NYC Resistor is hosting “Art, Design, and the Arduino: a lineage” Curated by Alicia Gibb
March 27th, 2010 8-12pm
At NYC Resistor
87 3rd Avenue,
4th Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11217
$10 Admission
In addition to artworks using the Arduino, the first prototype of the original Arduino from the collection of Massimo Banzi will be shown.
Works include a lineage of variations, modifications and relations to the Arduino microcontroller:
Hc Gilje
Aaron Koblin
Laura Greig
Hernando Barragán
Edith Kollath
Jan Borchers & René Bohne
Becky Stern
Oscar G. Torres & Jackoon
Raphael Abrams
Joe Saavedra
These are some of the Paintings that I made with Jackoon at the ITP Spring 2009 show:
Reference image, wasp on a flower:
Collaborative Painting:
Reference image, rodent skull:
Jackoon Painting:
As you can see on the painting of the Skull, Jackoon managed o paint the general area where the skull should be. The brush strokes where not as precise as should be, because the lighting conditions where not optimal at the ITP show so the tracking system was a little off.
Someone at the ITP show told me something really inspiring; “This is the worst work that [Jackoon] and the other artbots will paint. They will only get better.” I agree, even now the paintings are amazing.
Art Robotica is a term used to describe the body of work created by the collaboration of “ArtBot” and artist. ArtBots are Autonomous Machines that paint or draw on a canvas, sheet of paper or a surface of some kind. Art Robotica reflects our new codependency and symbiotic relationship with machines. ArtBots are, in essence, collaborators rather than just new tools.
A presentation of Art Robotica was part of ITP Thesis Week 2009.
The thesis presentation was Tuesday May 5, 2009 at NYU’s ITP (721 Broadway, 4th floor)
I was originally going to attempt to use an Arduino Micro controller to do all the controlling of the servos (video above.) But I slowly realized that to control the timing of all the servos at different time intervals will be a big pain in the butt since the “delay()” function messes with the Arduino code enough to get really buggy.
To hopefully save a headache I bought some servo controllers made by Pololu And so far with the help from Xiaoyang (Alex) Feng and the info posted online about the controller, I got the results I was looking for.
The Pololu Code I used to make the servos move can be found on the Pololu forums The one things that they did not include which is a little confusing, is how to set up the servo controllers if you plan to daisy chain them to control more than 8 servo motors.
To start you should set up your Arduino (above) and a breadboard with the Pololu servo controller (below.)
A couple of things to note:
1. Two different power sources are needed for the servo controllers. One for the controller’s micro controller and the other to power the servo motors. Both power sources should have a common ground.
2. When you set the controller’s number setting, you need to do one at a time.
This is the code I used to program my second controller to know its servos are numbered 8-15 and not 0-7 as they are programmed by default.
The parameter that sets the servo numbers is the fourth “soft.Serial” line of code “softSerial.print(0×01,BYTE);” This variable can be either 0×00 (hexadecimal) to set the controller to use number 0-7 for the servos, 0×01 to set the controller to use number 8-15 for the servos, 0×02 for numbers 16-23, etc…
Once you upload this code you must wait for the servo controller to get reprogrammed. You will know the servo controller’s settings where changed by the blinky lights on the controller.
Once the code has been uploaded and the settings where changes, you MUST delete or comment out, the three lines that set up the servo numbers since you only need to do that step once.
the lines you need to delete or comment out are the following:
softSerial.print(0×80,BYTE);
softSerial.print(0×02,BYTE);
softSerial.print(0×01,BYTE);
Once you comment out the code above, re-load the code onto the Arduino.
When the code is finished uploading nothing will happen, because you need to re-start the Pololu servo controller for the settings to kick in. You can simply unplug the Arduino and the plug it back in to refresh everything. The servos should now move a few degrees back and fourth. Don’t forget to power the servos separately and to have a common ground.
I daisy chained three servo controllers together so that I can control 20 servo motors. This is my first test, one serve per servo controller. So far so good.
The WAMI Dome got some exposure at the Electronic Social Club’s Annual Exhibit at Hunter College. Everyone really enjoyed to play with the little dome and its square wave sounds.
The new generation of WAMIs is in the works and functioning, its time to put the final touches on. I am very pleased with the sounds coming out of this bad boy. This WAMI definitely going to make some crazy beats.
And also I will put out the info aka DIY so you can make your own! =)
An other Project I will be working on is the development of a painting machine.
I will be making a little mobil unit that will travel around a canvas and paint the portrait of a person. The little mobil unit will be assisted by a computer which will be the eyes and brains running the mechanism.
This is a simple drawing of what I have in mind:
The mobil unit will have an arm with a paint brush that will be controlled with impulses that make servo motors turn in a precisely calculated manner.
The computer will be analyzing and two video feeds that will be used to track the subject being painted and the position of the mobil unit on the canvas. This is a screen shot of the beginning stages of the video tracking:
A Helios Power Tree was used in an installaton at ITP. Blue carpet and some grass-like foam pieces where used in “Synthetic Oasis.” The overall form was achieved by omitting symmetry, leading to an organic feel, that captures a sense of life; not mentioning the Helios’ inner pulse that mimics a heart. It appears as though the branches where made using a random system, something reminiscent of fractal formations.
The composition shows an inevitable symbiotic relationship between human beings, technology and the environment. “Synthetic Oasis” functions by collecting ambient energy in the form of light and stores it as potential energy in at its base. The energy is then used to illuminate the installation at night and to power the gadgets of the public lounging at the helios’ shade in the day time.
The word “oasis” implies the presence of water and vegetation in an isolated area in the desert. This applies to the Helios installation, since the Solar Tree can collect electricity anywhere the sun shines. The pool of electricity can then give “life” to electronics who’s batteries are dying in an area isolated from the power grid.
The blue foam is an ironic choice of color and material which contrasts that of plants yet it is the Helios that is producing the energy that would otherwise be produced by burning ancient plant matter such as coal. It is this blue hue that allows for a “Post-apocalyptic” feel to the installation in the day time and a tranquil, soothing glow which is accompanied by ambient cricket sound at night.
This new body of work is aimed to allow for a system where people can benefit in a quantitative manner as well as capturing the ideal form of entities in our environment such as trees.
