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October 31, 2005
Sensing
I've always thought that we learned our "spatial" senses through past experiences and with using our five senses. I never thought they were simlpy an "illusion."
"Points are nothing by themselves but exist only in relation to other points"
"...our thoughts are largely shaped by which things seem most similar"
Does this mean that we all have somewhat of a partiality when it comes to our own senses? It seems quite a complex labyrinth that goes on in our minds when it comes to senses. Could we actually map this out?
Simply the reading maps it out like this.
Sensors in skin (nerve bundles) --> Spinal cord agents (nerve bundles) --> Anents for repairing minor disorderings (nerve bundles to other brain-centers) all of this which represents the body- surface regions.
Posted by min at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)
Labyrinth of Words
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Borges' "The Library of Babel."
Borges believes in the "infinite, perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries." Throughout the writing, he creates a complex labyrinth for us to think about. Only a few thousand words long, Borges' story draws us into a world both deeply familiar and utterly surreal. I question as to why the "absolute shape, or at least our perception of space" is hexagonal. What about cirular shapes? Is it really "illogical to think that the world is infinite?"
Posted by min at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)
Mesh tea spoons
are great!
Probably one of the greatest tools out there. Simple, yet it works with no mess. Oh, I've been dreaming of one of these. Perhaps in different colors and sizes?
Posted by min at 08:21 AM | Comments (0)
October 30, 2005
Infrared sensors
These arrived in the mail. Sharp GP2D12 Analog Distance Sensor
NOTE: MUST HAVE THE CUSTOM MADE CABLES!!!
Posted by min at 04:07 AM | Comments (0)
Shift Registers
Alice and I are still working on our whisker switches... It's really tidious and taking quite a long time. We just spent 5 hours soldering in the lab!
Here's the shift registers we will be using to accomodate the big number of LEDs. I ordered them from Jameco.com
We'll soon have our project done! :)
Posted by min at 04:05 AM | Comments (0)
My one and only melabs programmer
Oh this one really gave me a headache to start off with. After getting this programmer, it had so many errors because my vaio does not have a serial port! I've had to get a specific usb adaptor that would make the programmer work with my computer.
But after much help from everyone at ITP and emailing melabs over 30 emails, it finally functions right! Yay! It's great to be able to do some chip programming at home... just in a relaxed setting.
Here's my one and only melabs programmer.
Posted by min at 03:05 AM | Comments (0)
Labs
Tomorrow.
Crunch-time for pcomp labbing!
Transistors, relays, midi (will be working on it with Todd M) and the H bridge. Thank you Todd H. You ROCK!
Transistor schematic
The relay
A relay is a switch that's controlled by a small electric current. Relays take advantage of the fact that when you pass an electric current through a wire, a magnetic field is generated surrounding the wire as well. When you place an iron shaft inside a coil of wire and pass current through the wire, the magnetic field moves the iron shaft. If that iron shaft is part of a switch, the switch can be turned on and off by putting current through the coil, which moves the shaft, closing the contact
H bridge, SN754410NE to control the direction of the DC motor
DC motor
There are two terminals, and when you apply direct current to one terminal and ground the other, the motor spins in one direction. When you apply current to the other terminal and ground the first terminal, the motor spins in the opposite direction. By switching the polarity of the terminals, you reverse the direction of the motor. By varying the current supplied to the motor, you vary the speed of the motor.
H bridge, ULN2004KN for the stepper motor
The stepper motor. The stepper motor is different from a regular DC motor in that the user could have control over its rotation angle.
The stepper motor bought from James' garage sale a while ago... 3 dollars! :)
A stepper motor is a motor controlled by a series of electromagnetic coils. The center shaft has a series of magnets mounted on it, and the coils surrounding the shaft are alternately given current or not, creating magnetic fields which repulse or attract the magnets on the shaft, causing the motor to rotate.
This design allows for very precise control of the motor: by proper pulsing, it can be turned in very accurate steps of set degree increments (for example, two-degree increments, half-degree increments, etc.). They are used in printers, disk drives, and other devices where precise positioning of the motor is necessary.
Posted by min at 01:55 AM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2005
Moma, Safe Design
Went to the MOMA with Rob and Alice. Some, I've already seen, some, simply innovative and creative. I feel like the space wasn't used to its advantage. Like what Alice said, the show wasn't really curated well. Friday afternoons, free entrance at the MOMA.
Similar to the plushy project, these fluffy dolls were used to comfort downsyndromed children.
The safe house.
Posted by min at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)
Nebraska Noise Fest, Tank
Some very interesting pieces at the show.
I especially liked Douglas Irving Repetto's piece including mylar pieces that would subtly move as noise was input into the mics.
"In the physical world, transmutation is never perfect. Slowscan Soundwave is one in a series of pieces that attempt to create simple physical manifestations of complex physical, biological, and social phenomena.
Sound travels through open spaces via the compression and rarefaction (expansion) of air molecules. For example, as the head of a drum vibrates, it pushes and pulls at the air around it. That pushing and pulling creates areas of higher and lower air pressure, which propagate out from the source in waves. Slowscan Soundwave uses a microphone to sample the ambient air pressure in its environment. It then uses those samples to change the alignment of seventy nine suspended plastic sheets in an attempt to create a visible analog to those constantly changing pressure fronts.
Even the simplest of sounds is too complex, and changes too quickly, to be accurately represented by plastic sheets slowly moving this way and that. As a result the patterns formed by Slowscan Soundwave are a crude approximation of those formed in the air.
The goal of these pieces is not perfection or precision. I am entranced by the strange and beautiful, but often invisible, intangible, and inaudible phenomena that surround us. These pieces are an (imperfect) attempt to make those elusive phenomena more clearly perceptible."
Tank
Tristin's piece
Interactive sound piece
Posted by min at 01:21 AM | Comments (0)
Danny Rozin's Metal Ball Mirror
I've always wanted to take a picture of this...
Posted by min at 01:20 AM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2005
Final Midterms from Mluck's Class
Everyone in the class did a great job with the mid terms. Really great group work and like what Mluck said in class, I really enjoyed seeing everyone's process.
Some really high-tech projects, such as Alex's, using SMS and video image manipulation. I don't even know as to how they ended up teaching themselves Jitter / Max in a few weeks!
My favorite was the glowing chair (iChair ^^). Max, Tracy and Diana really pulled through. They were having similar problems to our group, using the mic as an input. But they were really successful in getting the translation across. The light reacted very well to the noise around the chair.
The umbrella from Joo Youn's group.
Lisa's group's hat for the blind.
Thank you Mluck for the cookies!
Posted by min at 11:47 PM | Comments (0)
Labyrinth 01
I decided to dive into the world of friendster and grid the system out in a labyrinth. It's amazing...These are my facts on friendster.
My Latest Stats
My Friends: 137
2 Degrees: 10522
3 Degrees: 434281
Here is a sample of the image that I created on Ill, drawing out all the connections related to my profile. I got this printed on the large format printer at the multimedia lab. 40 by 60 FREE! Make use of this place. This place is great. Especially by next term when the 3D printers become available! :)
Movies and links for reference
Touch of Evil
Lady of Shanghai
The Thirdman
Orson Welles
The Trial, Kafka
Paths of Glory
THX, George Lucas
Star Wars, spatially
John Cage, Water 1959
Ideas for moving through a labyrinth.
Using sound, only touch.
Eco control in an labyrinth.
Topology of maps in different countries.
Electrical boards.
Posted by min at 04:09 AM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2005
Character Animation Study
Posted by min at 02:41 PM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2005
Domes
I actually had a hard time trying to think of something that inspired me to make a dome. When you think of domes, you are simply bound to think of its sophisticated structure that holds itself in one place. I looked through some guides as how to make these bucky balls accurately and found that it was almost impossible to make them...
After some discussion, Alice recommended that we use gum drops to hold these sticks together. Kudos to A! :)
I made the little metal pieces go through the gum drops, creating triangles and built on from there. It slowly became a dome! Once the shape was set, I pulled out the middle gum drop inside the dome and pulled out the metal sticks. It all holds together and stands on its own.
The shadows created really interesting patterns on the wall.
Posted by min at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2005
Busy with the group collab, pcomp
See our blog at pcomp group projects
My blog is constantly crashing cos of all the vid files. I will shrink them very soon. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Posted by min at 01:20 AM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2005
I need
some fish wires! Pics to come on reaction to Rodtschenko's work.
Posted by min at 03:26 AM | Comments (0)
Whisker switches doing serial out
Alice and I have been working on this prototype for a board using whisker switches. We finally got it to work tonight! We just tested out 5 inputs and 5 outs, but we plan on making a 5 by 5 matrix system. We have to plan this out carefully for the final, but essentially, the whiskers (guitar strings) hit the washers on the plexi and act as a switch. We have red LEDs that light up accordingly and red circles that appear on screen (processing).
We have to think more about the material we use. But today we got the whole three parts working. I will post more about this later on when we have this finally made with a matrix of LEDs and these whisker switches.
Detail of the washers on the plexi. We had to get a laser cut with counter sinks for these.
Detail of the how the switches work. You simply brush your hand across this plexi.
Posted by min at 01:51 AM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2005
Structural Organization
After reading Rodtschenko's piece, I was amazed at how he was able to form such complex structures from using basic shapes. As these simple forms come together, they are held in place together and there is a presence of great energy between each of them.
"Rodtschenko apparently opted for a very simple method of constructing." But from the looks of his pieces, it tells us otherwise. His working method is very clear in his sketches. He put in a lot of thought behind his piece and carefully executed it.
It's a pity that he wasn't able to realize his metal works further. I could just imagine layers of metal wires that would create an illusion of space.
Question...What is it with designers and shaved heads?
Posted by min at 01:52 AM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2005
Qprox
Thank you Todd for your great demo!
Todd H, showed us these cool touch sensors, qprox. They are simple to wire up and very effective, I really liked it in the "toggle" mode. As you touch the input wire, it lights up and goes off according to your touch. Cool stuff! Here's the data sheet for the qprox 113.Download file
Must do some projects using these. I've put an order of 10. Email me if you need to borrow a few.
Posted by min at 12:48 AM | Comments (0)
Serial
In order to make two devices communicate, whether they are desktop computers, microcontrollers, or any other form of integrated circuit, we need a method of communication and an agreed-upon language. The most common form of communication between electronic devices is serial communication. Communicating serially involves sending a series of digital pulses back and forth between devices at a mutually agreed-upon rate. The sender sends pulses representing the data to be sent at the agreed-upon data rate, and the receiver listens for pulses at that same rate.
Two devices are to exchange data at a rate of 9600 bits per second. First, we would make three connections between the two devices:
- a common ground connection, so both devices have a common reference point to measure voltage by
-one wire for the sender to send data to the receiver on (transmit line for the sender)
-one wire for the receiver to send date to the sender on (receive line)
The ASCII table
Serial to Processing
Serial Output Lab
Talking to Processing
Basics, talking to the Pic to convert the ascii into readable numbers.Download file
Ascii, call and response. In the communicator, only when an "A" (ascii=65) is inputted, it will show "you got me" otherwise, the else goes. Download file
Here the values of the analog in (ex. pots) gets read and out put as readable values. Download file
It's funny. We've had this weird problem in the firmware lab. Certain machines simply wouldn't process the codes on the PICBASIC. Instead, I had a problem with PROCESSING. I was getting serial communication when I opened up the Serial Communicator, getting values as I inputted "A" (65 ASCII). The lab was full and I had no choice but to try to figure out what was happening with my code. I tried on someone else's machine and it worked fine! Ah the frustration...
Here are some pics.
The analog inputs (pots, flex sensors, pressure sensors, photocells go on the left) A ports. And the communication is done on the C ports 6(Send out, transmit) and 7 (In, receive).
After compiling, opening up the processing code, pops up this window with the circle. Using the different analog inputs, you can change it's transparancy, xpos and ypos. Cool!
Here's the code for the pic to talk to processing.Download file
And this is what you see on the screen.
The processing code.Download file
There are so many ways to go further with this. Alice and I had built on my very first electronic assignment.
We have LEDs, switches and we'd like to have this happen on the screen as well, in processing. Hope we can get this done. The laser cutter cuts so clean! :) We have the coding done, the board is ready, all we need is the plexi now! Getting this done tomorrow! Hopefully, I'll have this done by Thursday.
Posted by min at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2005
See updates here
We still have so much to do...
Anile was very kind to give us 20minutes of his breathing. Thank you! :)
More developement tomorrow, 7pm ITP, Tisch.
Posted by min at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
October 08, 2005
Deformations and forces_Dynamic Structure
I placed the individual picture files onto the wall and drew out the wires. I connected them using a base that had holes in them (This sort of works against the whole aesthetic, so I should have chosen a different material)
I used 50 elmers glue, 50 water to make a paste. I dipped the ripped pieces of drafting paper and placed them on the wire structure.
Posted by min at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2005
Bucky Fuller reading, Wire Wheel
I don't know if Fuller's writing is at all appealing. It was difficult to understand and his ideas were quite complicated compared to those of Stanislavski's.
One quote that did stand out is,
"... all these tension-vs-compression patterning relationships are completely reversible..."
I have to admit, I've never really observed wheels closely. But it is an amazing structure with so much energy in between each part. The way the strings are held together and how tension between the ends and the wheel frame complete the structure is quite scientific and rather surprising when closely observed. I think such structures should be implimented into architecture.
Posted by min at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)
Second Life
Today, our Spatial Design class went to a talk by the CEO of Second life Inc, Philip Rosedale. The talk was held by the Computer Science Colloquium at NYU.
I have to admit, I'm not a fan of video games, or just any kind of games. As a teen, my mother would get us the playstation and I wouldn't even look at it. I was actually mad at her for paying all that money for some box made out of plastic. My sister would play on it for hours and I just didn't understand why anyone would waste time on it when you could go out and do other things... (Yes, I've tried playing, but I'm simply not interested)
But having studied architecture as an undergrad and being exposed into the 3D world has changed my perspective on video games and 3d games.
Second Life is a real time 3D game online that runs off of servers. Philip Rosedale discussed the challenges of using distributed network of computers. The users online can pretty much do anything in the game. He was telling us how certain players create their little islands and sell them off for a few thousand dollars. There are people who make up to $150,000 selling their objects and "islands". It's simply mind- blowing how some people make a living of making things for the virtual world that doesn't even exist.
He was a great speaker and I was really impressed by the whole thing.
Posted by min at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)
Mini Digicam
I LOVE IT!
Miniature digital
camera 300K pixels
Built-in 8 MB memory
Holds up to 209
images
Weighs 1 oz
PC camera
Requires 1 AAA battery
(BB110)
Price: $29.06
Not bad for 29 bux! :)
Posted by min at 02:50 PM | Comments (0)
October 06, 2005
Analog Out
Analog Output
We might want to control the brightness of a lamp, for example, or the turn of a pointer on a dial, or the height of something hanging from a rope. In those cases, we need to make an analog output.
Note: I should really get myself some of those tri-colored LEDs to get the different colorsDownload file .
Analog output: Servo Control
Controlling the rotation of the servo using an analog input, such as the pot.
My board producing frequencies from the pic chip. I programmed the pic so that depending on the force sensor, the LEDs light up accordingly and the FreqOuts vary. I attempted to output two differnent frequencies (like an instrument) from the pic and failed. Todd H advised that this is impossible on a pic, since the pic will only send out one FreqOut...
To amplify the sound from the pic chip, I attached a female stereo mini jack. FAB!
The connection into the PIC
Using the servo. Controlling the servo.Download file
Now, using a variable resistor to control the servo. Download file
Using pot to control servo.
More fun with FreqOuts!
Pot controls the volume and the force sensor controls the LEDs. Download file
Posted by min at 01:26 AM | Comments (0)
Wiring an Adaptor Cable
Go to the Pro Audio parts dept. at either Sam Ash (48th between B'way and 7th) or Manny's (ditto), and buy two mono ?? phone plugs, a stereo mini plug, and some three conductor shielded cable (at least 10 feet). Radio Shack may or may not have the same things, unlikely that they'd have the cable. Solder yourself an adaptor cable from these parts, respecting the proper TRS routing. Make it well, you'll probably find it very useful.
It took me exactly 2.5 hours to solder all this. But definitely FUN! :)
Posted by min at 12:44 AM | Comments (0)
Half Life 2
In week 4 of the 3d class, Marland came in to give us a demo of the video game, Half Life 2. All of it was modeled in Maya and Virtools. It was quite exciting to see what can come out of all the things that we are learning in class. Very impressive, very inspirational.
The control of light and the textures seemed so real.
Posted by min at 12:24 AM | Comments (0)
October 05, 2005
Group Projects
Posted by min at 08:31 PM | Comments (0)
October 03, 2005
Motion in space : the dancer and the architect
Continuing on with the usage of mylar, I have decided to capture the motion of the projection that I was able to produce using a flashlight and a piece of mylar. The projection created some very interesting repetitive structure, almost resembling a bird, on the wall.
I documented it on mini dv, captured still frames from it and created a little mini sequence board.
Here are some stills of the sequence board I made using piece of acetate.
Assignment
Posted by min at 05:40 PM | Comments (0)
Basis of Movement, Stanislavski
After having read "Building a Character" by
Stanislavski, I have to admit that I was more aware of my walking posture and each step that I took.
It is true that "people do not know how to make use of the marvellous apparatus which is their legs." I don't think any of us are aware of the each movement of the muscles or bones as we walk. We simply take it for granted and our minds are ahead of our each step.
Yet,when we do dissect this movement and study it, like Jean-Marc had in our lecture, the movement of the body quite beautiful and the structure of it as it is dissected, is quite grand.
Stanislavski states, "It is important that your attention move in constant company with the current of the energy, because this helps to create an endless, unbroken line which is so essential to our art." He makes us realize that things that is apart of us daily.
I spent the past Summer in Burma, in a meditation center for a month and traveling for two months. There, they teach all of us to focus on all our individual movements. They train us to observe all our actions and intentions that occur in our mind. This reading relates a lot to Vipassa Meditation.
"... you realize that at the foundation of plasticity of movement one must establish an inner flow of energy."
Posted by min at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)