I.Maker.365.

(031) good old pots

Kip came over on Saturday to show me the analog to digital solution he had come up with me for the willow ball art piece I've been working on since the big storm. The willow branches came with Sandy, I practically had pneumonia (bad bronchitis) so instead of getting out to help with relief, I sat at home and wove willow.

After the ball dried for a few weeks I covered it in a skin of one ply natural paper towels misted with a solution of elmers glue and water, ghetto paper maché I've been calling it. From the start it was designed to a be a light thing of some sort. I like the shadow play of the branches on the paper skin.

The hole that is in the bottom of the ball is an interesting side note, if you put this lamp shade on your head it's more like a resonating chamber. In fact it's sort like being in a private echoey place in nature, perfect for chanting or singing to yourself...but I digress.

It's lit from the inside by a strip of 24 controllable rgb led's. What Kip had been helping me with was getting normal analog pots to control each of the three color channels-- one each for red, green, and blue. It worked.

There are two final steps. First we have to add in one more potentiometer for rhythm. Then we create two identical versions of this system to complete the willow piece.

In the end, someone walking up to the piece can control the color of its heartbeat (ranging from 40-150 bpm) and the color of its breathing (ranging from 1-7 seconds). All of this analog twiddling controlling digital functions to make storm detritus appear to be alive.

In addition to Kip being here, my neighbor Tracy also stopped by. She teaches computer science in a NY middle school and has opened a maker space during lunch with a grant she received. It was great to introduce the two of them. Each of them has promised me post for the blog, so I'm not going to put too many words in their mouths... yet.

(028) learning curves

I'm realizing the new skills I set for myself to learn in December all have one thing in common-- something to do with melting metal of some sort. MIG and TIG welding, plus soldering. I recently posted about the differences between MIG and TIG, today was my first attempt at through hole circuit board soldering.

I got the minty boost charger kit from Adafruit. It's supposed to charge an iPhone almost completely. Plus it's got a good bit of cool factor. I got set-up with all of the requisite parts and was off to the races. Following the detailed instructions provided on-line, I was quickly making decent Hershey Kiss solders on the back of the board.

Then it happened. A loose piece of molten solder rolled and settled into a connection hole needed for another component. It was perfectly soldered in. This began the a several hour process of trying to unsuccessfully remove the solder. I never got it out. Eventually I simply had to set it aside and focus on something else.

I guess the main thing I've been learning the past few weeks is patience. Don't know how the shop works, come back later. Can't get the solder out of the hole? Do some more cleaning research and try again. Can't get the exact miter angles on the hyper-paraboloid frame? Keep trimming and try and understand the geometry better.

That's the thing about making stuff. You can't yell at it to get its act together, motivational charm works-out about as well. Skilled craftsmanship comes with practice, no matter how much I want to skip over this part and get to more interesting projects, you can't fake the basics. Slice me another piece of humble apprentice pie, and I'll get back at it.