The Anticipator: now with power indicator, LED bezels and several layers of what I hope will be waterproof spray...

I’ve tarted up The Anticipator a bit to hopefully improve its usability – bezels for the main series of LEDs and also a power indicator. We’ll be using it no matter the weather, so I’ve also given it a few coats of waterproofing. (Not that I’m feeling pessimistic at all, but I’ve also given myself a new waterproof coat too!)

I’ve put together a first draft of the GPS zones I’ll be using over the school field to represent the presence of our mysterious noise-making object and tomorrow I’ll be in Leicester giving it a test run.

School field with GPS zones overlaid

Oh, and we’ll also be testing the field with a metal detector, just to make sure we don’t get any derailing surprises on Wednesday next week when we do it with 50 kids watching!

Toy mp3 player, soon to be more with light and sound than the manufacturer anticipated!

We’ll be converting one of these toy mp3 players so that the sound it makes is controlled and distorted by light.

Circuit bend for It’s a Geek’s World. from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

The mod is pretty simple – so don’t worry if you’ve never soldered before – and as you can see from the video above the results are very engrossing. The kits come with earphones, so you can even play with them for as long as you like without risking familial discord! Alternatively… there’ll be another workshop where you can make your own audio amp. Yeah!

We'll switch over a couple of components to make the toy sensitive to light.

The workshop costs £3.50 and at the end of it you’ll have your very own bleepy chirpy tinkly thing to keep.
To reserve your place in advance you need to register on the It’s a Geek’s World website and then you can sign up for the different activities. There will also be a few places available to snap up on the day. My workshop runs at 10:15, 12:15 and 3:15.

The website is mostly booking system and doesn’t really show much of what will be going on, but take it from me: if you like gadgets, robots, and/or electronic noise then this is the place to be.

There are several workshops on offer throughout the day, ranging from learning to solder through to making a Beat Box sequencer with Mr Underwood. Something for everyone!

Nottinghack will be there with Drawdio kits. We had a fab evening when they came to fizzPOP for a Drawdio workshop, so that’s also tried, tested and approved!

We’re not neglecting the blinky light side of things either – there will be workshops for making these colour-changing boxes and a few other LED treats too.

Colour-changing light box

As well as the workshops there will be people from Curious Minds (they of the Star Wars Force Trainer), oomlout, RobotBits and others. Expect interesting things to see, touch and interact with.

Others from fizzPOP will of course be there too, so come along and say hi – we’ll say hi back if we can hear you over all the bleeping noises!

A very interesting space in Balsall Heath with traces all over the place of the printing company that operated from the site for a hundred years or so until about 18 months ago (iirc).

It’s currently in the process of being re-purposed as a studio and workshop complex for makers of all sorts, including gallery space and a café. Get in touch with them if you’re interested in finding out more, renting some space or otherwise supporting the project.

It’s a massive site and I spent about 3 hours there looking around on Saturday. Here’s a slideshow of a few of my photos:

As an extra tool for us to use in our investigation into the unseen, I constructed an Arduino-based electromotive force (emf) detector. I’ve made breadboard versions of this before, but now it was time to build something a little more permanent.

barebones Arduino, 10 LEDs and a plastic case from a pound shop screw set

The LEDs light up in proportion to the strength of electromagnetic field detected. Since electrical currents are intrinsically linked with magnetic fields (can’t quite remember my A-level Physics) placing the antenna near to power sockets and electrical items light up some of the LEDs.

4-way gang lights 'em up

bing

The microwave seems reassuringly well shielded:

But my clock radio and bedside lamp are a tad alarming!

It’s very interesting hunting around the room for different effects. Orientation of the antenna changes the number of lit LEDs, as does switching things on and off. I’m curious to see how the detector responds to big classroom equipment such as smartboards and projectors, but of course the main point is observing how the children respond to being able to visualise things they wouldn’t otherwise be aware of.

The doings will kick off with me coming to the school asking for help in locating the source of a strange sound. I’m not much of a sound engineer, but when my tummy started gurgling enthusiastically after a breakfast of cold pizza this morning I grabbed my binaural mics, a digital voice recorder and the opportunity to see what would happen if I manipulated the sound a bit.

Here’s a gurgle amplified, noise removal-ed, slowed down, lowered in pitch and then overlaid with slightly off-set versions of itself.

Note to self: must make more notes to self so I can reproduce the sequence of applied effects.

Because it wasn’t a genuine controller, it had 5 wires instead of 4 and the colours didn’t match with the tutorials [windmeadow] [TodBot Bionic Arduino class 4, pdf] I could find online.

I had to do a bit of experimentation to find out what went where. Recorded here in case it helps someone and for when, inevitably, I try and do it again in a few months’ time…

Bad photo of something I'm very pleased to have got working :)

Wires

So, not only are there 5 wires instead of 4, but the colour coding is very different too. Opening up the case to the nunchuk and looking at the PCB shows some convenient labels:

GND – brown
SDA – red
SCC – yellow
VDD – blue
also
J1 (seems to be connected to VDD) – white

I managed to break off the white wire at the PCB whilst I was prising off the hot melt glue to look at the labels, and the following worked without re-connecting it…

Code

This post on the Arduino forum shows edits to make to Todbot NunchuckPrint sketch in order to get it to work for third party controllers.

Build

After testing on a breadboard, I soldered the wires to some headers for ease of use later.
With the above code red goes to Analogue 4 and yellow goes to Analogue 5. (Either connect the other two wires to GND and 5V pins, or the code allows for blue to Analogue 3 and brown to Analogue 2.)

And then…

Haven’t quite figured out what I’m going to do with this yet!

Jumping straight in to planning the next one for the 29th though, so here’s a simple slideshow of my photos and video on the basis that it’ll tell you as much as any words I can put together right now will…

A big thank you to everyone to contributed and took part.

Working together with the BARG network and a handful of more seasoned games designers based in London, we’ve put together an afternoon of games and activities for this Sunday that is intended to serve as an introduction to pervasive games.

There are more details about the event and what will be on offer on the BARG website, but basically what you need to know is that it’s free, will run from 2-4 (info desk open from 1:30) and it’s going to be great fun!

As well as the project management side of coordinating a team of eleven across different cities and also liaising with the venue, it’s been interesting spotting where little arty bits have come into it.

The main game of the afternoon, Bull Hunt, needed the construction of a bull’s head mask. A fairly obviously arty activity and one I quite enjoyed doing – I was working quite closely from photos of the bull sculpture outside the BullRing in Birmingham city centre and it was good to have to think in a sculptural way again.

Anyway, you know me, so the really interesting part came last Tuesday when it got it’s first public outing…

Sat with it next to me on one of the sofas in the mac, I found myself constantly talking to strangers. People asking what it was for, spotting what it was modelled on, asking how it was made. There was a fab ‘WOW!’ from a little girl too!

There were also some good conversations with members of staff – we’ve been holding various meetings in the building and I’ve been making sure I speak to the floor managers etc wherever possible. I love the way that novelty objects can so easily mediate interactions.

So, reaction to the bull as a mask was good, but reaction to it as a costume with someone inside it was even better! Thanks to Pete, Ant and Libby for all being game to give it a go.

We got some good photographs and also made a quick video to promote the game:

Bull on a bike.

Have you seen this bull? from BARG on Vimeo.

I generally struggle to find licence free music to use as backing for the videos I make, sites like opsound tending to be a bit too electronic for my purposes. This time however I came across this collection from Kevin MacLeod. Short pieces in different styles just right for testing your resolve in editing down your footage to a minute or two!

Throughout the process of putting this event together it’s also been interesting (sorry I keep using that word, but I wouldn’t want to get stuff written down if it wasn’t!) looking at how I’ve been looking at the space. The mac recently underwent a huge renovation project to the extent that it’s basically a new environment, significantly different to what it was like before. However, I’ve only ever seen the new mac through the eyes of someone planning an event there. What space would be good for what sort of activity? How are people moving through this area? What are the acoustics like here? Where can I put 60 helium balloons and a trestle table?

I’ve been at the mac loads now, but never once stopped to look at the art in the galleries or to check what’s on at the cinema! Different. Eyes.

Another month to go (we’re doing a second event on the 29th of August) and then we’ll see what it looks like after that. I suspect it’ll be another area filled in on the “Own this City” map I’m slowly constructing of places in Birmingham I feel I have some sort of ownership over after having played games there.

We’ve been doing free-style hack sessions for over a year now and we’ve also run a fair number of workshops and events (Such as Howduino and Theremin Day) on specific areas. We’ve been paying attention and, whereas the atmosphere at the events we run is absolutely fantastic, it’s not sustainable for us to run things at this level on more than an occasional basis. We can however incorporate elements of the big events into the little things we do every fortnight.

Right back in the beginning we pondered on the importance of shared goals and working as a group. We’ve recently returned to this with themed sessions – Hack a Toy and Processing Anonymous being two examples.

Starting on Wednesday the 18th of August we’ll be experimenting with themed hacksessions on a more formalised basis. You’re still welcome to come along and work on individual projects if you like, but the steering group and other members of fizzPOP will be taking it in turns to initiate and coordinate clusters of activities around particular themes. It’s really interesting watching theses themes get negotiated online as people discuss what skills they can share and also what skills they would like to acquire.

This Wednesday the theme will be DIY Arduino – home-made versions of the Arduino board that are more minimal, less expensive, or simply do a specific job – and it is I who has been herding the cats. There are a range of different interests and skill levels at fizzPOP (all are welcome!) but several common focal points seem to have emerged in the online discussion:

• building a barebones arduino board, either on stripboard or breadboard
• burning the bootloader using ArduinoISP and building daughterboards to make this easier
• designing and building low power variants
• and using the barebones board as a case study for learning about PCB design

Since there’s a bunch of us interested in building our own modules, I’ve been able to buy a load of components in for a lower price than compared to smaller quantities. I’ll be selling components for a bare bones Arduino (NB, it really is just the basics!) for £4.50.

This kit of components (plus battery connector) will be available for £4.50

This is significantly cheaper than the £25 or so you’ll pay for the full-blown board and, as an artist, it’s what makes multiples and building things like the sonar goggles possible in my work.

So, if you’ve dabbled with Arduino before and are looking to take things to the next level, or perhaps you’ve not yet dipped a toe in because you’ve found the cost prohibitively expensive, than this is the session for you. It won’t be a formal, led workshop, but there will be a room full of people applying their brains to related challenges and with assorted relevant kit etc. Think of it as being in a room with 20 mentors.

There is more information on the fizzPOP website:
http://www.fizzpop.org.uk/hacksessions/themed-hacksessions-and-diy-arduino/
http://www.fizzpop.org.uk/hacksessions/hack-session-wednesday-18th-august/
and a sign-up page on the wiki:
http://wiki.fizzpop.org.uk/18-08-10_Hack_Session

I’d rescued a load of the 555 chips out of some junked circuitboards, so when I saw this instructable for fireflies in a jar I thought I’d give it a go. (This page was also useful, as was this datasheet because I could only get a 4033 not a 4026 – pin 14 to ground people, pin 14 to ground.)

When the parts came the 1500uF capacitors were HUGE, so I thought I’d run with that rather than trying to make wires and parts invisible.

Here’s what I ended up with instead of fireflies:

Each glow bug is made out of - and only of - the components requred for that part of the circuit. All parts are functional.

After trawling some charity shops and finally finding a couple of glass jars, I squeezed in five bugs, the circuitry and some sand donated by a friend.

Making it really difficult to photograph in the process!

Battery and circuit embedded in the lid. Who wants a laser cutter? I want a laser cutter.

The capacitors are a nice way to get the LEDs to fade in and out. I’m using a 330 ohm resistor to get that fade time. (I’m also using a 220k resistor as R2 in the timer circuit to give an interval of about 14 seconds between changes.

Here’s some not great video that sort of shows the effect:

Untitled from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Rest assured they’re pretty awesome when seen with your own eyes, ‘cos eyes are amazing.