Here's a video of my latest program.  The screen captures sound is terrible and its hard to see anything but at least it runs.

Work on the LED net thing?

Here's a video to see what I've been working on tonight. There are 12 of these 10 1/2 foot wires.  Each has 14 red t-taps on it.  I'll use 6 for power and 6 for ground and so there will be room for 84 series' of LEDs.  3 LEDs on each series for 252 LEDs.  I hope it all works with my 12V 20 amp power supply, I guess we'll see.

Work over break, so far

It's 3:46 a.m. on Sunday the 25th.

I just finished working on some code, exploring what sonia's audio library can do.  I don't know why minim made changing volume such a big deal buuuuut I can't seem to figure it out, at least not quickly enough.  I'll be playing 7 synchronized audio samples and adjusting their volume based on the number of points inside my boxes.  I haven't tested the code yet but that'll be tomorrow's frustration.  After sleep I'm going to the lab again and I will finish the last of the light strips, 4 or 5 more.  Then I'll get all 12 parallel lines cut and their T-taps connected 9 inches apart.  That'll probably take most of the day but if I have some time afterwards I'll run the code I've got and make some adjustments.  If I want to stay up late again maybe I'll be able to convince myself that finishing the code tomorrow is possible.  Anyway, I'll talk to Wayne more about it this coming week and I have the final small group critique Wednesday.  I'd like to have the whole light setup done and the code in some kind of working order so I can demonstrate what's goin down. I'm not ready to get excited yet, there's still so much failure ahead of me.

Good night,

Michael

Greg Borenstein

Dear Greg Borenstein (author of Making Things See...)

Thank you,

Michael Fox

Motor Setups are done

I spent the past weekend solely focused on motor setups.  Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I spent in the lab but I finished them so now I can move on to the next step.  My weekends are all freed up until the project is due so next weekend is LED weekend and the weekend after that is getting the frame built.  During the weeks I'll be programming so hopefully in three weeks time I'll have the whole thing finished and possibly installed.  Then I can get documentation to make a great project video.  Also, I'll need people to be in my documentation interacting with the project so if you're interested comment on this post.  The hope is to shoot documentation over Thanksgiving Break.  Thanks for the support!

Just like on TV

I worked on the motors for six or seven hours yesterday.  I'm putting them onto a wooden command center that will be in the middle of the top part of the installation.  I need to get that working with four motors running by the end of Saturday.  It's getting a bit stressful.  I've got about a month and I've still got a ton of work to do.  I'm going broke but don't have time to work at the shop because I have to finish this project.  Unfortunately, I can't pay for this project unless I work so I'm in a bit of a mess.  If you ever watch those large project shows where they have a limited time to finish you'll notice they always seem to come down to the wire.  Well, my BFA project should be a TV show.

I Get Knocked Down..... But I Get Up Again....You're Never Gonna Keep Me Down

I was working on finishing up the LED grid last night and after cutting it from the frame I came to a realization. It won't work like I expected. The tubing weighs too much for the line to hold without snapping and when pulled up on, the entire grid moves inwards to compensate, just like any other fabric would.  Lucky for me I only worked on it for a little over a week so I'm not too behind on my calendar.  I'm going back to the original plan of using a black stretchy fabric, like spandex.  It will be lighter weight and will stretch when the motors pull on it, the only downfall is that instead of moving down towards the person it will be pulled up.  I'm a bit down about all the work that ended up failing but that's what I get for experimenting I guess.