Michael Ang

Annotated construction pics from my etched copper blue electronic flowers MKII. Also includes testing pics from Todd’s flourescent fibonacci series.

I completed the second version of my blue flower. This time instead of making a circuit board I etched a copper sheet directly leaving me bare copper circuit traces which could then be bent into shape. Soldering to the copper was difficult because of the large mass of copper sucking the heat away. It was important for me to make a circuit that is it’s own structure. There is an efficiency of design in nature — nothing is wasted and no parts of the structure are without purpose. This flower is an effort to design according to those lines.

The component layout was designed in Eagle and printed out. The petals were then drawn by hand over the component pads, scanned, and cleaned up in Photoshop. The finished layout was laser printed and transferred to copper sheet, which was etched with ferric chloride and cleaned with laquer thinner.

The ITP-Dance collaboration will be presenting a short piece at the TISCH GSO Spring Festival on March 7, 2006, at the Eisner and Lubin Auditorium of the Kimmel Center. It’s a stretch for us to put something together for an event so soon (and during midterms), but it’s happening! Check out the first part of the choreography (.mov).

Some progress on the Hydrobot front. My thinking now is that I want to move the water more, and have the movement be more visible. The goal is to make the bot be itself a performer, and that requires the audience to understand what the bot is doing and have a feeling of tension. The audience should be amazed when the bot pulls off the performance.

The new idea is a bot in the form of an octopus or squid. The sound would be generated by spraying high pressure water onto tuned metal pipes. I’m not sure if this will actually work — experimentation is necessary.

Here is the concept drawing (click to view images fullsize):

Closeup of one of the pipe resonators. A solenoid valve controls a spray of water onto the resonator. A return hose brings water back to the pump.

Squid configuration. Resonator are arranged around a central pipe and empty into a single catchbasin/return system. The water dripping/spraying down from the tubes will be visible to the audience.

The main question at this point is what it will sound like. Time to rent a pressure washer and scrounge some pipe!

The xylobots and bass drum bots are done! Pictures of the completed bots should be available shortly. Awesome to see them actually making some music! Now we just need to get ready for their run of Ballet Mécanique at the National Gallery of Art in DC (March 12 through 29). A huge amount of work was put into these by many hands. Can’t wait to see the whole piece performed!

For this week’s Living Art assignment I created two flowers out of circuit boards, wire, resistors and LEDs. Here are the pictures.

I’ve long been interested in creating organic forms and experiences with technology. Creating these flowers is an experiment in trying to create circuits that connect with us based on our heritage as creatures in the real world. In part it’s an effort at technological design in harmony with the natural world and processes.

For some of my inspiration, see Lily Pond by Jeremy Lutes.

I used the “laser printer + clothes iron” circuit board fabrication technique from Thomas Gootee. It works!

More pictures of Frankenbear in progress. We’re using a Winbond ISD2575 voice recorder chip to make the bear talk in response to input and a QProx 113 capacitive touch sensor as an input. Getting the Winbond to work, laying out a design on stripboard and doing the soldering took several hours, so the bear was still in progress as of today’s Living Art class. So Suzan and I decided to present it as a work in progress: bear with stuffing falling out, working breadboard circuit and soldered boards in progress.

We got a nice response and ideas on how to better present it as a work in progress if that’s what we want. But also some encouragement to finish the bear and sew him back up!

HydroBot: Proposal For A Water-Based Musical Robot

Primary Goals:

• Create mechanical instrument that incorporates water into its mechanism
• “Essence” of water should be clearly sonified
• Mapping should be as physical as possible
• Instrument should be self-playing (robotic, though under control/programming of musician using MIDI)
• Create a tonal instrument (if percussive, then with tonal qualities)
• Create an instrument that is musically interesting

Secondary Goals:

• Generate “watery” sounds or modulate pure tones such that effect of water is clear
• Create an instrument that can be used in ensemble with other musical robots or performers
• Mapping should be visually obvious
• Technology reuse for WaterLight

Constraints:

• Must not leak
• Transportation issues (e.g. tank length)
• Should be relatively easy to fill/drain

Design Process:

• Research existing instruments (e.g. water in wineglass, water drums, WaterPhone (demo), Mocean, others?)
• Consult with others (e.g. Eric Singer/LEMUR, NIME class)
• On paper design
• Practical research
• Test/prototype/refine

Design Ideas:

• Is it possible to use water to transmit audible tones directly to air (no interleaving material) loud enough to avoid amplification?
  • Experiment with metal plates and speakers excited under surface of water
  • Whale songs are created using air passed through structures in the body
• Suggests to use water to modulate another another body already vibrating (metal in contact with air)

Preliminary Sketches:

• Wave tank
• Underwater spinner
• Water Lily
• Overflow tank

For Living Art week 3 we’re are supposed to implement a Finite State Machine in a physical system. Suzan and I are hacking a Gloomy Bear to add some interaction. I’ll describe the interaction later (should be fun), but here are pictures from the Gloomy Bear hacking session.

The voice recorder we got from Radio Shack works well when powered from the NiMH battery pack and attached to a larger speaker (the built in one wasn’t loud enough). The problem is that the recorder loses the recording when you turn it off and only gives you a single recording. We could build a battery backup circuit but instead we’re going to try a Winbond ChipCorder which will give us multiple non-volatile recordings and direct microcontroller control.

For Living Art week 2 we had to make a simple set of rules. Instead of a simple rules, I thought along the lines of rules for what should be a simple act, e.g. installing a piece of software.

The rules:

1. Visual scanning (reading) of these rules shall constitute a binding agreement as to their use.
2. These rules are for external use only.
3. These rules are not fit for any purpose, expressed or implied.
4. The Creator of these rules may change them at any time.
5. YOU EXPRESSLY ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU ARE READING THESE RULES AT YOUR OWN RISK. CREATOR OF RULES SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE, EITHER DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR OTHERWISE, ARISING OUT OF THE BREACH OF ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY, TERM OR CONDITION, BREACH OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY MISREPRESENTATION, FAILURE OF ANY RULE TO ACHIEVE ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY ARISING OUT OF, OR RELATED TO, THESE RULES (SUCH DAMAGES INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO, LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF REVENUE, LOSS OF DATA, LOSS OF USE OF THE RULES OR ANY ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT, DOWN TIME AND USER’S TIME), EVEN IF THE CREATOR CONCERNED HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. IN ANY CASE, THE ENTIRE LIABILITY OF THE CREATOR UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF THESE RULES SHALL BE LIMITED TO FIVE CANADIAN DOLLARS (CDN $5.00). SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES IN CERTAIN INSTANCES, SO THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THIS ARTICLE WILL NOT APPLY ONLY WHEN AND TO THE EXTENT THAT APPLICABLE LAW SPECIFICALLY REQUIRES LIABILITY DESPITE THE FOREGOING DISCLAIMER, EXCLUSION AND LIMITATION.