Vinyl playing robots

I found this post on the make magezine blog it ties in very nicely with the work i am doing to visualise sound. The chaos caused by the different parts of the record being played at once is quite cringe worthy. I like the idea though perhaps the robots could play other surfaces as well. What does the floor sound like? It would be interesting to know whether the robots used an old fashion pin to read the records or whether there is some sort of sonar or laser to read the dimples in the records.

Back to basics

I love Arduino it makes life so easy. Things that used to take quite some time and a good selection of components now really can be done in a matter of minutes. Take for example the flashing LED a simple and obvious task. With arduino all you have to do is press the + pin of an LED into pin 13 or arduino and the – pin into the ground pin of the arduino and there you have it. Well almost a couple of lines of code later and you are done.

CODE>>

Int ledPin = 13; // LED connected to digital pin 13
void setup()
{pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); // sets the digital pin as output}

void loop()
{
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); // sets the LED on
delay(1000); // waits for a second
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); // sets the LED off
delay(1000); // waits for a second
}
(snippet of code taken from the arduino site and is not my own doing please dont sue a poor student cheers)

Recently i have been wondering….. Is it all to easy. I can make arduino do these things so easily and yet have no idea how to create the same effect using actual components. I set out on a mission to create the flashing LED the old fashioned way. I found this tutorial which explains very clearly how to do it using a 555 timer IC. brilliant! half an hour later and the flashing LED mission is accomplished. All i can say is hurray for arduino life is so much simpler now.

VIDEO OF MY EFFORTS:

Sms guerrilla projector

This sms projector by Troika has what looks to be a very abused nokia phone inside. The screen has been manipulated to allow it to be reflected into the lens and projected very easily anywhere that is needed. Such a simple idea but the final product now only looks amazing but is also very effective in its delivery.

Visualise sound

Over the summer i have been working on a brief based upon the idea of visualising sound. There are some very natural ways of visualising sound with out to much high-tech equipment. check out these two interesting ways to visualise the raw sound wave:

Reuben’s tube:

Salt plate:

Marbles

Designers are lazy! i say this because every designer i have ever met seems to have a favourite chair > Seriously

I’m thinking about branching out and looking for other areas of furniture fascination. I figure the marble table is a good place to start.

for more info

Beautiful mechanism

This video is well worth watching right the way through. The entire clock is mechanised even the LED’s flashing. The narrator explains the automation’s in great detail with good visuals. I love the grass hopper escapement model and how the clock utilises this mechanism. Enjoy

Grasshopper escapement:

Balacing act

Think of the implications! A place to leave your tea/beer depending on the time of day where it would never spill. All that would need to be done is to place another tray raised above the ball platform where things could be put. Think of it almost as a three dimensional spirit level!

More water!

In the academic year that has just past one of my peers built a light piano which consisted of a hacked piano where all keys were linked to light sensors. The sensors were then submerged in water and a light source was direct towards them. As the calm of the water was interrupted the ripple produced shadows which played with the sensors much like a pianist plays the keys of a piano. I found the idea of using water to create sound very interesting so i am very pleased to find instrument show in the film below which uses a very similar concept.

More info on the run away harp can be found here