Found a possible way to get cheap projection displays suitable for some of the pieces we are envisaging. see this link for an overview and the demo video here. Perhaps we could link this approach in with the fibredisplay too. Thanks to Nima Kaveh for this suggestion.
This could be a way of getting pieces together for the Bonfire Night Show (if we like that idea).
I’ve been wondering how successful a Scrapheap Challenge afternoon would be… we bring people and interesting materials, computers, electronics, etc together and see what happens! We could have a objective like the Great Egg Race or the Snowflake-A-Thon.
Even if we don’t actually finish anything on that day - we’ll get to know who we like working with and hopefully have some interesting starting points.
Does that sound like chaos?
Hi - at the last meeting we were discussing having a small show to get us started off. Mark suggested using Bonfire Night as a theme - I like this for a few reasons:
1) There are bunch of things people could do with the theme from things that go bang to democracy
2) It’s got a set date! Two months away - which I reckon is about enough time to do something in
3) Saturday 5th November, is also the date of the Ipswich Firework Display in Christchurch Park - which IMHO is an existing “interesting thing” that happens in Ipswich.
So… I’m suggesting that we hold a small informal show with a little food & drink at the Spinney prior to fireworks in the park (which is conveniently situated).
We should document anything that we do and stick it on the website as a statement of what we’re about.
What do people think?
Inlined below is the table of people’s availability to try and work out suitable meeting times - need your help with this.
We haven’t got all of the information in yet, you bloggers. Plus I think we need more flexibility from somebody to get a suitable day because there’s currently no day which wouldn’t exclude someone or another.
I think some have interpreted the request as the days which would be ideal. I think I asked the wrong question. I need to know what days you really won’t be able to make, because otherwise the problem is insoluble.
Best to know where people’s Ns are rather than their enthusiastic Ys.
It’s something of a pain in the arse that there are no other sensible looking days apart from Wednesday and Thursday, neither of which is good for Martin, who I don’t want to lose as a contributor.
| Days which people can make and can’t (Y/N) | ||||||||
| DayPerson | Martin Russ | Michal Jakob | Gavin Churcher | Nicola Millard | Matt Iles | David Chatting | Cefn Hoile | Summary |
| Monday | Y | Y | Y | Y | 3+ | |||
| Tuesday | Y | Y | Y | 3+ | ||||
| Wednesday | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | 5+ | ||
| Thursday | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | 6+ 1- |
| Friday | Y | 1+ | ||||||
| Saturday | ||||||||
| Sunday | Y | Y | Y | 3+ | ||||
Magic Lantern - “The principle of the Magic lantern fonctions by the heat created from the lightbulb that permits the propeller to rotate in a marching procession image that will animate the body of your lampshade like a cinema screen.“
These are great, I like the simplicity - no motors, just a lightbulb.
Beyond Object is something we could do:
1. Build a small set
2. Film a sequence
3. Spray everything white!
4. Project the sequence back onto the set
Scott McCloud has done a bunch of really cool things - notably he’s the author of Understanding Comics.
Another one of which might be an inspiration for a piece - The Story Machine, “is a random idea-generating device along the lines of various surrealist games and devices. Basically, it’s a big map of symbols that you randomly explore (using a four sided D-4 to move north, south, east and west) while creating stories.“
Some technical and curatorial questions raised by Blue, ICE project manager, in case anyone has useful suggestions.
The project is planning a multimedia (DVD/Flash/HTML) presentation of the digital archive they are collecting - representing the oral memories of local Caribbean people.
They have 25 short videos extracted from 45 minute interviews with local people and want to build this into a navigable interface for touchscreen displays in local libraries/museums. They have to build a DVD of these interviews, navigable according to topic/according to interviewee as part of the project plan, and are looking for DVD authors who quote to complete this work (paid contracting).
She’s also currently trying to decide how this material should best be presented as part of the kiosk displays which are to be distributed to local venues. There are a few practical questions which you might have views on. Can they simply run the DVD in a player, driven by a touchscreen? Is it better to buy PCs, with attached touchscreens? Does the content need to be repurposed for this kind of environment? Wonder if anyone on the curiosity list has experience of this kind of deployment, or would know someone. Your suggestions are welcome.
A projector is available on free loan for any future curious installations, if Martin Russ, Chris Rutherford or some other funky electronics person can fix it.
Does that sound like a deal? It’s just blank when you start it up at the moment, as if some kind of CMOS is not booting it properly. None of the buttons work, but it powers up OK.
Its one of these. I’ve looked at it, but I have no idea whatever what to do about it.
This is a project I started but never finished - I’d love to see it work properly!
I’ve got a Hoberman Sphere which with a length of fishing-wire and pully arrangement you can control it’s size. Using a Lego motor and Mindstorms kit I managed to automate it. I can control the size of the sphere via a Java appplication running on a computer and using a Infrared link. Unfortunately, even with a fair amount of gearing, the motor was never really up to it.
The original idea was to sense when someone came near (by camera, passive-infrared, etc) and contract the sphere, like a hedgehog - hence the sphere of fear! If you stood still it would gradually open-up.
I think to get this working we need to get a more powerful mechanism and a way of controlling it from the computer. It would also need a way of sensing how far the sphere is currently expanded - at the moment it simply runs the motor for as preset time known to be sufficient to open or close it.
Chuck Hoberman has created some brilliant expanding structures.