FUTURE BLINDNESS

After three txt-msg blogposts, I need to break the streak and provide a proper update. Please do not think I will be txt-blogging less, though, as it makes an excellent threat when Company is around.

My second run of T-shirts went very well - I will be posting photos soon to flickr. The design was an AKA logo called Twin Eurofighters, and most of the shirts from the first run of 9 have been given away. Let me know if you’d like one, and I’m sure we can work something out. Screenprinting is great fun but a bit costly—so far I’m about $300 in the hole from supplies, the sink I had to buy and install, and shirts to print on. Clearly, this is a pursuit that must eventually be monetized.

I’m preparing a very small (but possibly noteworthy) presentation for the Dorkbot “Presidents Day” showing; it is called PissPoll and I’ll have more details soon. You may or may not like this idea. I am concerned that you might not like it.

I was in Harlem from this past Thursday to Monday working on Thenji’s film, which is coming along well. We were supposed to have finished by Monday but the deadline was extended and we’re finishing up next weekend. I hope. My most pressing concern is that I will finish the score and not have a chance to mix it on proper monitors, which neither of us own. Also, the diagetic mix is not yet final, which may affect some scoring stuff. It certainly will be exciting to see it screened, though! (no idea when that may occur).

Harlo was down in New York over the weekend as well; she was filming an interview with DJ/rupture for the premiere episode of share.tv, which airs on Feb 17th on CCTV. I haven’t seen the footage yet, but I’m sure it will come out very well. We went to Raggs of Harlem, a fine old bar, and had a nice evening talking with drunken locals who won money on the Superbowl.

DORKBOT HALLOWEEN07

Originally uploaded by AKA MEDIA SYSTEM

The opening tonight went well—many thanks to all who attended!

Pictured here is the final product. I think the form turned out well, and I certainly learned many lessons in different media. The flower initially deployed flawlessly and worked for over an hour with no intervention from me. I’ll detail in a later update the means by which I ensured that the auto-destruct feature of previous flower incarnations was successfully deprecated.

After I had been away from the flower for awhile, I came back and noticed it was stuck in the “on” position—not good for anyone! After twenty minutes of frustrating, in-public debugging I discovered that the 9v battery had more or less drained completely; tomorrow I’ll need to deliver a 9v AC power supply, and perhaps once I post the schematic and/or breadboard photos someone can point out the error in my circuit that causes the excessive drain.

Watching strangers interact with the flower was pretty enlightening. I certainly regret that I had to compromise on the original interaction design in order to complete the schematic on time. In the final hours of Googling for an answer (peep my del.icio.us to see the link density/time relationship change as we approach opening night) I realized I should have had the circuit ready way sooner than the physical proto…so now I know.

One significant upside to this project is that it’s eliminated the inertia that I felt was keeping me from making acceptable progress on the Cameroon project. The flower circuit is my first foray from hardware hacking into the realm of microcontroller/logic projects, and I feel much more comfortable delving into a non-555 project with this under my belt.

Well, the flower project hit a snag when the dragon skin I molded turned out to be too thick for the muscle wire to move—in the course of figuring this out, I think I may have damaged/overheated some of the wire segments.

Most of the wire is undamaged, though, and it was easy to retrieve the other wires from the silicone.

Now I’m using a much thinner and lighter strategy involving a plastic flower I got at a craft shop. The downside here is that now I’ve got a shot at making a flower that magically sets itself on fire.

My new form factor also means there’s no inbuilt means to force the wire back into a bent position when it’s unactuated - I’ll have to work out something there once the silicone has cured. It won’t be pretty.

The other bad part: so far, I have not got a circuit working - I initially ordered too few/the wrong parts. Now I’m using a relay from an old robotics project of my brother’s, but I’m concerned about the current drawn by each wire—to get them to react quickly you have to really juice them up, and I doubt my relay can handle the current drawn by 6 of these, not to mention where I’ll find a power source for all this.

The circuit I’ll worry about tomorrow. Tonight I’m not sleeping until I’m confident at least the form factor is correct and workable.

Well, it’s really coming down to the wire here with the flower project. For the next few days I may not be updating as frequently, but I’ll post a final write-up with lots of photos etc when the dust settles.

I have spent too much time working out the mechanics and not enough time planning for the circuitry side of this; I don’t even have a final behavior model yet, so tonight I’ll be hastily curing v2 of my prototype petals and trying to decide what the best operational flow will be, and whether or not that’s feasible. Last-choice scenario is using an Arduino or my flaky CUI board to detect events and actuate the flower.

Meanwhile, my good friend Thenji (a CuriousAV affiliate) has called me in on a film she’s making about South Africa - I’ll be making a small amount of prepared sound from samples she’s recorded. I listened to the first batch of folk instrument samples and they’re quite exciting—mbiras, little flutes, and hand drums are some of my favorite toys!

Friend, I’m making progress on this project. You can always check the flickr set here for the latest images.

Progress-wise, here’s what I’ve got left to do:

• Decide on the actual material to use for the final flower
• Figure out how the muscle wire will connect on either end, and where this will be - it seems now that molding my own silicone petals will not be feasible in my timeframe.
• Design the circuit - I have a photoresistor that would be easy to hook up to a small transistor circuit, but I’m not sure this’ll yield consistent results. Also, there’s a latching problem that I might want to try and solve with a timer.