frustrating

I've now been trying to work Animata to an external source now for over 4 hours, my keypad doesnt seem to show up on the external sources i am allowed to use so there for is useless. I've been on the internet looking for motion capture software to see if it can be plugged into Animata which it looks like it can. Now im just looking for someones Max MSP file that they have used for it to get an idea or piggy back it and make it suit my own needs. So far no luck and not looking good.

Event 7

I stared at the people milled about the train stations platform as a chilled gust of wind bit into my bones. Wearing jeans and a T-Shirt with my black bag slung on my back i waited in the cool 7.20 morning breeze. I find I like to observe people in my hour trip into Uni, from the train station to the final stop at Britomart. Were interesting species as we find we have to identify ourselves as different and unique. Although some still try to conform to society and blend in with the crowd. As the train pulled up, metal on metal screeched as the train slowed to a halt. Hisses erupted as multiple doors opened along the hull of this multi carriage machine. As the small crowd surged forward into these metal tubes hoping to gain a seat to themselves and avoid interaction with others. I sat down on the brightly coloured chairs and pulled out my phone, plugging in my ear phones and slotting them in my ears tuned into the rock, my favorite radio station. As a drone of noise entered my skull i looked up from the luminosity of my phone screen and had a gaze at the occupants on the train. Most of them were spread out choosing to sit apart from one another, I cant say much as it would be hypocritical of me but its interesting how such a social race will choose seclusion in an almost forced upon interactive event. Eventually strangers would sit next to strangers but it would be prolonged as long as possible. A women sitting opposite me in long black pants, white top with a black overcoat and hair neatly in a bun stared intently into an open book completely lost to her surroundings. One way to past the time and remove yourself from engaging. Already i was stereotyping her based on appearance alone. It's inevitable that we judge people based on appearance. Study's show that we will base 80% of our opinion on someone within the first 3 seconds of meeting them. As I scanned the carriage from seat to seat examining passengers between glass and metal creating my own opinion and analyzing details. As the train stopped at station after station more people milled on and my observing continued. Your senses are bombarded on a train if you open yourself to it, the constant clunk of the train on the tracks, the soft buzz of music filtered from an ipod speaker, the sniff and cough of winters cold, the smell of women's perfume as it wafts through the air or the array of colours and contrasts that bombard your optics. In no time the trip is over and I'm walking out of the train with a wave of people, just another person in the world we live in.

Animata

This week has been involved in the Animata program. Which is a shit program to use. Needs a control Z button or something and is a pain to use. Although it does do what its design to do if you operate it right. I liked my design that i created on Animata although it was simple enough compared to some others i think it looked effective and well designed. A flaw i found though was that when everyone tried to use their remotes that it would interfere with one another sometimes causing your remote to not register on the computer. The Animata system does has a basic set up that is quite easy to follow with bones, mesh and joints. Like a very basic puppet. although it seems to have a habit of slightly distorting images if the are moved to fast or to far. Now that we've started programing a Key board to send in H.I signals we should be able to "remotely" interface with our small animations. The physical side to setting it up seems easy enough and i get the process and how to achieve it but the computer data side i don't seem to grasp yet but it should be easy enough.

My animation image..

This is a still image but i had multiple layers with the waves moving, the fish jumps and the boat floated up and down.

Light bot- Overview

12/3/2010

Today we started on the concepts of our project. Writing down a list a requirements gave us focus and goals to achieve. Heading in that direction one of the first ideas was a robot that used different materials to produce different results on paper but was then discarded because of its lack of originality. We had ideas of using glow in the dark paint, felt pens, chalk, pastel, acrylics or lasers but the group majority voted on lasers and that idea was selected. The laser idea came from Yuta. Chris .B who saw my design which I had created on Photoshop thought it cool to recreate something along those lines.

Computer Generated Image:

This inspire our group to try a replication of this except in not quite an intricate scale. We thought we could capture this by using long exposure setting on a camera. We also had to make it interact with the environment and therefore came up with the idea of blue tooth between the to NXT systems.

15/3/2010

After having a weekend to look at the program and think about the idea we came back and started on building the robots. Chris .B and I started on building on the interactive robot that would send messages to the light projecting robot. We finished this within a few hours while the rest of the group worked on trying to design a rig for the lasers. By the end of the day the interactive robot was done and only ideas had been created for the laser robot.

16/3/2010

With the entire team working on the robot we quickly came up with ideas on how to operate the lasers. Yuta and Sahill designed a rig using the lego pieces, it had a strong based except a basic flaw all the lasers would move in the same horizontal direction with the same distance constantly as all the lasers were hooked up to one turn table and sat in fixed posistions. I came up with the idea of trying to only use one NXT Brain per robot to make thingsa little less complex. Yuta managed to score three 50W green lasers on trade me for $100 and we all chipped in for them. After taking some of the components home I was able to build a simplistic rig for mounting the lasers. When I was confronted with the issue of making the lasers move in the horizontal and vertical plane of movement with only three motors. I had the idea of using gears to move the lasers in a horizontal motion whilst it moved vertically. In theory it would of worked except there were complications, the gears weren't designed well enough to rotate one another at 90 degree angles and the center motor didn't seem to have the strength to move vertically, rotate the gears so it went horizontally and also power thehorizontal movement or the other lights either side. The next day we scrapped this idea and decided to go with 2 NXT brains on the laser rig.

17/3/2010

After Modifying the rig we were just waiting on the programing for the robots. While Chris .B was working on that I asked Seb from another group if we could borrow his camera to test the long exposure with the green lasers to get an idea on how fast we could move them and what results it would produce. Setting up in the dark room we got some different result by varying our speed and using diffraction gratings.

Results -->

18/3/2010

Chris .B was concentrated deep on finishing the program to make our interactive robot send via bluetooth messages to the laser bot to create the light show. After testing it we found that the program didn't work properly. So we had to quickly switch ideas before the deadline, this involved quickly attaching sound sensors to the rig and to the NXT's. After quickly writing a new program for the sound sensors we found that it worked and produced some pleasing results. That night we set up in the AUT tower's stairwell and got some good shots with the long exposure camera while using Yuta's Amp to generate sound.

Here are our some of final results:

Uni week 2

In the second week we started robotics which was interesting. It was just like lego i used to play with as a kid just now motors and mechanics are thrown into the mix which was good fun. I got put into a team with 3 others, and didn't fully support the ideas they were going with but felt that it was necessary to be a team player and go with there ideas as well and not just my own. I felt that we didn't pro form on the first robotics programing as a group and felt quite let down at our final result. We had to create two robots one which had to move in a similar motion to a chess piece we designed, within a 2 meter box but also avoid other robots in the process. The other had to follow a pre set line to a doorway and either knock or relay a message. The robots we made did work but didn't fulfill requirements and could of been designed better for both briefs.

We are now currently into the 3rd week and have had some new members join our group and feel they have made a valuable contribution. I'm finding myself more and more critical at this point as i wish to produce a good result and find myself maybe being harsh or rash on some team members ideas? But by pulling apart there ideas critically i find that we get rid of the rubbish and get some good strong concepts. We have to design a robot that will interact with the environment, work without any human interference and produce an art work or display on a medium be it 2D or 3D. After much debate our group has gone with a laser light show idea. First concepts for this were sketchy and a motor system i tried to set up using cogs to try and only use one other NXT brain failed. This was because the cogs werent that reliable in the formation i had them because of the lego's design and the motor just couldn't produce enough power to operate the turning devices. So now we are running 3 NXT brains to create a full spectrum of movement. Another snag we ran into was the coloring of the light show. We needed reasonably powerful lasers and assorted colour's but not many were listed on trade me so we ended up with three 50MW green lasers. We thought about how we could change the lights but in the end couldn't figure a way to change its colour. I was also able to get 2 diffraction gratings from my old schools physics department. Using these together i was able to split one of the beams in a vertical direction and then again but in a horizontal direction, creating a interesting pattern.
We test ran a laser with and without diffraction grating's and got some good results.








From the tests we can see that having the light in one position to long gives a white light on the long exposure camera but this could be used for variation of colour.

8 Events

Yesterday we were told that we had to record 8 events and describe them in detail.

soooo

On 5/03/2010 at 7.05pm the fire siren activated. Even after being in the fire brigade for over 2 years and always hearing it as a youngster as my dad raced off, it still triggers an excitement in me. Upon reaching the station I race to my locker located at the far end of the station, quickly discarding my phone in my locker. The fire engine rumbled to life. The engine roared over the sound of radio transmissions bleeping in the background. With my level 2 gear partially on i raced over to the fire engine and jumped inside. There was always a sense of urgency when arriving at the station, but as soon as you entered the cab the mood became relaxed almost serene. My dirt smeared

and scratched helmet hung in front of me in the rear of the cab. Slowly I pulled on my gloves fitting like a second rough callous skin. I sat waiting to be instructed on where to go and what to do. Driving up the hill to the accident plumes of light white smoke with hints of grey rolled across the road and engulfed the fire engine. I tasted bunt embers as much as i smelt it. Securing my helmet i got out of the truck and headed to the rear where the 45 was situated. 90m of 45mm wide hose lay rolled up on a barrel ready to be uncoiled at a moments notice. I was waiting for the order to head in with it and i knew it would come. When it did i shrugged it over my shoulder and headed in. looking at the situation in full i saw a ute at collided with the power pole bringing it down, a line lay across the ground severed in the middle a mere few meters from the road. Left from the road was a field of long dry grass crouching behind a thin wire fence. The fence line from power pole to power pole was alight. A solid patch of fire around 10m squared sat a few meters behind the ute in the field of long parched grass. A small fire had entangled itself around the left rear wheel of the ute.

Right next to the fuel tank.

Keeping an eye on the power line in front of me holding possibly over 400 Volts of electricity, I crept forward fighting the blaze. Sweat trickled down my brow tickling my face.

It was going to be a long hot evening. And i was missing Fat Freddy's show.

First days of uni

Its been the first few days of uni now and its been different to anything i would of thought.
everyone seems nice with their own quirks,
not so keen on this blog writing
The assignments are definitely different and unusual, the first one which involved writing down answers on paper and sticking them to a wall was alright kinda boring but i can understand it as a bonding thing and finding similar interests. When we had to make a presentation of trivial data that we collected whilst only using images to portray this i found challenging and different, which i enjoyed.
Our latest task of pro forming random tasks which were written down on bits of card was fun, especially ghosting people and finding something "Free". But I'm not looking forward to writing down my "views" on the whole event as it seems like the English bullshit that they try and teach now days of "how do you feel about this" and what does this portray to you? Maybe im just not as deep as some people but i see things more factualy and "as is"

Still dont like this Blog idea but it goes towards overall grades so yeah...