We are doing optional classes for the remainder of the semester, in which we will be learning some basic Processing coding. Which will be helpful for Arduino going forward, so that's great!
Coding is definitely like learning another language (and there are so many coding languages on top of that!) which I have a hard time remembering what to do.
We went over creating shapes and lines. Colors with transparency added. As well as key presses. All of which I incorporated into the practice logo. I also enjoy using the random(); function as I think it adds visual interest to the ellipse.
I kept in mind the order placement functions in the setup and draw so I could create a layered effect of color-changing circles that reveal the hidden logo as they bounce around the canvas.
The viewer is able to stop the draw function at any time by the keypress 'r' which invokes a noloop, this way if the bouncing ellipse is too distracting they can focus on what has been randomly created just for them.
Please see my notes throughout the code for more information on what I created!
Unfortunately, the covid-19 pandemic school has been shut down, and any class that is 65% or over their assignments are now considered completed. I am sad and disappointed, but of course, I completely understand that these are extenuating circumstances. So this will be my final update for Milestone 2, at least for right now!
Last week I received my fancy new PCB based on my design in fritzing! It was pretty exciting to see it, and I hope to one day actually solder all the components on to it.
It's a good thing I labeled everything on the board, so later I'll know what to use haha.
I have also spent most of my time working in Rhino to later create the plans for the laser cutter to use.
I watched some videos on Lynda.com, which were helpful, but I still feel a bit at odds with the program. It's a learning curve for sure, and I would like to learn how to master it! I forgot to document my first attempt at creating the outer shell, but I will describe them here.
#1) I first tried to build the shell in the 3D perspective view but was having a heck of a time. Since this was part of the first time of using the program, I had a difficult time navigating the space and being able to tell distances between objects. So scrapped that whole file!
#2) Oh right, I should take photos! Realized how much simpler it would be to create the panels in 2D first then extrude, which meant working in top view was so much better! I don't usually make plans or schematics as a photo major; usually, I just keep it all in my head. I don't even sketch things out ahead of time, which I know is really uncommon for artists. So this was a new experience on top of a unique experience, which meant that v2 had a lot of gaps, and overlapping at just would not work.
#3) More tab location changes in this one. Also, I think I need to redo the back panel as it does not fit properly, which I don't understand why.
#4) This is where I stopped after hearing about the school closure, I haven't been very motivated in the last week to revisit, but will definitely want to in the future, just unfortunately without the help, time, and tools of the class.
I redid the back from scratch, and it still does not fit flush, so I will have to look into that more.
I want the finished piece to be able to come apart into two sections for moving and storing the work. This is why you can see the dovetail in the two-floor panels and why the front top panel does not connect to the front panel of the second section. Since visiting the work in Rhino last week, something I have thought of is that I would like to add is 45-degree angle supports for the two top panels to give the structure extra support since it will not be one solid piece.
When I do get the chance to come back to this work, I will need to figure out how to decide on the measurements of the cams and slides. Maybe it would be a good idea to print out the box first then work on that part?
To anyone reading, thanks for taking the time! I hope you are staying safe and healthy!
I just realized that I never posted the final post on my milestone 1 project! Well, let me fix that!
You may remember that I was creating a Pepper's Ghost optical illusion.
For a prototype, I was very pleased with how it turned out. The wires were a right mess and the sensor I used wasn't the best suited I think, but it still made me happy in the end.
I didn't like how I had made the cutouts too big for the sensor causing there to be big and have some of the light spills. Now I know that the laser cutter's bed can lower down to a deep distance I think I could get a more precise cut than with a drill bit.
I also would like to experiment with the set up completely. I would like to use a solid piece of glass or crystal for the viewing object. As well as seeing if I can switch the 45-degree angles to be coming from the projected surface into the glass which would now be a square surface. I made a mock-up in Tinkrcad on what I am thinking. I'm not sure it will work, but I think it would look so much neater if it does!
I still need to figure of if a laser cutter is good at cutting angles? That would make the plexiglass look niiiice haha. Hopefully after graduation I will still be able to have access to all the cool tool that we have in Madt!
This week I was able to get my PCB done! I had it as my first focus because of manufacturing time as well as I know that the current COVID-19 issues have been delaying package deliveries.
Here is a top-down view of both sides of the board! With Bryan's help, I decided to go with two tip122 semiconductors circuit with an Attiny85 as my microcontroller. I also purchased a 12v/5v rechargeable battery pack because I want to minimize any wires being on the outside of the project.
Even though this battery has a 5v output as well, I wanted to try to experiment with a voltage converter in the circuit, as I think this will become useful knowledge later on. Which I have marked in red here:
Using a Linear Voltage Circuit (MC7905c in this case) with two capacitors, one at 10ohms then other at 1ohms, which helps to minimize the noise created when stepping down the voltage out. I know that the MC7905c comes with a little heat sink but from everything I've read online it is said that they get very hot, which makes me wonder if I need an additional sink of some sort as this is going to inside of a wooden box with little to no ventilation?
The two other things that I've been doing this week is in regards to the fan part of the machine. First, what type of fan will it be? The two fans that I'm leaning towards are either similar to the one that is in my proof of concept or in the more traditional Japanese style. Although I think I like the look of the test version of a fan, it does not entirely fan out when the flat follower rises from the slide. Another tick in favor of the Japanese style fan is that I think I will be able to more easily mount the fan to the follower with one of the fan sticks. So I tried to figure out what that might look like:
I think I might go with the second one where the follower tapers off towards the end.
For this week, my plan is to mock out all the wooden parts in Rhino so that the plans will be ready for the laser printer. I didn't use Rhino for my first projects, so I will need to get some practice in and also watch some videos.
I will be creating two sets of boxes that will each have a camshaft. There will be four flat followers in each that when the motors are activated by button press by the viewer, will bloom a paper fan one by one from each of the slides. The boxes will be placed in a staircase formation. If all goes well with these two boxes, I may create more for the final piece.
An example of a proof of concept that I worked on for last class
I was inspired to create this piece after seeing Reuben Margolin's mechanical caterpillars as well as his many waves. I became intrigued by the idea of mechanical objects creating the same motions of the natural world.
Reuben Margolin's Magic Wave via his youtube channel.
The movement of the camshaft with many cams became analogous to the flow of ocean waves to me. To create the look of spraying water, I was inspired by the look of theatrical sets that uses simple objects and shapes to imply the movement of the ocean. I decided to use the style of Japanese paper fans as this simple object as they have always made me think of ocean waves.
I will be building this project out of plywood and paper for the main visual component, as well as for the camshafts. For the movement, I will be using DC motors that will be triggered by a button and the time set by the Arduino. I will need to create the pieces of the object in Rhino, so I will be able to use the laser cutter to manufacturer the object for assembly. I will also be custom fabricating a PCB for the circuit.
There will be updates on this project concerning the Arduino code and circuit board once I can talk to Bryan in class, as I was having trouble with them as per my previous post concerning motors.
I'm very excited to return to the world of non-electric mechanical objects! As much as I want to learn more about the Arduino there is something about a viewer/user having to manually control an art piece that I am very into at the moment in time.
Right now I interested in the motions of camshafts, so when we had the opportunity in class to create a mockup that I wanted to make that first! As cute as v1 ended up being, I think I became too ambitious at too small of a scale with this attempt. I wanted to see what it would look like to have different cams shapes for each section but I also made them all eccentric. Problem one: it was difficult to make the shapes of the cams neatly, causing the flat followers that I made to get stuck on the rough edges. Problem two: since they were all eccentric cams of differing shapes meant that the flat followers would move around erratically. As well as I didn't account for the long side of each of the shapes to fit very well in the box that held them. Problem 3: I made the slide holes too wide, which also caused the followers to flop around. I tried to fix this by adding so much hot glue into the cavities to make up for the missing material.
Over the reading week break, I created a larger four-section camshaft as a second prototype. At the larger size, cutting went much more smoothly as well as I learned from some of the mistakes from v1. Firstly even though I am very interested in the different motions that can be created by other shapes of cams I decided it was best to stick with a circular eccentric cam for all four sections just to get the movement and understanding of the build down. The flat followers run much more smoothly across the new cams.
I wanted each of the followers to rise and fall at different times so each cam is rotated about 45 degrees from the one in front of it. In this version of the prototype, I still had only one level of the slide and I found that the followers still would flop around even though the slide holes were only slightly larger than the shafts compared to v1.
So I created a second level slide! This fixed the issue handily. After thinking about it for a few days after this build I most likely didn't have to make the second level slide so tall, I probably could have laid it right on top of the first one.
Well, I will try that in the next prototype!
This working camshaft leads me into what I have been thinking about for the kinetic project.
I would like to create a similar box as my v2 prototype but be able to have fans pushed and pulled by the followers. I want to use the wave-like movement that is already being created by these eccentric cams in sequence and with the fans to bring about an ocean splashing effect.
I have been able to make a somewhat working proof of concept of this:
I was only able to make one of the camshafts into the concept as I realized with a bit of testing that there would need to be a counterweight for the flat follower in order to pull the fan back down the slide and I only had one coin-type piece of metal that was heavy enough to use for this experiment.
I am quite happy to see that it works okay right off the bat! I think that there will need to be some small amount of weight on each end of a fan to help pull it more open. I also think that making a V-shaped slide would help to ease the fans shut as they descended. I am not sure that is something I could do with the laser cutter? Some more experimenting is in order!
PS. I had forgotten that I already had some foam core at home and I picked up an approx 2x2 ft sheet at Dollarama and I think I like this cheaply made type much better for prototyping!
You can see the regular foam core on the top and the paper is much thicker which takes more strokes to cut through. The Dollarama foam core the paper is much thinner so a new blade just cuts through it like butter. The center foam seems just strong enough to build without issue since I made all of v2 using it. And best of all it was $1.25 so I don't feel like I have to be as precious with it as I did with the foam core in class, which makes me feel better about larger-scale prototyping and general mistakes and rebuilding.
This was a big project! And thank goodness for last year's post of the week by Nicholas otherwise I would have been pretty lost. I used Tinkrcad to create my schematics, as they have a nice circuits section on their site. They are missing a few of the components such as a solenoid and theA4988 driver.
a) DC motor with a relay. This one had a tough time with and never got working. I am most surprised by this because I worked with motors last semester in Rita's class. A DC motor connected to a 555 and a TIP122 and had no problems at all. It's interesting to me that adding the Arduino made it so difficult for me.
I tried a few different setups for this. The top one is based on how the motor works with a relay and a 555 chip and the bottom is how Nicholas set up his circuit as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, I was not able to get this circuit to work. I also tried it with the solenoid which did not work either.
b & c) Solenoid/DC motor with TIP122. Second easiest set up of the bunch! I am putting these two together because their circuits are basically the same.
I had to make the image of the solenoid in PS
Here the Arduino is running the Blink tutorial code to control each circuit. The Arduino is the connection to the input, left most pin, on the 122 through a 220-ohm resistor The middle pin is what outputs the signal/stored energy to the motor/solenoid and the rightmost pin receives the charge from the 9v to then start storing up energy.
d) DC motor with L293D chip. Another DC motor fail for me. I can't remember if we when over this one in class but I tried following the schematic from Nicholas' posts. I think I need more time to familiarize myself with this chip as it seems pretty complicated or at least the wires make it look that way. Unfortunately, I don't understand how this setup actually works, I cannot go into detail on how it is all set up.
e) Bipolar stepper motor with a A4988 chip. This circuit was a mixed success. I was able to get the motor to make a buzzing noise but it was not getting enough power (my hypothesis) to actually move. Once again I used Nicholas' schematic as the basis of my own circuit. I had to fudge this one a bit since Tinkrcad does not have most of the required parts.
One thing I was not sure of is whether it matters which wires on the stepper motor plug into the chip? I tried different configurations and as far as I could tell it did not.
f) Last but not least the servo motor controlled by the Arduino. The easiest of the bunch!! We don't even need an external power supply as the servo works with the 5v & ground from the Arduino. Just add an output pin for the code and you are ready to go.
I used the Sweep code from the tutorial to control the servo. It's loud but it works!
