Using Electronic circuit to boldly recreate Kraftwerk's Das Model
The project uses several circuits to make sound, and further make it into an interesting performance.
Improved Coil Gun & Visualization of Electromagnetic Response
We made two modifications on the coil aiming to make it more powerful. First, we bought a photoresistor, and plan to modify the circuit and add one more coil to have a two-stage acceleration. The second change is from a donut shape to a flat pie shape.
The coil gun can be really powerful — enough to send you into jail. However, we are tired of its encounter with hard objects. How would it behave if it meets a hard-yet-soft object: non-Newtonian fluid?
A blinking flower that will light up when a wheel in front of it is turned by hand.
LEDs of different colors make up the flower shape and they will light up through turning a wheel in front of it, on which there are many magnets. Under the wheel, there are three coils. The changing magnetic field that is created by the magnets generates current in the coils that are connected to the LEDs, making the flower to blink. I feel the way to use electricity to simulate and demonstrate the beauty of some natural phenomena very inspiring and refreshing and through the interaction between people and circuit components, I wish to approach nature in a different perspective by adopting a more technology-based viewpoint.
CPU's anatomy.
In this project, I plan to make the working theories of how computers work more accessible to audiences without prior background. I designed and implemented a 4-bit Arithmetic and Logic Unit from scratch using 74-series Integrated Circuits. The circuit is controlled by a microprocessor hosting a website on the Local Area Network. After logging into the website, the user would follow the “machine code-like” instruction prompted, input the designated values, select the mode of computation, then submit the form. The circuit would show the inputs in binary form, then calculate, show the output in binary form as well. By following the instruction and seeing the binary results being returned, the user can understand better how a computer functions from a more “down-to-earth” perspective.
A rotating electronic music box.
It is common for music boxes to be powered by spiral springs while the plectrums make the sound. However, we are thinking of the possibility of combining the idea of the music box with the electromagnetics we learned in our course – Working with Electrons. Our project is basically an electronic music box that rotates like a sky wheel. As a result, we named it “Music Wheel”.
This project requires a comprehensive understanding of the motors (especially the stepper motors which we are using in this project), NE555 timer, operations on Arduino, PCB design, and also basic circuit operations. To make a speaker produce sounds, one of the ways is to use a NE555 oscillating circuit. In order to make multiple frequencies of sounds, we decide to attach the resistances with different values to the different axles of the wheel. When the wheel rotates, we can switch the resistance connected to the NE555 IC and produce a different sound.
However, the trickiest part of our project, is the stepper motor. Basically, a stepper motor is a kind of motor that can rotate certain steps in response to the electric signal given to it. The advantage of this kind of motor is that it produces almost no noise (compared to brush motor). And to produce such a set of electric signals, we need to use Arduino and ULN2003 IC to make it work – a challenging work.
Lastly, as an art piece, it also takes us a lot of time working on the delicate design of the wooden structure of our wheel. We have looked through some of the world’s most famous sky wheels and learn from their grant but well-organized design.
Student information: Tom Zhu (tomzhu@nyu.edu), Harry Lee (harrylee@nyu.edu)
We want to build a EM instrument showing the existence of radiation.
We design a box just like the mp3 music box to play the electromagnetic sound. We put arduino, the circuit and the charger in this box. You can put this box near the electronic device to hear the electromagnetic waves they generate. The higher the frequency of the em waves, the higher the sound the box produces. Different from the music, what you hear is the invisible em waves.
