Tags: Arduino
Creat-A-Con February 2015
Posted: Sat, 21 Feb 2015 19:46
Creat-A-Con was a one-day Creative Technology organised by Jason Boomer of SideFest. It took place in the Queens Building at DMU in Leicester on the 21st February 2015. Exhibitors included Leicester Hackspace, Creative Manifesto, Starbase Leicester and Interact Labs. Over 500 people attended the event.
Interact and Interact Labs brought a range of art and technology exhibits along for people to play with.
Our Robot Arm always goes down well, and was joined at this event by a new Edison Mini Robot. This is a great little learning 'bot that is also great value for money.
Our WaterColourBot suffered a little in transport and was not performing at its best, but people still liked it. The 3D Printer also suffered a little, but was eventually set-up to produce a steady stream of whistles for people (mostly children) to take away. For many attendees it was the first time that they had seen a 3D printer in action.
We brought some DIY Virtual Reality headsets along too. However, we also had the Oculus Rift on loan to Starbase and in the end settled on encouraging people have a go with that instead. Reports were that the queue didn't die down all day.
Finally, we seem to have found a new star - the Arduino-powered Jamm Jar computer. This is a new project by Sean Clark that features a neoPixel LED ring, Arduino micro-controller, switch and rechargeable battery, all placed in a glass jam jar (see some pictures here). He has been using this device in workshops and is looking to develop it further as part of a new series of artworks. Attendees seemed to be fascinated by them and enjoyed the LED lighting patterns it produced.
Despite the odd technical problem, it was a great day. SideFest brought a very impressive audience to the event and the DMU student volunteers (and the non-DMU ones too) were incredibly helpful. We're already looking forward to the next one!
See our pictures from the event here on Flickr.
Creat-A-Con is Almost Here!
Posted: Mon, 09 Feb 2015 12:22
Creat-A-Con will be coming to Leicester on the 21st February at the Queens Building at De Montfort University. This free event aims to inspire young people in the key S.T.E.M. areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
Interact Labs will be at the event demonstrating:
- The Edison robot and our robot arm
- The WaterColourBot drawing machine
- Scratch programming on the Raspberry Pi
- Our 3D printer
- DIY Virtual Reality headsets
Plus we will be making Arduino-powered interactive lights for use at the MyOptik Festival on the 28th February and testing the wireless video system we are making for the Image is the Servent event on the 27th February.
As if that isn't enough, we will also be showing the Creative Manifesto LED video wall.
Come and be creative with digital technology.
3D Printing / Arduino Projects
Posted: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 21:07
We have a couple of interesting 3D Printing / Arduino projects in the Lab at the moment. Both are being undertaken by final-year DMU Music Technology students and involve the construction of music input devices.
Luke Petterson's project involves modifying a MIDI keyboard to feature transparent keys with coloured LEDs within them to provide a learning and performance tool. The challenges of this project include 3D printing the transparent keys for the keyboard and developing Arduino technology to control the LEDs in the keys.
Evan Campbell is creating a MIDI controller that will contain distance sensors and a switch pad. The distance sensors will allow the musician to be expressive and the switch pad will be used to create a drum sequencer. Again the project makes use of an Arduino, with 3D printing used to create the housing.
Both project are moving ahead nicely. There will be a chance to look at both projects in detail next month at the Creat-A-Con event on the 21st February and in the next Open Lab on the 24th February.
Esther Rolinson: Melt, Splinter & Thread
Posted: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 15:58
Interact Labs' Sean Clark has been one of a number of people helping Esther Rolinson to realise her lighting installations Splinter, Thread and Melt this year. It's been an interesting journey and we're happy to see that the work will be going on display at the Phoenix Cube later in the month. Two exhibitions, one containing and Splinter and Thread and the other containing Melt, will be running between 23th October 2014 and 7th January 2015 at Phoenix.
The exhibition press release reads, "Over the past year, with the support of Arts Council England and De Montfort University, she has been developing this body of work through modelling and drawing. She has worked with Sean Clark, Dave Everitt, Luke Woodbury and Graeme Stuart who have assisted with research into the technology and materials and the development of complex lighting behaviours."
Find out more on her website.
Interactive Lighting with Arduino
Posted: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 00:57
Our introduction to Arduino workshops have proven to be very popular this year. For those who want to develop their Arduino skills further, however, we are now looking to run a new Interactive Lighting with Arduino workshop at Interact Labs. This will show you how to wire up and program LED 'pixels' in order to create lighting installations and similar projects. The first workshop is on the 4th October. It's going to be popular, so book now.
Busy Week at Interact Labs
Posted: Fri, 16 May 2014 22:57
It's been busy at Interact Labs this week. A number of projects have started to come together and we've been testing various prototypes. Our work with Esther Rolinson has resulted in a test LED lighting rig that will be used to try out lighting sequences for her exhibition in October. We've had Paul Brown up for a visit to look at a prototype of a recreation of an electronic artwork of his from the 1970s. Plus we helped him install a software piece on a Raspberry Pi computer. They we finalised the technology for the Movers performance at Embrace later in the month. See our photo stream for some pictures.
International Arduino Day
Posted: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 16:38
If you know about Arduino then you might be surprised to hear that it is only ten years old this month. If you don't know about it then you really need to find out more! The Arduino is a low-cost, flexible, open and well-supported platform for creating custom electronic systems. Easy to program and develop for, the Arduino is used by artists, engineers and hobbyists to create everything from interactive artworks, to automatic plant watering systems and robots, and much more.
To mark International Arduino Day on Saturday 29th March we are initiating a number of Arduino activities. On the 29th itself Leicester Hackspace is running a workshop (primarily for members), this will be followed by similar workshops at Phoenix Interact Labs on 5th April and then 14th June. The regular Digital Makers Group will also be hosting some Arduino-themed sessions in the near future. Keep an eye on the diary for details.
Alice Tuppen - Point. forty
Posted: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 14:14
DMU Masters student Alice Tuppen worked with Interact Labs to produced the technology needed to support her Point. forty show that was exhibited in the Phoenix Cube gallery at the end of January 2014. Sean Clark helped her to design electrical switches and Arduino circuits that could be used to trigger sixteen different video clips when various objects were moved by the exhibition visitors. Micro- and tilt-switches were used to send information to a pair of Mac mini's via an Arduino and a Max/MSP patch. This in turn played the video clips on four screens in the gallery space.
Interact Labs Open Day Success
Posted: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 19:39
Interact Labs had its first open day yesterday. Over 60 people came along to see the digital makers "Raspberry Jam" in the Midland Room and have a look around the new Interact Labs space. There were also talks by Sean Clark (Interact Labs), John Rance (Phoenix), Paul Brown (Computer Arts Society), Ernest Edmonds (IOCT) and Tony Goodhew (MagPi contributor). The 3D printer was in constant use throughout the day and there was a real buzz around the event.
A number of concrete things came out of the event. Firstly, there will definitely be a monthly Digital Makers / Raspberry Pi event. This will take a similar format to the opening event, with hardware demonstrations a presentations in the Midland Room - but with the presentations focused solely on technical topics - plus access to the 3D printers in Interact Labs. We will set up an Eventbrite for the next event shortly and announce the speakers.
Secondly, there was a 'fringe' meeting about the idea of a "Leicester Hackspace" yesterday. There is lots of interest in establishing a space in Leicester to give people access to manufacturing hardware. We are going to build on this interest by hosting a fourtnightly Leicester Hackspace meeting at Interact Labs. The first of these will be on the 5th November 2013 at 6:30pm. If you want to be involved you can join in the discussion in the Leicester Digital Makers Google Group.
Finally, it was good to see members of the Creative Manifesto arts group attend the event and start working with the 3D printer. Creative Manifesto also meets fortnightly (alternate Tuesdays to Leicester Hack Space) and are keen to initiate futures joint projects with the Digital Maker community.
So, a very useful event indeed and a good start to the Interact Labs project. You can see pictures from the event here. Remember to join the Facebook Group or email list, or get involved with the Leicester Digital Makers Google Group to find out about future activities.
