i have been thinking about building this throughout last year, and well i never really had the time due to so many other projects. i have archives of sketches in my schoolbooks starting with complicated cable and spring designs to even using pneumatics. but i arrived at a somewhat simple conclusion. i cant release much detail about this project since i haven't yet patented it. hence the poor quality lomo photo. simply what it is, is a new design of skateboard steering, using wheels individual instead of straight axle steering. the idea was to have better handling and it defiantly dose just that. i have never been much of a skater, actually i couldn't do it to save my life. so i had to teach myself how to ride my own skateboard, and i must say, it defiantly outdoes the competition.
2008//year 12
music
last school built project.
this is the last project for my schooling career. interestingly i have been doing music for two years at school and haven't considered building an instrument until now. after two years of the subject, passing narrowly i learn't that i have no ability to play an instrument... so for my final assignment i decided to create some noise music, as any failing musician would. a Yamaha psr-7 was kindly donated by the music department. i don't think he realized what i had in mind for this instrument when he asked if i would be able to restore it after the process. after some random short circuiting i discovered that the psr-7 was capable of thousands of "bent" sounds. so, instead of having a few pre-set bends i decided to have a jumper board, inspired by the Moog keyboard. i also couldn't leave such an awesome sounding instrument in a crappy plastic shell so i decided to re build the entire thing, giving it a wood and aluminum frame. the keyboard was finally used in a "noise" performance which included guitar screeches and feedback, we also opened up an old untuned upright piano and began strumming the chords with drum sticks. if i ever get footage of the performance, ill be sure to share.
i really got carried away with this artwork, i started on something i planned on finishing in one semester but it just exploded in complexity and became one of the most elaborate artworks i have made to date. with over 15 active parts i had to do some dreaded programing, which ofcorse only worked in testing and not exhibition. it made it to the energies exhibition at the gold coast art center. (energies is an exhabition for year 12 school students), this is the same exhabition that the cocoon would of made it to if it had of been working. the unit outline for the work was "me myself & i" which isn't all that fun if your thinking of doing a portrait. so i took it a little out of context and created some kinetic human organs. the brain heart lungs and stomach. the organs were, as the are in the human body; connected. the heart pumps blood (coolant) to the brain (arduino), the brain controlls everything, the lungs pump oxygen into the heart, the stomach fluids move and so on. in a colaborated movement of fluid and electricity, much like the human body
kinetic//organic has its own webpage, but it is still under development.
i figured i should start cataloging some of my dateless creations and experiments that i would crap out over a boring weekend, or just to avoid other projects i was working on at the time.
i have finally finished my sealed enclosure speakers! i got them painted a few weeks ago at a kitchen gloss specialist and i was amazed with the results. i thought i would try something adventuress and i want for a Burgundy red gloss which came up relay sweet. it took a day or so to get the crossover together and they sound awesome. the sound is prescice and crisp but could do with a bit more low end bass. i plan to put together a sub eventually but i am happy that this part of the project is over. this was by far one of my favorite builds to date and i plan to do much more stuff to do with audio in the future, like maybe an amp to go with these speakers :) more here
FPS arcade style gun
a bit of time consuming fun on the side...
i have been Building this "gun" for a few months now and its finaly complete! it sorta started as just an idea for games week with josh but it took a whole lot longer than games week to put together. its been a bit on & off with all the other projects I've been stopping and starting. and to get some of them finished ive written them down on some post-its and stuck them to my desk. so now i have finally realized that i have 16 incomplete projects on the go and much less than two weeks (my holidays) to complete most of them. anyway back to the gun. it uses blue as well as infrared LED's for a webcam to track and convert it into mouse movement for the first person feel in games. it has come together as quite a nice project and since i haven't done any soldering in a wile it was pretty fun to put together. the final product is still fairly glitch but i should be able to fix that. i also posted an instructable for it and hopefully it'll get accepted a bit better than the last one.
As for "progression", none has been made since i last posted.i have had a few projects on the go and am running out of time to complete such a project. anyway i have nearly completed my long awaited PC case mod! i used F27 hardwood and some other kind of wood i found in the workshop . the frame that holds everything together is welded buts of angle-iron steel rods and other stuff. the case contains 9 fans and stays at 16 db. the one part i am most proud of is the on/off & reset button i tapped a thread into the back of a stainless steel bolt an polished the other end making an awesome looking button. more pic's inside!
"the act of progressing; forward or onward movement"
sometimes your imagination can get a little carried away and you
end up attempting something soo big that you don't care if you fail;
just as long as you get the satisfaction of attempting something way
beyond your ability. or something like that... anyway although all the
mounting schoolwork should be slowing me down on this project it only
makes it a better excuse for avoiding it. I'm not going to tell
you what it is I'm making (in the un-likely event that i should fail);
only that i have begun testing and will let you know the results either
way..
Arduino arrival
my first micro controller.
When it comes too micro controllers, programing, grammar and spelling I'm clueless. but since spelling and grammar don't really matter, i thought id have ago at some programing. i searched around for ages and stumbled across the Arduino; it seems to be one of the simplest for beginners. I've always been a robotics enthusiast, renting short circuit every time we went to the video store since i was 6. but i have always tried to avoid programing and stuff in my projects cause i know nothing of it. but it can become very limiting when all you need is a bit of circuitry that mechanics and pre-made circuits cant help you with. so thanks to a shipping error i now have two arduino's one of which my brother has claimed even though he doesn't know what it dose. but now i have to find something to do with it, at the moment I'm thinking of using it and hacked wii-mote in a solid body guitar for some awesome computer controlled affects, but for now thats a bit beyond my ability.
A few weeks ago a stoner from school offered me $100 to make him a
tattoo gun. At first I was worried to construct a product that could be
potentially dangerous and cause permanent damage. But while browsing
instructables I saw the gun made by graphak and figured if graphak can make his out of toothbrushes and tape, then I could probably do better. so when i finished the project i figured I'd give back something to the instructables community. so here is how you could pertinently damage your skin free of charge!
The A-10's
My first attempt at something audio file.
i
have began to have an interest in precision audio speakers, and decided
to make my own for my up and coming technology assignment. (it seems
all my creations are for the school these days). i have been reading the loudspeaker design cookbook
and some of the stuff in there is far beyond the brain of a maths A
student, but I"m trying my best. i have taken a few ideas from retail
and locally built speakers as well as whatever i can understand from
the cookbook. the toughest part is defiantly going to be the crossover,
my knowledge with electronics is somewhat limited. but ill just do
what i normally do and leave it till i have to do it. i have began
designing the speakers on inventor 10 (design software) and so far they
are looking pretty good. ill keep you posted
The cocoon pt1
art
once again taking another Art project way out of context.
term
2 2007 and we are offered yet another reason to build a constricted
artwork, for a purpose of witch we are forced to care about. this time
they took it as far away from technology as they could. an island- South Stradbroke island
to be precise. the island is almost swimming distance from everywhere,
has no rock's hills or anything cool like that. its a long sandbar that
grew some trees and a couple of dunes. don't get me wrong, its a great
place but a bit too plane for an art project. anyway after a day of
exploring the island and spending hours trying to think of an idea, it
came to me. and yes its somewhat different to the task outline but
thats what arts about... isn't it? anyway my idea was to create a
fragile cocoon that reacts to its surrounding environment. my art
teacher loved the idea- but he generally dose anyway, just as long as
I'm not trying to paint something. its sense's would include;
proximity, light, smoke and low battery :P. It has reactions to these
by changing in speed of motion tasks and under skin
lighting(sensor-light), flaring up to defend itself (sensor-proximity)
and climbing its thin nylon tether to safety (sensor-smoke). the more i
think about it the more retarded it sounds. and of course the task has
been way more epic than i could of predicted. made out of balsa wood
and many heavy components, breakages occur far to often- not to mention
the headaches the circuitry is giving me. so yes i haven't completed it
yet.. I've had it for about 4 months now and its just sitting in the
workshop dying to be finished and not allowing me to do anything else.
as usual i can get easily distracted, especially with a task this big.
ill keep you posted.
Slide show clicker
my slide show sucked, so i had to do something different.
I've
always wanted one of those fancy wireless slide show clicking things.
so i decided to build one. i scratched up some parts around the house;
an old gate relay receiver board a usb divider circuit an old computer
mouse and a 1gb usb. from there it was all easy, the usb cable goes
straight into the box where it is divided into 3 different usb ports by
the divider circuit. this allows me to use multiple usb devices inside
the box. one port goes to the 1gb usb another to the mouse and one
external one for alternate devices. the relay board is connected to the
left click switch of the mouse (this is usually what is used to click
through slide shows). now that everything is working i wanted to encase
it in something different; so i got two slices of F27 hardwood and rostered them out too contain the circuitry. the end product was rely
great and had a nicely sanded finish to it. i used it on my English
essay (about the comic book: "the Maxx") and it defiantly stirred up
more attention than my essay.
fuck in a box.
art
a great project to start the year with.
Once again, an art project. The project outline was to create a box 12by12 cm that
described you or something about you. As usual I left this project to last
minute and finished the entire box in 2 days. I made a jack in the box out of
some materials i could find in the workshop. the "message" behind the box
was to say: "fuck late slips" (our school has a system, where if you
are late to school you will receive a late slip and possibly punishment) and
since i live about 400 meters from school i am always late. For a while now i
have been collecting late slips and i must have at least 50 from last year. you
crank the arm of the colorful box and it plays the tune:” have yourself a
merry little Christmas” incredibly distorted and impossible to make out, and
randomly at some point in the song you hear the screech of a servo as the lid
is released and a metallic hand comes out giving the finger and spraying late
slips everywhere. It may caused some controversy but my art teacher loved the
idea, he even wants to take me to the late slip office and show it off. Anyway
my end mark was an A+, which is pretty sweet i don’t often see them.
2006//year 10
deus ex
art
my first welds.
"deus ex"
a Greek word for mechanical god or something. i dreamed up the idea of
a creature that was a collage of technology vs nature (wood and metal)
representing the conflict between the two. Anyway this is my first fully documented project on the internet. enjoy.
