love and logo

Hello!

This week I tried to do a bit more in Procesing, and I made some stuff. First thing that I did was make a logo. This came as a part for an idea for a business card and new website. The idea included a style for the font type and style of the logo.

The logo was first a flat image like this:

But when I made the sketch, the sketch lines made me think I could probably make this something interesting in processing, and probably something cool for on a website. So after a day (Yup it really took that long! I got really bad in processing...) I created this:

It is essentially an image with a set of dots moving over it. When they don't encounter a white pixel it continues and shows the pixel in the colour that it finds. So this is how it builds up to the full image. CLick to start it over again.

Next I will probably let the dots start and take the first colour it finds and then check if the next pixel doesn't change to much. This way you can probably use this sketch with other images as photos.

I also continued with Love. After experimenting a lot with the gravitation between the two dots I started over. It was getting to complicated so now it is very simple, but it is a bit closer then when I first made it.

When you click the sketch the dots and their connection is shown. here you can see that only 2 dots are connected and attract only each other. I really like this effect and I hope that I can develop it further into the sketch that I want it to be.

I also continued a bit with my BEAM bot. I find that it only moves when it is in bright sunlight, and this is probably because the FLED already works when there is 0.7V which is just to little for my motor. Apparently there is a Voltage checker which lets a current flow when there is 2.5V but it is a bit expensive. (Just 1.50 Euro but I expected it a bit more towared the 50 Cents.)

This voltage checker can let the capacitor build the voltage and let it go so that even when the light isn't that bright the engine will still work a bit.

But luckily next weekend I get my first salary So Then I can buy it + I can buy a new Hard drive!!!! which will make it possible for me to use the movies that I made with my HD cam and also lets me make new movies!!!! yeah!!! :) Finally I can show some things in a new light :).

So look forward to the next week!

I will :)

cheers,

Frank

Solar Engine

So,...

I ordered some components to make a Solar engine which can be used in a BEAM bot. I wanted to have a solar cell, and I wanted to have all the components ready to make a Solar engine. This so I can experiment later with components that I will scavenge from old electronics.

I finally got it (actually I got them pretty quickly..) and I put all the components on my breadboard right away.

And it works! First I had some troubles finding out how to put the FLED (Flashing LED) because it worked both ways :). But finally after some research I found out that it was placed the right way on the first time, so yay me! :).

I only used it in my room so far and I found out that it only works when it is exposed to direct sunlight. This is behind a window. This gave me the idea to create a sun chime, that reacts to the sunlight instead of a wind chime that reacts to the wind. But I need to see how I can best do this.

Also a room mate right away thought it might be useful in his window garden, because the more the sun shines, the more the plants need water. So if this thing pumps water when the sun shines, the plants will be taken care of! :) I need to see If this is possible to do! :) for my own mint plant that still isn't really doing well..

The 'Love' processing sketch is coming along bit by bit. Last time I worked on it I found out that I really need to work out how to create a good gravity system. but I have some good ideas so hopefully I can make that this weekend. And then I can post a little sketch with 2 points. which will later evolve into a bigger system.

Take care, have a nice weekend and see you next week!

frank

Back again!

Soo,... It's been a long time now since my last post, 3 to 4 weeks i guess..

There are a couple of reasons for this: First one is that I'm working on a processing sketch that I wanted to finish before showing or uploading it. It is a continuation of the sketches that I showed earlier but Now with an interaction between the points when they come close to each other. The sketch is called "Love" and it is supposed to be a kind of dance between the points.

Here I have some sketches of the the notes and calculations I made so far:

It is a nice process to keep track of and I hope that I will finish it soon and maybe develop it further.

Another reason for not having posted anything is that I didn't have that much time anymore, I found a job! I now work in the storage of IKEA in the early morning, so I still have time in the afternoon to do stuff. But I find that or I'm to tired to really work on it, or the day is just to short to do everything I'd like to do. But there is a good side on this, I make some money! making my budget a bit bigger and hopefully allowing me to do a bit more awesome stuff :).

And the last, but certainly not least, reason is Zsennye. Zsennye is a small village in Hungary where there is an annual design workshop. And I was there, together with Aurora and Tine, a friend of Aurora. It was a week long and filled with lunch, lectures and time to work on a design assignment together with your team.
I was in a group called Functure and we were trying to design intelligent furniture. Either the design or the product itself is intelligent, it didn't matter. And it was a lot of fun! Our mentor was Tibor Szentpéteri a designer which was now designing for about 40 years in Hungary and had a lot of experience and knowledge. It was really interesting to talk with him about the history of design and also how it is now and a little bit about where it might be going.

A couple of thing followed from this workshop, firstly I got some inspiration back And above all: motivation to start on my graduation project, which I was kind of lacking in...

Tibor had a book with him, actually a lot of them (I neeeeeeeed more books, boooks are awesome!!!), and one of them was a book that I already wanted to buy, Digital by Design by Troika. It contains all sorts of awesome projects and products. And one of them are the Helioforms:

These are small robots that react on light and can light some LEDs when it is dark. Maybe not that amazing, but it is done with just a couple of simple electronical elements. They are part of BEAM robots. And strangely enough I already knew these robots, when I was about 12 years old I saw a documentary about robots on Discovery Channel and this was a small part of it. I never found it again, but now I saw it and found it finally! :)

Okay, so of course now I want to make them too. So I already scrambled a bit and I found two capacitors and one transistor, So I hope I can use them. I also got my housemates lighting struck computer, to get more components.

 I'm thinking of some robots to make, but more importantly I think I can make a small sungreeter in a very low cost way, instead of using Arduino. So I hope I can make it and then create cooler things with these robot like things...
I also already bought a new light from HEMA which uses LED! and can give me a better look at the components, hopefully.

The last, or one of the last, good things from Zsennye is this:

 It was an experiment (I think) of one of the other groups in a psychological or philosophical way. But it uses a shell of a snail and some dead plants to create a new kind of snail. And I really like it, I think I can make this into a BEAM bot :). I hope :)

Anyway, this is enough for now,

until next time!

frank