Mike's Brain

Who says power tools and fireworks don’t mix?

Mike — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:45:03 +0000

I was getting set up to take pictures of the kids with sparklers, and was showing them how to bend the sparkler handle so you can spin them like a pinwheel.

Hmmm… Inspiration hits with a mental “UUUEEGGHH?!?!” (that’s the Tim Allen Home Improvement sound) — What about attaching the sparkler to the end of a power drill?

Instead of putting the sparkler in the drill jaws the same way you’d put in a regular bit, I put the sparkler handle in sideways – it’s pretty malleable, and bends when the jaws tighten.

100kGarages

Mike — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:41:10 +0000

Interesting idea — crowds sourcing the physcial part of digital fabrication.

www.100kgarages.com

“It has been the risk-takers, the doers, the Makers of things – some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.” Barak Obama, Inaugural Speech 1/2009

GeckoDrive Servo/Stepper Motor FAQs

Mike — Mon, 11 May 2009 06:40:05 +0000

Lot’s of good general information about stepper and servro motors… What are the advantages/disadvantages between steppers and servos? Should I use servos or steppers in my machine? Torque & micro/full stepping?

geckodrive.com/faq.aspx?n=783775

Bruce Sterling: Generative Art and Design

Mike — Fri, 08 May 2009 02:34:20 +0000

Bruce Sterling workshop at Fabrica entitled “Generative Art and Design: Critical Assessments”

www.fabrica.it/workshops/sterling_videos.html

Also available via Google video: video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3640928883631876365

Enrico Dini: Large Scale (6m x 6m x 1m) 3D Printing

Mike — Thu, 07 May 2009 16:21:33 +0000

Large scale 3D printing using sand and epoxy resin. The results resemble sandstone, with strength comparable to reinforced concrete. The process sounds simular to the way Zcorp printers work, though with a different scale & resolutions (25 DPI).

www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/217-3D-printing-buildings-interview-with-Enrico-Dini-of-D_Shape.html

Rapid Prototyping and Mathematical Art

Mike — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:25:25 +0000

Talk given to the University of Waterloo Computer Science Club by Craig S. Kaplan — video and slides. “Quick tour of technologies, techniques and applications for computer-aided manufacturing in 2D and 3D”. Lot’s of good pictures of prominent artists in the area, examples of both additive and subtractive processes.

csclub.uwaterloo.ca/media/Rapid Prototyping and Mathematical Art

Rheoscopic Resources

Mike — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:43:43 +0000

Rheoscopic fluids allow you to current flows — think of a bottle of pearlescent shampoo.

Paul Matisse created a number of Kalliroscopes, which use rheoscopic fluid to display fluid flow. Info on Matisses’s work, and has rheoscopic fluid for sale.

www.kalliroscope.com (Warning – horrible Java menus!)

Another source - Pearl Swirl Rheoscopic Concentrate from Steve Spangler Science

Arduino I2C

Mike — Tue, 05 May 2009 06:30:27 +0000

Arduino Expansion I/O via I2C

www.neufeld.newton.ks.us/electronics/?p=241

Arduino and the Two-Wire Interface (TWI/I2C) Including A Short Didactic Parenthetical On Making TWI Work On An Arduino Mini

www.nearfuturelaboratory.com/2007/01/11/arduino-and-twi/

Control of Stepping Motors – A Tutorial

Mike — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:57:52 +0000

A little old, but lots of good information.

“This tutorial covers the basic principles of stepping motors and stepping motor control systems, including both the physics of steppers, the electronics of the basic control systems, and software architectures appropriate for motor control.”

www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/step/

Smoothstep interpolation for motion control

Mike — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 23:06:12 +0000

“Adding little smoothness to all kinds of movement, be it actual movement of the camera, some object, fading of lights, fading in and out etc, makes things much more enjoyable to watch. Sharp movements and changes are jarring and should be avoided.

danthompsonsblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/smoothstep-interpolation-with-arduino.html
sol.gfxile.net/interpolation/index.html

For example, X ranges between points A and B in N steps.

With linear interpolation:

for (i = 0; i < N; i++)
{
v = i / N;
X = (A * v) + (B * (1 – v));
}

With smoothing:

#define SMOOTHSTEP(x) ((x) * (x) * (3 – 2 * (x)))
for (i = 0; i < N; i++)
{
v = i / N;
v = SMOOTHSTEP(v);
X = (A * v) + (B * (1 – v));
}