Posts Tagged ‘Diskokugel’

PD and Arduino

Monday, October 18th, 2010

I explored some ways to use PD to communicate with an Arduino. There are wo ways to interact with an Arduio from PD: serial communication via the [comport] object and controlling the Arduino directly with [pduino] using the firmata firmware.

[comport] simply sends and receives serial messages. I found it a little difficult to convert those messages into the right format as to understand and further process them. The PD help file isn’t exactly helpful to that extend, but I found a patch called ArduinoPDMessageSystem that makes sense of the serial messages, even though I haven’t understood every objects function there yet.

So far, I have managed to send messages to the Arduino to interface a HCF4094 shift register controlling 8 LEDs. I use the same register to control my “Diskokugel”, so I heres for the next step to its completion :-)

My Tammes Problem

Monday, August 30th, 2010

After a two weeks pause I urgently needed, I got back to my problem of the equally distributed circles on a sphere. Some more research revealed that it is a problem yet unsolved. It is called Tammes Problem, a specialization of the Thomson Problem. Wikipedia shows some solutions, which is quite convenient. I still struggle with the practical application though…

Diskokugel 0.2

Friday, August 13th, 2010

YESSSS!

Ok, so after 4 days of soldering witness the new version of “Diskokugel” with speakers attached. I am quite satisfied with the looks.

out now: 0.2beta

out now: 0.2beta

The longer you look, the more patterns you'll find...

The longer you look, the more patterns you'll find...

The wireframe. Withe the background cancelled out it's more comprehensible.

The wireframe. With the the background cancelled out it's more comprehensible.

Doing all the soldering I had plenty of time to contemplate on the design so far:
The wireframe has quite a few disadvantages considering the further construction. It is not very exact, not very stable and I haven’t figured out a way to construct and attach proper enclosures for the individual speakers to prevent the acoustic cancelation of lower frequencies.
I could fill the whole thing with polyurethane foam and carve it out like a pumpkin, but that’s not what I’d call elegant. So I am considering to somehow build the thing on a plastic basis. Cast it, mill it with a cnc-mill, whatever…
Anyway, I will leave this problem be for now and rather start working with the existing model. That means:
- get an Arduino
- connect it to the existing circuit and PD
- put it all into the ball and check out what it can do

All that in probably two weeks, because now I need a vacation from it all.

A glimpse of the future

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

My brain hurts from trying to figure out how to equally spread circles on a sphere. So far, i arrived at a solution that surrounds a pentagon with 5 hexagons, the former made of 5 the latter of 7 speakers. Here you can see the first model, soldered of wire. As you can see, I miscalculated the size of the pentagons, so the only contain 3 speakers. This will be corrected without delay, since shortly after these pictures were taken the whole construction rolled of the bed it lay on and burst into pieces. Have fun imagining my face after that…

Diskokugel 0.1 alpha

Diskokugel 0.1 alpha

soldering 0.1 Alpha

soldering 0.1 Alpha

(Deutsch) Discokugel News

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Project Speaker Ball

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Together with a friend from the sublab I started a new project. It’s a mirror ball that consists of approximately little speakers instead of mirrors. All speakers will get the same audio signal but can be switched on and off individually. This way, it is possible to let a sound travel over the balls surface. If synchronization works out, another audio file could be played with each switching to another speaker. The whole thing will be controlled with PD via USB.

Right now we’re working on a test circuit for 8 speakers. Once it works I will upload it here, hopefully with proper documentation.