Rhythm bug improvements

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!

Phosphorescence

Recently i have been experimenting with hacking old printers and in my research i came accross this:

Phosphorescence according to wikipedia allow absorbed radiation to be re-emitted at a lower intensity for up to several hours. It was built from a miniPov and adapted to radiate a phosphorescence panel. The overall effect is pretty creepy and would make for an awesome horror style B movie end credits.

original source: Makezine

Plug computer

The very idea of an always on PC the size of a plug opens up vast possibilities. The SheevaPlug runs at an average of 5watts which is much less than the usual servers and house hold computers. It connects to an ordinary network and has a USB input to incorporate the usual peripherals such as cameras, external hard disk drives etc…

From what i could see this only comes with a type ‘A’ plug (American Standard) but i am sure there is a way of converting it to work in the UK. There is an open source API framework named RainDrop which from the text on the site ‘makes it effortless to deploy third-party applications onto the SheevaPlug securely and in a resource-defined manner.’

The SheevaPlug would be very useful when working with home automation and security.

Solarcat batteries

Knut Karlsen has come up with a really simple idea for charging those batteries that are just lying around not doing anything. Knut produced the Solarcat batteries by wrapping flexible Photo Voltaic (PV) cells around the shaft of older NiMH rechargeable batteries.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Apologies to my millions and billions of readers for my recent lack of motivation when it comes to blogage. Just before Christmas i was in fact abducted by aliens whereby they proceeded to carry out a number of experiments on me. One of which was a curious experiment where the Extraterrestrials tried splicing my phalanges with the tentacles from several octopodes. Obviously this is gonna slowly me down when it comes to typing but undeterred and dedicated to the cause i have mastered my new phalanges and am able to type again!!!

GOOD NEWS

Now that the excuses are over lets start the new year as we mean to go on. Recently i have been asked to build a website sound map of london which i am very excited about. in my research i came across this amazing piece of sound art/interactive design on the make blog. The model must have taken forever.

Yokohama Soundscape 2007 from pelican on Vimeo.

Tactile time

I found this watch for the visually impaired while stumbling through vast content found at neatorama.com. The watch was designed by Matthew Wagnerfield. The first thing that grabbed me about this watch is the beautiful craftsmanship; its well designed and well made. The second thing that really impressed me was that the watch can be read by the blind or visually impaired. The clock face is based around a standard 7 segment digital character display but instead of using light to communicate the message this watch uses mechanically animated segments to convey the time. The segments lower and raise by a difference of 1mm so the time can be both seen and touched.

Alright… Scared now!

Jules’ – a disembodied androgynous robotic head – can automatically copy the movements, which are picked up by a video camera and mapped on to the tiny electronic motors in his skin.

It can grin and grimace, furrow its brow and ’speak’ as his software translates real expressions observed through video camera ‘eyes’.

The project, called ‘Human-Robot Interaction’, was devised at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), run by the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol.

freaky stuff i like my gadgets to look like gadgets. The whole project is ridiculously impressive though.

There is a lot more on this subject at the dailyMail site

It is also seriously worth while checking out the robot gallery on the BRL website as well.

Beautiful eyes transcend to music

This is a very poetic project and a very beautiful idea. The author and creator of the program decided it would be nice to have a way to convert the beauty of the retina in an eye in to music. He’s Using Processing as the backbone and creating OSC which are then picked up by SuperCollider.

I have not looked at SuperCollider yet but it does look like an excellent piece of software for producing real-time audio synthesis and algorithmic composition. So watch out in the future for experiments on my blog using this software.

heres the video showing the EyeSequencer:

this project was found on Makezine.com

Makezine found this project on: http://blog.califaudio.com

So thats what i have been hacking apart

Being quite new to hacking components i am completely curious about how the small things work. I have been on the hunt for a servo stepper motor for a while now just to experiment with and control using the Arduino. I was told that printers quite often have stepper motors in them so i blagged a printer and started yanking it apart in a rather brutal fashion. With components and plastic discarded everywhere i recoiled in disappointment. After reducing the poor defenseless printer into smithereens all i had to show for it was dc motors How then did the printer control the movement of the laser-jet so accurately?

Make magazine came to the rescue as always. Recently on there blog they posted a link to this blog :

A BIG MAGNET PICTURES FROM AN ACCUMULATOR.

A big magnet has a post explaining “Using a DC motor as a servo with PID control” which is what i have encountered when hacking my printer. This technology is not just in printers its everywhere. Its in your printer, Computer mouse, scanners and so much more. A DC motors and an optical encoder are used to replace expensive stepper motors. PID stands for proportional–integral–derivative.

Wikipedia says:

PID is is a generic control loop feedback mechanism (controller) widely used in industrial control systems. A PID controller attempts to correct the error between a measured process variable and a desired setpoint by calculating and then outputting a corrective action that can adjust the process accordingly.

If you are wanting to control movement from a motor and don’t want to spend on expensive stepper motors you should really consider reading this blog.

A big magnet

thank you Big magnet

thank you Make magazine

subconscious tapping

Ever woken up from a day dream and found that you had been subconsciously tapping the beat of the last song you heard frantically on to the nearest available surface? I think people inherently have rhythm obviously some more than others. Recently this weird beat thing that we all seem to have seeping sneakily through our subconscious has been trying to surface in the design and hacking world. I alone have found 3 very blatant examples in a space of hours. Check these examples out and if  you are aware of the inner beat surfacing in any other shape or form i would love to know. cheers and gone (its ridiculous how asleep i should be right now).

complete solenoid orchestra:

Yuri Suzuki and Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad “tip tap”:

and the creme de la creme of automated tapping – Automated drum kit by Resonance studio and Arcattack:

Links:

Yuri Suzuki: http://www.yurisuzuki.com

Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad: http://www.bh-n.com/

Arcattack: http://www.arcattack.com/

Resonance Studio: http://www.resonancestudio.com/