Light Play

Robot Army : Ditching the EEG

November 25, 2013spetku1 Comment

After a jolly romp to Quick Care to get antibiotics for my fluffy sinus, I ‘m in bed again writing emails. This PR stuff so far is feeling a lot like standing on my tip toes while shouting through a cardboard tube. >.< I did head down to SYN Shop yesterday for my first late night hang out since this spring. One of Mark’s old friends from Sun, Tsutomu, was in town for LDI (the lighting trade show) and I got to pick his brain while I was there. He was a great wealth of knowledge and gave some good feedback about me and Mark’s collaborative work as well as my light installation. Long story short, he persuaded me from using an EEG to control the robots like I was planning to. He voiced everything I had already assumed about the reality of using neural input to control anything electronic. Brain noise…

Light Play

Robot Army : Cuddling my Spreadsheet

November 21, 2013spetku5 Comments

Today, I find myself wanting desperately to feel as though I’m doing something right. I think it’s likely all the rain we’ve had that’s tainting my mood, but I’m discouraged. I’ve been adding things to my bill of materials and the proportions are seeming less than hopeful in some areas. Now I need to start shaving cost off things that are needlessly spendy. I guess this is where I learn to be inventive and shrewd all at once. It might just be my lack of experience in doing PR related stuff- but I’m stuck again with the getting the word out part. Maybe I’m not begging loudly enough. I’ve never been all that good at asking for attention. So this is another hurdle to overcome. This morning I did mock ups of several different variations Mark came up with for my delta’s arms. We foresee the cups that hold onto…

Light Play

Robot Army : We’ll Make More

November 20, 2013spetku1 Comment

Yesterday was another full day spent with Mark working on the Robot Army. He’s taken my sub par original revision of the delta brain board and is making it more practical for my needs and for my audience who will use it in the kit I’m Kickstarting. So far he’s made one huge adjustment : making it so VCC is not directly opposite from ground on the I2c bus. Apparently you can flip the connector around and blow things up this way (oops). He was either making a point, or practicing ritual sacrifice by blue smoking one of our three test boards >.< This is just one of the examples where he has filled in for my general lack of experience with his circuit wizardry and electronic prowess. While he tinkered, I did PR stuff. I’ve pretty much been rewording the same write-up in a dozen voices while emphasizing different…

Light Play

Robot Army Starter Kit : GO!

November 13, 2013spetku1 Comment

Dear World, The reason why I created this blog a little over a year and a half ago, was to reach out to noob techies like myself and help others see how fun and accessible the world of DIY electronics really is. My first post was about a project I started during my wee days in art school, involving a field of tiny delta robots that I would choreograph with my mind. This project was called Light Play. The idea is big and at the time seamed like a dream… but I’ve come a long way since then and now have the skills, contacts, and tools necessary to make this nerdy girl’s fantasy a reality. I’ve had a lot of delta robot content on this site over the past year. Since last March I’ve crawled my way from robots made of hangers and tupperware to a highly polished 3D printed…

Light Play

Delta Robot Completed : Jeden

April 4, 2013spetku5 Comments

My neon yellow filament came in the mail finally! So last Saturday I monopolized the 3D printer at SYN Shop and made six new florescent arms to replace the grey and nasty transparent ones on my delta prototype. I also recut the robot’s base using some 1/4 inch acrylic, complete with name, signature, and project title etched along the edges. With the prototype upgraded, Jeden is now the first official addition to Light Play… and he’s a looker : Having figured all that out… it’s time to do the next step: Make about a hundred more. Alas, I am here at the hackerspace hoarding the Replicator 2, this time during off hours so I don’t get the reputation of an equipment hog. So far I’ve printed another set of parts and assembled a second robot making use of some old donated servos. I’m testing it out now to see if…

Light Play

3D Printed Delta Prototype : Jeden

March 28, 2013spetku4 Comments

The last working delta robot I created was completed last August, nearly six months ago. I didn’t have access to a metal shop, so I relied on my dremel to do all the work and because of this it was made entirely out of hangers and tupperware. I hacked a multitude of plastic household objects and to-go boxes into actual moving robots… which was how I had expected to create the whole army of such deltas. That is until I met everyone at the budding hackerspace last summer and learned that 3D printers are now desktop sized. I’ve come a long way since then. Now having figured out how to make 3D models of the parts I need, I’m printing my robots like a more civilized maker. I’ve also departed from relying on hobby parts for the joints due to my friend Mark’s ingenious idea to implement ball bearings into…

Light Play

Delta Array : Printed Pieces

October 6, 2012spetku0 Comments

First of all, thank you Mark for printing out my delta bits for me and photographing them. I will be in my native Vegas next week visiting home and am looking forward to building up my next prototype while there, as well as seeing everyone from the shop.

Light Play

Delta Array : 3D Modeling

September 25, 2012spetku1 Comment

So, my friends at the local hackerspace have convinced me to have the parts for my deltas 3D printed rather than continuing to mod plastic spoons and hangers like some third world scavenger. What a novel concept! Now that I have moved and gotten somewhat settled in, I had some time this weekend to play around with SketchUp. I took my 2D plans that I made in illustrator and built them up in 3D. I was surprised how simple this was once I stopped over thinking it. I’m sure these aren’t perfect yet, but I wont know until I’m holding the outcome in my hands. For anyone who didn’t know these existed (like me until not too long ago) check out these relatively affordable 3D printers. They are completely amazing at what they do and have opened up a whole new realm of possibility for me: MAKERBOT

Light Play

Delta Array : Code Mash

September 6, 2012spetku3 Comments

I finally got to play around with the code last night. I’ve been preparing to move for a job these past few weeks and haven’t gotten as much play time in as I’d like. Again my goal (for now) is to have the wiichuck control the movement of the robot and the color of the light (which will go on the effector end). First off… I am not nearly skilled enough to have written this code all by myself so I’d like give credit to the people who posted this project: Wiichuck Controlled Delta Robot. This was a huge help for me while prototyping. I also want to thank my friend Krux for writing the c RGB LED bit in the beginning of this video! I mashed these two elements together and voila! PROGRESS: Also! I’m impressed with this guy’s resourcefulness. He managed to make an even less expensive and easier…

Light Play

Delta Array : After the Fact

August 21, 2012spetku0 Comments

Me getting hit in the face. Enjoy: Meh… Fabrication is so exciting for me. I can build something that looks great… but a sexy appearance doesn’t assure a working robot. That’s the compromise between technology and aesthetics. Its been thundering and raining out so naturally the crazed engineer in me surfaced tonight. I was controlling the mini delta again with the GUI just to see if I could maybe figure out some way to smooth its movement… but one of the motors ended up murdering itself. I could hear the clicking sound of death and then the whining of stripped gears came shortly after: The one thing I did learn is that there is nothing wrong with my wiichuk or the adapter. It runs perfectly fine with my old prototype. So this points the failure at the mini servos themselves I believe. Weird. While the new (not shitty) motors ship,…