Author Archive
New Drawing Machine
Posted by Craig in DIY, Electronics, Open Source Electronic Music Software, Open Source software on January 25th, 2012
Hello all
It’s been ages since I posted anything. This is mostly because I was not able to get much time in the shop over the last few months. I’ll try to keep up with the blog a bit better.
I built this stepper motor driven drawing machine based on an idea from a toy from the 1920’s. The Toy is called the “HOOT-NANNY” Yes, really, that’s it’s name.
I scaled it up to create complex guilloché patterns on paper.
Guilloché is the word used to describe intricate repetitive patterns often used in security printing and fine metal working. The machine uses three micro-step motors that are controlled by a program written in PureData. Careful control of the motor speed ratios and positioning of the pen arms results in complex patterns. Some of the best patterns are the result of setting the speeds very near but not quite on specific harmonic relationships. The pen traces a Lissajous curve and the paper rotates beneath the pen, thus tracing out the complex pattern.
The patterns take from 10 minutes to and hour to create.
Puredata is not really intended for motion control but I found it really easy to manipulate the ascii to create the strings for the motors. If I tried to do this in C or Python It would taken much longer to program. In puredata sliders and buttons are a snap. Opening two serial ports turned out to be easy as well.
Special thanks to Olympus controls in Austin.
Analog Photo Fun- “Lomography”
Posted by Craig in Photography on April 1st, 2011
My wife Sally and I just spent a week in New York City. Good fun all around.
Congratulations to our friend Judy Jenson on her opening at Gerald Peters Gallery. (A great reason to visit the city.) We had a wonderful time with our friends from Austin.
One day, after emerging from a Subway station on 23rd st, we noticed a cool store at 106 E23rd Street, NY 10010
It is a Lomography Gallery Store. http://microsites.lomography.com/stores/gallery-stores
I’d heard of Lomography and being photo geeks from way back, I/we had to go in.
A “few” dollars later we emerged with two plastic cameras which we immediately loaded with film and started shooting.
One camera, “Pop-9”, shoots 9 separate pictures at once in a standard 35mm frame. The other was a wide angle camera called the “Sprocket Rocket”.
I also could not resist the “Spinner 360” We went back to get that one too. Here are a couple of pictures I shot with the Spinner:
The indoor shot was shot by rotating the camera body by hand. The primary way to operate the camera is to pull a ring which which winds a spring. Letting go of the string spins the camera to take a shot. It made me laugh the first time I shot a picture!
Here is a link to the main lomography website.
Cheers!
Craig
BBC Video Link from SXSW Interactive, Dorkbot
Posted by Craig in Uncategorized on March 30th, 2011
Here’s a link to a BBC video that was shot at the SXSW Dorkbot event:
Got it done!
Posted by Craig in DIY, Electronics, Games, Microcontrollers on March 13th, 2011
Thanks to the help of some friends I was able to deliver a working artillery game to the Dorkbot event last Friday night.
Amazingly to me, the code came together Friday morning with lights a-blinkin’ and speakers a-beepin’. The machine came to life at about noon on Friday. I think the game was well received by all the people who took a try. One young fellow pictured here, really got into it!
Special thanks to Angelo Fancello and Oliver Greaves for late night assistance. And thanks to my wife, Sally for her help and patience with the crazy schedule I’ve been keeping.
I’ll post the details here soon, including schematics and “code” (it ain’t pretty but it worked!).
Thanks to RadioShack for the opportunity to produce something fun with RadioShack.
Craig
Dorkbot 28 @ SXSW 3.11.11, Austin Music Hall
Posted by Craig in Uncategorized on March 7th, 2011
This should be a good one. Dorkbot28 Combined with Ignite Austin at the the Austin Music Hall, Friday March 11th.
I’ll be presenting a pinball style game inspired by classic artillery games. Partly sponsored by RadioShack!
This one uses a large solenoid to launch balls at targets on a slanted playing surface.
It’s been a real charrette to get this done on time….It may be done on time.
Here are some photos of the build. Details later.
Craig
HD 3d Camera
Posted by Craig in DIY, Photography on January 14th, 2011
Here are some photos of a full HD Stereo video camera I built using two Kodak Zi8 pocket cameras. I built the case out of birch plywood and maple. I choose the Kodak Zi8 camera because there was an optional remote control. The cameras are linked to the remote with plastic fiber optics embedded in the frame. This let me control both cameras with fairly accurate timing.
The width of the cameras was about 62 mm which is just about the right interocular distance. I ended up with a final Interocular distance of about 65mm. The cameras are quickly removable by lifting the hinged wood clamp. Magnets are used to hold the clamp in place. Rubber pads contact the camera at three points to get repeatable accurate positioning. The pockets for the cameras were made carefully to get a nice close fit so that the stereo images would be as closely aligned as possible. The two camera views are parallel and do not “toed-in” or converging. The tripod is attached at a point centered between the lenses using a 1/4-20 t-nut in the base.
We are using a free Windows program called stereo movie maker, which you can see here:
http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/stvmkr/
Here is a great primer on shooting 3d video from Tim Dashwood.
Sally and I presented the camera and some example videos at Dorkbot Austin on Monday January 24th at the at UT. I built the camera for a project Sally is working on at the TACC visualization lab at UT. http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/ The folks there have put together some fantastic visualization hardware and tools. Check it out. I’ll be adding a post soon with details on how I created the anaglyphic 3d video for the talk.
Here is a link to the video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UxQPMykqPo
See http://www.dorkbotaustin.org for details. Don’t miss the next Dorkbot!
Craig
Harmonograph for the 2010 East Austin Studio Tour
Thanks to everyone who dropped by at our studio for the East Austin Studio Tour last month. We had a nice stream of visitors at our gallery space where Sally and I had some of our art work displayed. We sold a few pieces as well.
At the last minute I decided to build a harmonograph in the shop since I didn’t have another project ready to show. After a few years of EAST, people come by and expect to see something interesting. On the Thursday before the first weekend, I started building a rather complex harmonograph. I had an idea for a linkage scheme to combine the motions from two pairs of pendulums. The whole thing would fit nicely on my big worktable.
I did not have enough time to build all the degrees of freedom into the linkage so I hacked away and ended up with a complex gadget that had too much friction and didn’t work! On Saturday morning I started to quickly simplify the thing.
My friend John drove out from Houston for the weekend. He arrived at about 10:30 am and joined me in re-working the harmonograph into something that worked fairly well. Lots of people came through and spent some time watching the drawings form. It was hypnotizing. Some folks hung out for over an hour and took turns creating patterns. We added a third pendulum which moved the paper in one axis and that’s the way it stayed through EAST. After the second weekend of EAST I modified the harmonograph again and added a fourth pendulum so the paper was driven by two pendulums and the pen by two more. This is what you can see in the YouTube video. I hope to design a nice portable harmonograph so I can have one to demonstrate at schools and such. A few people asked if I would build them one. I’ll ponder that idea.
Here are a few results from the harmonograph:
( Click on the images to see them big.)
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- Sample three
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- Sample two
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- Sample one
Fireworks Competition in Hannover Germany
Posted by Craig in Uncategorized on September 25th, 2010
When someone asks you if you want to travel to Hannover Germany to help setting up a fireworks show…You say yes!
I joined my most excellent friend, John Werner of Vulcan Pyrotechnics and 18 other great people from the USA, China, Germany, Netherlands, France and New Caledonia.
The event was the 20th International Fireworks Competition at Grosse Garten, Hannover Germany. Vulcan Pyrotechnics was representing China in the competition. Vulcan took first place in last years contest.
The team spent three days preparing and setting up the display. The display was a mix of traditional and new techniques. Vulcan may have taken second place to Sweden but I really enjoyed the show.
The weather didn’t favor us with desirable wind and we were slowed down by intermittent rain over the main two days of set-up. All-in-all, everyone involved was happy with the show.
My work was focused on setting up gerbes, wheels, and other animated effects. I also assisted on the “wire-rockets”. You can see these shooting across the field in the video.
Here are a few photos:
John and Craig In Hannover
Cakes, mines, comets and bundles of candles. Ready to go!
One Galaxis Receiver with about 20 outputs fililed.
Percussibot Kits are available
Posted by Craig in Uncategorized on September 1st, 2010
The percussion controller kits mentioned in a previous post ARE available. Same controller used by ArcAttack!
Travel, My Broken Laptop and ArcAttack!
Posted by Craig in Uncategorized on September 1st, 2010
Been ages since I paid proper attention to my site. Sorry about that!
Lots of things have happened including my laptop failing when I plugged it in when I was in Berlin recently. I guess the power supply was not as universal as it was supposed to be. Back up and running, thanks to my extended warranty on my Dell. A nice fellow came out to fix it.
My wife Sally and I had a great trip to Berlin and Hungary. We were invited to a symposium on “Light Art” in Pecs, Hungary. More on that in a later post.
ArcAttack had their run on Americas Got Talent. They did amazingly well considering they did it with very little money!
I assisted with a few things including some new more powerful LED arrays for the drum set and some woodwork for the Lightning proof MIDI guitar and the platforms for the last show. It was great fun to throw in to help. The creation of the Midi guitar in such a short time was truly amazing. Here is a link with some more detail: Gizmodo
Here are a couple of photos from my phone:
