!blog - corey menscher

So my Lantronix XPort device is now soldered to a breakout board, and I am communicating with it via serial, web, and telnet. My biggest hurdle was getting the XPort to talk to my usb-to-serial board. I had the TX/RX pins flipped. I used my arduino to test it out, and apparently the labelled TX/RX pins become their opposites when the ATMEGA chip is removed.  Whodathunkit? Once I figured that out, though, it was relatively smooth sailing. Well, it also took me a while to figure out that Lantronix hardwired the telnet port to be 9999 instead of the standard 23.  But then it turned out that this is just the config port, and you CAN change it via the “endpoint configuration” field.  So I made it use port 23 after all.

One thing that has come in handy is that Apple has equipped all of their macs with auto-sensing ethernet ports. What this means is that any ethernet cable can be used to connect a mac directly to any ethernet device…no crossover cable is needed. So instead of waiting for ITS to give me an authorized IP address, I created a subnet between my ethernet jack and the XPort so they can talk to one another. The XPort can’t see the internet in this configuration, but it’s fine for initial testing and development. I am going to explore the possibility of using Internet Connection Sharing to make things even easier on me. If the XPort can use my mac’s wireless connection to talk to the internet, I won’t be limited to the few RJ-45 jacks we have here on the floor.

Yesterday I presented on the topic of Abiogenic Petroleum Origin in my Sustainable Energy class. One of our textbooks is titled “The Bottomless Well”, and while it has nothing to do with abiotic oil, it reminded me of the topic.

The generally accepted model of “fossil fuels” states that oil comes from the fossilized remains of organic matter (plants and animals) sitting within sedimentary layers of rock that have been subjected to geologic forces over millions of years. But the theory of Abiogenic Oil Generation postulates that the creation of petroleum deposits dates back to the formation of the earth itself. The hydrocarbons already existed within the solar system, and instead of vaporizing into space, were subsumed into the earth’s mantle. It’s kind of a “crackpot” theory in most circles, but there is some traction. Much of the science is valid. But it will be a very long time until we can determine its true viability, as the depths at which the abiotic oil deposits are supposed to exist are over 150km deep. The deepest we can currently drill (and only for isolated projects) is about 6km!!

This is my creation for our first assignment in Networked Objects. It’s a shaker using lentil beans, a plastic container, vibration sensors, and an arduino mini + breadboard. Shaking the device triggers an animation of my macbook’s desktop shaking. It’s just an 11 frame loop of screenshots I altered to make it look like it’s shaking. The desktop itself does not shake. The effect is pretty good when using Processing’s “present” runtime mode.

Most of the issues I encountered were related to the vibration sensors I purchased from Parallax.com. These are plastic piezoelectric sensors. I am using 5.1v zener diodes to filter the voltage spikes generated by the piezos. A 1MΩ resistor pulls the input pin to ground, giving me a nice range to work with. It tooks a while (and a lot of bugging Tim Twyllman) to figure out how to get useful values out of the sensors, but I think the final result is prett good.

This was also my first experience with an Arduino Mini. It’s an amazing little device, but I did not own a USB-to-serial breakout board and had to borrow one. The positive is that the whole device fits on a small breadboard that is adhered to the container’s top…but it sure doesn’t leave a lot of room to insall components. It may be hard to see from the video, but the side with the analog inputs is a mess of zener diodes and resistors. I had to be creative with positioning the connections, as well as figuring out good places to connect the sensors to ground. But in the end, it works pretty well!

So I got some amazing responses on my project. Everyone loved it, especially kids. Most of the reactions revolved around the stunning nature of viewing in infinite number of LEDs, but it was all positive.

The best feedback I got, however, was the fact that there was a short line to view my piece when the floor started to get crowded. Most viewers figured out the interactivity pretty quickly, but I usually had to explain it to them once. If I were to tweak the piece at all, I would try to make the touch sensors a bit more obvious. One of my original ideas was to cut the paper touch pads in the shape of a hand, but I decided against. In hindsight I think it would have made the interaction obvious, as most people tried using just their fingers to press on the rubber nubs, rather than using their whole hands.

I feel honored to have been part of the show. Here are some photos of the end result, as well as some of people viewing the piece…

Infinity Mirrored Room - LEDs Forever Photoset on Flickr

As previously promised, here’s a video of the The Naked Pixel in its flesh-colored glory…

Here are some videos from the awesome NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression)/Algorithmic Composition show last night. It was great to see the projects I’ve watched being built all semester come to fruition. Excellent work everyone!

Gian Pablo Villamil plays his Arduino synth…

Rory Nugent plays “Canon in Robot Major”…

Lesley Flanigan plays the “Speaker Synth”…

Rui Pereira plays the “Velodrum”…

“Infinity Mirrored Room - LEDs Forever” is complete! Not only that, but I made it into the 2007 Winter Show! I’m so psyched. It’s quite an honor to have a project from a foundation course accepted into the show. I just hope people like it! Here’s a video of the final product…

It’s taken me a while to get this up on blip.tv, but here’s our video assignment from a few weeks ago, “Park Chase”. The audio needs to be cleaned up in a few spots, but that’s it. Enjoy…

For my final assignment, I decided to do another audio collage using a microphone and M-Audio recorder. I spent half the day walking around and riding the subway. Around 4:45pm I wandered into the Natural History Museum, and found a goldmine of audio sweetness. So here is “Natural History”

The Naked Pixel is a Processing application that uses a Color Kinetics iColor Tile programmable RGB LED panel, just like my PComp Final. Instead of being built into a structure, however, this time it is hanging on a wall. I used Daniel Shiffman’s UDP library to talk send color information to the iColor Tile, as well as a Macbook Pro’s built-in iSight camera.

The iColor Tile is a “Naked Pixel”. It acts as a single physical 24″ x 24″ pixel of uniform color. The Naked Pixel sequentially displays an individual pixel of somewhat risque images of women and men in various states of undress. Each pixel’s color is displayed for about a second before Processing moves onto the next. This creates a varying pattern of colors that cycle in a beautiful and pleasing sequence. However, the pixel itself can be undressed. By turning out the lights, the host computer’s iSight camera detects the lack of light and “strips” the pixel of its own color. The Naked Pixel goes to Black & White, and the pixel’s most basic element…the binary representation of its color…is displayed instead.

This piece explores the boundaries of social norms. What is acceptable to view in public? Why is it generally taboo to hang large images of naked people just anywhere, whereas we can view the individual colors that comprise the very same images individually over time? Is the Naked Pixel offensive in some way? And why isn’t “undressing” the pixel unacceptable as well?

I’ll post pictures of the project running soon, but in the meantime, here’s the code!