-
- HTML
- CSS
- Javascript
- PHP
- MySQL
- AJAX
- Regular Expression
API:
This is the first time i have coded something this complicated and i am fairly pleased with the results. Next i hope to add some extra functionality to the site.
- A randomizer which pans around the world randomly playing sounds as it goes.
- A walk though feature whereby the user can draw a line though the sounds. An icon will drive the path of the line playing sounds in close proximity. Sounds will pan to the left if they are on the left and right if they are on the right.
Rhythm bug improvements
April 7, 2009
Its been a really long tome since i wrote anything on here. This is partly because i am slacking and the mainly because i have 7 weeks left of my degree and have endless amounts of work to do. Just thought I’d take some time to document version two of the rhythm bug idea I posted a while ago. Its a bit slow at the mo but works well. Gonna try different wheels maybe a different motor to see if i can improve its performance. I have also changed the switch to be more linear instead of rotating. This seemed to fit better into such a small space. One other detail that is worth mentioning is the humble Drawing pin. The contacts that slide across the circuit board are made from upside down drawing pins. They slide really well, conduct electricity really well and allow the contact to rotate with the movement putting less strain on the solder join – Useful little things!
Cantilever Chair
March 21, 2009
Call me a non-believer but I need to see a video of someone actually sitting on this chair before i trust it. My doubts aside the chair is rumoured to “achieve strength, balance and flexibility though meticulously carved wood strategically spaced on a synthetic elastomer. “ Who am i to argue?
Lets keep things complicated
March 15, 2009
I am a massive fan of elaborate, over the top, complex mechanisms that achieve small tasks. I love everything from the countless examples of Rube Goldberg machines out there to the imaginative and humorous scribblings of Heath Robinson. This mechanism designed by Rob Higgs is a beautifully elaborate autonomous bottle opener/pouring device. I find it quite hard to imagine how you would begin to build an object like this.
