Enjoy!

While the stated goal, to understand what makes people attribute life to inanimate objects (and vice-versa...) is of some interest to me, the truth is that I really just wanted to make an interesting sci-fi object.

When I was younger, I spent a lot of time drawing. Fortunately, my sister saved a lot of these drawings from when I was 15. I was looking over them recently, and realized that I've been very interested in science-fiction, bio-mechanical themes for a long time.

Here are a couple of drawings - click on them to see the complete set:

and another one:

A pretty key improvement is using florist's tape to wrap the wires and cables, instead of the shiny black rubber tubes I was using before. In order to be able to thread the wires through the tubes, I had to use quite thick tubes which didn't really fit. The florist's tape (waxed green crêpe) ends up looking quite organic. The color fits much better with the probes as well.

Follow the jump for (boring) pictures of the light probe, retrofitted with florist tape, and close-ups.

Our original idea had been to retrieve weather information from the Internet for different cities, and use this as the basis for a simple melody. This basically what we delivered:

Built into a Fortnum & Mason tea box, is an Arduino-based polyphonic synthesizer, with an XPort Internet access module. The dial allows choosing any of 8 cities. When it is turned, the box retrieves the weather information for that city from an NOAA server, and turns it into a simple melody. Pressing the red button will replay the melody. If for any reason the box cannot establish an Internet connection, it will use the data it last retrieved for that city, which it has stored in the Arduino's on-board EEPROM.

In order to make the most of Arduino memory, it is important to understand how much, and what type, of memory is available. The AVR Atmega 168 chips used in newer Arduinos have 16K of Flash program memory, used to store programs. (The older Atmega 8 has 8k.) There is 1K of RAM, used to store program variables during execution. This RAM is cleared when the power is switched off. There is 512 bytes of EEPROM, memory which can also be used to store data for programs, but which is retained even when power is turned off. Finally, it is possible to extend the memory of an Arduino project by using external memory.

I'll cover techniques for making the most of all these. This is meant mostly as a survey of popular techniques, not an exhaustive tutorial. Please refer to the Arduino website for more details.

and here is another different set:

While not as bright as I would have liked (ie. not clearly visible in bright light), they do look great in a darkened room. The clear plastic moldings gives them a weird shimmery, glassy quality which I like.

I've now finished constructing most of one of the light probes. It was pretty straightforward, most difficult part was rounding off the stems on which the lights and sensors are mounted, so that they will meet the trunk seamlessly. I have to say, Dremel tools are great. I was basically using it as a sculpting tool, to cut and grind pieces of wood to fit exactly.

Next steps are to run the wires through the black vinyl tubing I picked up ages ago, and connect to the circuitry inside the main gourd. Other than filling in some gaps with putty, and hiding the screws, that should be it.

The next two probes are likely to be simpler, relying on a single vertical mount for the sensors and lights, as in this picture:

The circuits are mostly assembled and tested, based on the (successful) design for my "Action At A Distance" project, but with considerably more elaborate software (and sound).

Making the mold went pretty much according to plan. Here is a picture of the original in the mold:

I made a first casting using Smooth-On resin with a small amount of white concentrated dye. The dye is very concentrated, and my first test resulted in a cup full of completely opaque plastic. My second attempt, using a pinhead's worth of dye, resulted in somewhat translucent plastic:

Keep reading to see how it all came out...

This means first preparing a form, carved out of foam and coated with some kind of gloss finish, then preparing a silicone mold, and finally casting using liquid plastic. I'm planning to embed the LEDs directly in the part.

As it happens, The Complete Sculptor is an impressive store that carries practically all of the materials required, and it is about a 15 minute walk from NYU. I went there and picked up a large block of "balsa foam", Magic Smooth epoxy and two carving tools called "rifflers".

The picture shows my hand-carved flower prototype, together with the block from which it was carved. Keep reading for more detail on how I got there.

Thanks Tom!

This problem has now been solved. Amish Gourds turns out to be a massive supplier of dried, cleaned gourds. I wish there was such a thing as translucent, gourd-shaped containers. These would be perfect for the luminaires. I guess I will have to make myself, somehow.

Now to start building...

Shortly before the presentation, I figured out what I really wanted to explore. I noticed last year, that people tended to make up much more interesting narratives about a project when they were slightly broken than when they were performing correctly. Slightly unpredictable and chaotic behaviors led to people attributing far more complexity and "intelligence" to the project.

So my key research question is two-fold: first, can I create a project that seems alive and intelligent; and second, what kind of results will I get if I attempt to detect life and intelligence in the people who interact with it?

I'm happy with this: it's really clarified my research direction.

I am very happy with taking this in the direction of more "biological" probes, it seems to raise a lot of interesting questions. Most of the feedback was along the lines of extending and exploring this idea.

The guest critics were all very enthusiastic and seemed eager to engage with this line of thinking, and we had a good (albeit short) discussion.

I liked the idea of conceiving the swarm of probes as a rhizome - a single interconnected organism. (Alternative thesis title - "Radio Rhizome").

The idea of vastly different time frames for plants vs. humans came up, and is worth exploring. I'll try to dig up "Secret Life of Plants" for inspiration...

Working with seed mechanisms as both a design reference and a back story for the probes is good too.

Also got some really good pointers on projects that feature multiple networked "pixels", and the use of ambiguity in design to elicit more interesting interactions.

Finally, I located some key materials for building the probes: twigs and branches. There was a huge storm last Saturday, so many branches fell. Unfortunately, when I got to Tompkins Square park, they had already been picked up - 10 minutes before. I'd also missed the tree pruning in Washington Square the week before. However, on my way to a show at Judson Church last night, I spotted a big pile of nice branches in the park! A friend helped me carry them back to school, so now I'm reasonably set.

The work of Björn Schülke and U Ram Choe has been an inspiration as well. They make elaborate, moving constructions, clearly technological but also "alive", that capture the scientific, technical, vaguely threatening look that I'm after.

I've decided that each of the "probes" in my swarm will look different from the other, and have different ways of being installed in their environment. Here are some very early design concepts:

The light probes interact mostly with colored lights, the audio probes with sound. The communications bridge handles the connection between the probe's short range wireless and the internet.

Another promising concept is based on biological materials, but technological forms. The body and struts would be made of branches, with wires and cables appearing to replace veins and ligaments.

This uses the well-known technique of making something seem "alien" by using non-human organic forms. Perhaps the probes are emissaries from a planet dominated by intelligent trees? If so, what would they consider intelligence?

Designing and programming the interaction will be the key challenge. I am thinking of measuring intervals between interaction events, and seeing if there is regularity. I am also thinking of recording interaction patterns, especially those with a high "regularity" and working those into an "attract" mode.

Did you break it, and are wondering if you can "reformat" it?

Would you like your applications to start faster, without an annoying 10 second delay?

If so, then you might want to bootload your Arduino Mini!

I've written a tutorial on the Arduino site that explains how to do it, it is here.

A simple box with a selection dial and a headphone jack allows you to pick a city, and experience realtime weather data from that place as a simple musical phrase.

What is happening inside the box: an Arduino microcontroller uses an XPort network controller to fetch weather data from the NOAA (via a PHP script that simplifies it), and uses it to play a melody using an audio circuit based on digital potentiometers and simple oscillators.

Most of the technical issues are now resolved: the microcontroller is successfully parsing the weather data, and feeding it to the audio synthesis routines. Still need to set up the selection mechanism for multiple cities, and build an enclosure.

Here's a picture of the guts of the thing:

Read the past the jump for detailed description and technical issues.