nick p's audio self portrait

What began as an object-based self portrait – based around my love of beer – encountered a code snag and has turned into 75% of a self portrait plus 25% of what I like to think is still a poetic metaphor for drinking. Essentially, the more beers you drink, the more obfuscated your environment becomes.


Infinite thanks for surprisingly complicated workaround provided by Steve Daniels who shows how to turn multiple button presses into unique packets that Arduino can ship out and Processing can then read in via Serial and parse, you can read his solution
here: http://www.hex705.com/arduino-to-processing-multiple-data-point/

DOCUMENTATION:

1. This documentation does not include my brainstorming or ideas in my sketchbook, but i kept a brief journal here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16NEsJiJIdWbDjpeiIWRvecVJ4dvvLwB9DSxGNz_c16w/edit?hl=en&authkey=CKuYwrUG
2. Also, I posted a video of the final stages here, password is mpm27b

Plan is to now get the system to tweet each time a beer's "stolen"…

password is mpm27b

nick p's audio self portrait from nick pagee on Vimeo.

Jessica Porretta, Jessica Witt and Jenny Truong Paper Motors

A "merry-go-round" for models that spins when the motor is plugged in.

Jonathan S' Paper and Motors

My first plan failed so I thought what better to do than make a Derp-snake. I'll update the post later with video (maybe), but instead for now I'll walk through the building of my Derp-snake.

I started out drawing a template and cutting it out.

I folded up each of my cutouts.

Each of the cutouts would compose a derp-link in my derp-snake

I then realized I had to include a motor somewhere and decided to stick it in the head of the derp-snake. A wheel sticks out the bottom to provide propulsion. Oh yeah and the whole thing is made of Honey-Nut Cheerio boxes.

Here's a close up of the wheel out of the bottom of the head.

I hooked up all the links by carefully threading elastics through the links. Magically the links were coated in wax paper. By this point several hours have been put into the derp snake.

And finally after hours of testing the Derp-snake was complete (except for it's elastic tongue taped to it's forehead).

Unfortunately I've yet to take video, but this thing zips along tiled floors pretty good.

Amanda Wood's Papers and Motors

Here is a video of my Papers and Motors Kaleidoscope in action. Ignore the background music, just had some tunes playing on my computer lol.

Nick P's Paper + Motor Assignment

This is my paper + motor assignment. I wanted to make a paper hand that closed and opened, and after much trial and error got it about 75% of the way to where I envisioned. I need to start on the other project so am abandoning this, but please take a moment to view the documentation video below.

Parts:
85% Paper
10% Motor, Motor Shield, Arduino
3% Fishing Line
2% Glue and Staples

Video password: mpm27b

MPM27B - Paper + Motor Control - nickpagee from nick pagee on Vimeo.

This is my paper + motor assignment. I wanted to make a paper hand that closed and opened, and after much trial and error got it about 75% of the way to where I envisioned. I need to start on the other project so am abandoning this, but please take a moment to view the documentation video below.

Papers & Motors

Melissa Palermo & Cristal Sung




We originally had come up with a different concept (there are sketches & prototypes for it, but not posted) that required different motors. We attempted to come up with a concept with what we had (two 12V DC motors and paper). We wanted to to play with the concept of mirrors and how when objects are spinning can become unidentifiable. The mirrors and paper are the same shape, however with the mirrors being static and the paper spinning the viewer cannot tell that they are the same. This is a representation of ourselves and how we don't always see ourselves the way that others see us. The motors worked sporadically, which gave it a nice effect. If we had a shield we would probably program it, so that it would seem random.

Megan S - Paper and Motor

I wanted to use destruction as a form of creation - have something delicate and beautiful ripped apart. I want to look at how things can change forever without taking anything away, just simply rearranging and changing shape. My original idea was to have a 6 foot tissue paper sculpture and have multiple motors roaming the floor tearing it down slowly. Since that was very impractical I figured to scale it down and place it all in a box to frame.

I folded and crushed multicoloured tissue paper and created strands using thread. They were all slightly different lengths and colour combination. I taped them to the top of a cardboard box painted black. I taped it somewhat symmetrically so that one part would not tear more than the others. I attached 2 pipe cleaners covered in sandpaper to a servo and taped the servo to the bottom of the box in the middle of the sculpture.


The sculpture didn't tear or rip or get destroyed when showed in class. However, it did get twisted a bit. I decided that the motor should be re-designed, making it taller so it could catch the tissue paper closer to the top of the box and add razors to help with the shredding of the tissue paper. I couldn't find razors that would be usable for this project so I attached tacks to the sandpaper, hoping that it would catch and tear the tissue paper.

It worked a lot better than the original design. It was a lot more tangled and a few pieces of tissue paper fell off. The tacks worked really well in catching the paper and twisting it more than just the sandpaper, but it didn't rip any. I let it run for about 5 minutes and the longer it was running, the more tangled it become. I think that if I kept it running for even longer, more pieces would fall and the shape of the sculpture would be irreversible which is what I wanted to do in the first place.

Papers and Motors By: Kathryn Barrett & Christine Szapiel

Inspired by David Hofos' diorama installations at the MOCCA, we decided to incorporate our DC motors into a miniature winter wonderland. Based on the requirements, our project (from what is visible) is 100% made out different types of paper (cardboard, tissue paper, transparencies, regular paper, construction paper, paper towel andwax paper). We created the skater's movement by attaching a magnet to the bottom of the skater which corresponded with another magnet underneath the rink. This corresponding magnet was attached to the edge of a blank CD which spun with the help of a DC motor (therefore creating a circular "track" for the skater to skate on).

Documentation:

We were also feeling a bit ambitious and tried to incorporate a second motor which would blow snow around in the scene. We attached a little plastic fan to the motor and placed it at the top of the box. We noticed that by leaving the little bits of snow just lying around on the floor of the box, the fan was not able to pick them up and blow them all around (they just sort of kept lightly scattering). So we incorporated a funnel right beside the motor, where we could manually drop snow into. It didn't work as well as we thought... and here's the conclusion:

Documentation:

Konstantino K's Paper & Motors: Chaos Box

Update: Above is the second iteration of the "Chaos Box." The original post and documentation can still be found below.

There's often a degree of complexity in my thinking when faced with such a broad restraint as this Paper & Motors project. In the early planning stages I thought more about the mechanics of how a motor works and how its rotating motion can be converted rather than clear concepts. Needless to say, this slowed down the entire process quite a bit.

Once my mind was wrapped around the technical side of things, I thought of creating a kinetic board of "pixels." I would have multicoloured squares of paper lined up together in a grid and they would individually move up and down at different times, creating a sort of "wave of pixels." There were some challenges in planning this: the most obvious approach would be to get some sort of motor-based push and pull system for every individual rectangle. That would be time consuming and expensive. The other challenge was actually converting a rotating motion to a predictable up and down pattern.

Although I stayed locked on that idea for a while I eventually scrapped in and went back to the basics. A motor is used to make things rotate primarily, so I formed a new idea around the concept of a fan. A fan would be entrapped inside an enclosed box with confetti. The top of the box would be transparent so you could see inside, and the fan would blow the confetti around wildly. I've since dubbed it the "chaos box."

As you can see in the picture, the concept is relatively simple: a fan sits inside a wall of the box, confetti (cut up strips of construction paper) sit on the inside, and a hole is cut at the top of the box (filled in with saran wrap). You might also notice that the box seems shoddily constructed and taped together -- I'll explain this later.

I decided to add in some theory to the concept as well, drawing out a 26-space grid (really 25 with one box divided in half) on the floor of the box. In each of the spaces was a letter of the alphabet from A to Z. The idea was that the confetti (really just small pieces of paper) would land on the spaces of the grid and "write" like an Ouija board. My thinking was that it is common to write on paper, but what if paper were to write on itself? There was some issues with this concept, however. Once implemented, there were quite a few pieces of confetti (100 - 200 bits) needed to get the piece to function well, which made it difficult to really have the confetti land on distinct letters. It was easy for many bits to bunch up on one letter, and in general there was no sort of clear "communication" happening.

To comment on some of the flaws of the piece, I constructed the box out of bristol board which may have been one problem early on. The box has the potential to be strong, but having the relatively heavy motor sit inside one of the walls is certainly not structurally sound. The first step to making this work better might be to build the box out of stronger paper material, or perhaps to create some sort of mount more appropriate for the weight of the motor.

The next issue lies in the fan and its relationship to the confetti. I constructed the fan out of one solid piece of bristol board as well, measuring 45 degree angles to distance each blade. Once cut out I bent in each blade so that they would push the air forward. To keep the blades on the motor, I created a "rubberband sandwich" tip with two pieces of rubberband around a circular sheet of bristol board. The fan span quite quickly but didn't push out wind particularly strong.

This became an issue when I realized the confetti was too heavy. Although construction paper was great for making many multicoloured pieces of confetti, the material is also rather heavy. The fan does blow around some of the bits, but has a relatively short range. In general, there was a lack of "chaos" that I was hoping to create inside this box.

Because these elements didn't come together as I expected they would, I didn't seal the box together in order to tweak it later. (This would explain the shoddily taped construction). To improve upon my design, I plan to do the following:

• Make a sturdier box or construct a better fan mount
• Use a more solidly constructed fan, such as those used to cool down CPUs
• Use lighter confetti, perhaps out of the light coloured paper used in gift bags

Overall the experience did teach me quite a bit about physics and motor mechanics. I'll certainly be applying this knowledge in version 2, which I will post about later.

Winnie K's Paper and Motor: Paper Train

For my paper and motor assignment I decided to create a train running on some train tracks. The train is simply pulled by a piece of string attached to the motor and as the motor turns, the train moves forward. Currently what I have created is still in its prototype stages. I have a better way of incorporating the motors and will have that idea ready the week back from reading week.

I have a video of it here: Paper Train

Paper and motor project

Nancy and Shae

This project was inspired by the artist Peter Callesen.  We put a different spin on his technique and concentrated on the additive of paper rather than subtractive.  The spinning wheel represents the continuous motion of energy weather it be from the earth or from within our bodies such as energy points of our chakras.  

Linda L, Betty C, Lilian C - Paper & Motor

The viewer had to walk up to the box and peek inside the hole to see a spinning flower with lights inside.

Presentation


Work Process

Chloe M and Emily H; Paper Motors

For our Paper and Motors project, Em and i decided to work with birds and trying to create a fluid flapping motion. We also made a short video clip of clouds to project onto them. We used a simple system of motors and fishing wire to mechanize the wings which for the most part worked. We'd like to improve the mobility of the wings seeing as the fishing wire gets tangled around itself over time .

Alex J and Samar H's BeetleBot in the City

Me and Samar Hejazi made a beetle bot for our Paper and Motors project. He uses switches, attached to his antennae, to reverse the directions of the motors that propel him forward. This creates 'object avoidance' behaviour.

We have built a mini-city that lights up for him to live in. In future, we would like to make some of these lights motion-actived by our beetle as he moves around, and we would like to have little LEDs on him as well.

Connors' Paper Motor Project: The Sentry Gun

Inspired by the Level 1 Sentry Gun from the video game Team Fortress 2, I created a replica sentry gun that can rotate on the x axis. It is constructed of cardboard and rubber cement glue, and the motor is controlled using an arduino motoshield.

Connors' Computer-less Algorithm

Kathryn's Computerless Algorithm

An algorithm based on observation - Shelving books in alphabetical order

By: Kathryn Barrett

Special thanks to Christine!

int step one = are all your books taken off the shelf in order to be organized?

int step two = does the first bookyou pick up have an author whose last name starts with the letter "a"?

int step three = does the second book you pick up have an author whose last name starts with the same letter as the first book you placed?

int step four = are there more books to be shelved?

call int step one

if true, continue to step two

else, take books off shelf until int step one is true

call int step two

if true, place the book so the spine is vertical on the far left side of the shelf and continue to int step three

else, place the book so the spine is vertical in a location on the shelf approximate to the letters in the alphabet starting from left to right and continue to int step three

call int step three

if true, place the book so the spine is vertical di

rectly next to your first book and continue to int step four

else, place the book so the spine is vertical in a location on the shelf approximate to the letters in the alphabet starting from left to right and continue to int step four

call int step four

if true, repeat step two followed by step three until

else, your books are shelved in alphabetical order

Christine Szapiel's Computerless Algorithm

My algorithm consisted of a simple extension cable. I decided to use a common household item to display how it can be used in more ways than one. The algorithm takes you through a couple circumstances where the computer charging cable will not reach the outlet-causing you to use an extension cable. Although, the cable is broken so to pass time, the user is challenged to put this item to a new, creative use.

.. In lamest terms, the purpose was to find a use for an item in a way that it is not normally used.

To improve this activity, I could potentially make it more engaging within an installation setting by placing a simple object in a space with hidden cameras documenting how participants will use this object- other than it's obvious purposes..each participant would be given 5 minutes to use the item in whatever ways they could come up with- however, they would be unaware of the purpose until their 5 minutes were complete.

..To simply put participants in a space, unaware of what to do- with a simple object in the middle of the room.. to see what responses are received with little instruction.

Thank you to Kathryn Barrett for participating!

Christine Szapiel

Kalytta's TIC TAC ALGORITHM

//variables

tictacs;

breath;

void setup {

check.breath ();

eat ();

}

void check.breath () {

put hand to face;

breath.out;

smell;

if (breath [less than] fine)

take out (tictacs);

else if (breath = fine)

take out (tictacs) //just in case

else if (breath = minty fresh)

stop; //do not OD on tictacs

}

void take out (tictacs) {

container (pop.top);

container (tip; angle until [less than] 3 fall out);

eat (tictacs);

}

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Documentation/Notes:

*photograph by Cristal Sung

My computerless algorithm had a problem right from the start. When Lilian read the "put hand to face" line, she put her hand not in front of her mouth (to check her breath) but to her cheek. Even though this line of code was under the "check breath" section, she did not think to put her hand in front of her mouth.
Other than that, it was smooth sailing. Without even needing to read part of the code, she had already popped the top of the Tic Tac container. Even though this is a simple action, it was tough to break down the little things that we do unconsciously without thinking.

Thanks goes out to Lilian for participating! :)

Jessica Porretta's Computerless Algorithm

My computerless algorithm was "how to organize/alphabetize CDs"