MicePaceMaze
Developed at the Center for Integrated Media at the California Institute of the Arts, MicePace Maze employs the mouse maze concept that scientists use to test memory. Utilizing this concept, we have created a human mouse maze with no walls. MicePace Maze players are given audio information through the use of wireless headphones creating a maze using sound as the walls and challenging players’ abilities to move through a space with only what they hear.

Dave Mickey
Through his Integrated Media Designs Mr. Mickey explores new ways to interact with art and the human form both artistically and technically. Mr. Mickey holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Mr. Mickey is an adjunct professor of Integrated Media at CalArts, and an adjunct professor of theatre sound design at Pomona College. Current projects include “MicePaceMaze”, a human mouse maze without walls, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, August 2010. “The Medea Project” opening in Greece May 2011, and recently closed “Jesus Hates Me” at South Coast Repertory.  Mr. Mickey is a co-founder of MPG Interactive Arts inc., also the Associate Sound Designer for the Chance Theater. Mr. Mickey was the 2007 winner of the Robert E. Cohen Sound Achievement Award, a national award in sound design sponsored by United States Institute of Theatre Technology. 2008/09 Garland Awards: 3 Honorable Mentions, and 3 Editor Choice Awards from Make Magazine for his project MicePaceMaze. For more information about Mr. Mickey please visit DaveMickey.com

MPG Interactive Arts explores new ways to interact with art and the human form both artistically and technically.

On the left is a small fabric switch made during the class from three layers of fabric, with adhesive conductive fabric as the switch parts. On the right is being made a 4-position pressure switch in the shape of a flower.

Also, CRASH Space now has a sewing machine! Syuzi helped us acquire it. It’s a Bernini with a strong motor that’s good at sewing conducdtive threads (which are typically thicker than normal)

Some things we learned in the workshop:

General Fabric Hacking

• You need multimeters & alligator clips to hack the fabrics. Just wires and hook jumpers aren’t good enough to get good purchase on the fabric & thread.
• A good starter kit of wearable tech is : http://www.aniomagic.com/

Conductive Thread

• Thread is rated by its conductivity rating, often in ohms/foot.
• The more silver a thread has, the more conductive it is, making it a better wire
• Highly resistive thread can be used as resistors for LEDs, etc.
• For machine sewing, conductive thread goes in bottom bobbin, not on top spool. Otherwise it breaks or jams machine.
• When hand sewing, use single thread, not double, by way of a “bookbinder’s knot”
• Also when hand sewing, don’t do finish up with big knot at end, a small one will do
• Sparkfun 2-ply thread isn’t so good, it frays.

Fabrics

• Some conductive cloth is more conductive along one dimension. Test it out to see which way is which.
• Some fabrics can be etched like circuit boards
• Resistive fabric is pressure-sensitive, can be used as sensor
• Stretch/ Spandex-like conductive fabric changes resistivity slightly when stretched
• Tulle netting is useful as padding between conductive fabrics, acting like an insulator until pressed.

Raymond Weiekamp talked about the Monome and using his Mac laptop as an instrument
Kevin Nelson created some samples
Ian Hattwick discussed Guitamaton
Theron Throwbridge discussed some of his noise toy kits
Mack Reed showed off his Xylovan

The video is about 35 minutes in HD. It’s optimized for a high bandwidth link. Leave a comment and let me know if you need a lower bandwidth option. We’ll post the video of the performances next.

Hand Made Music Night Presentations

If you run the stepper motor on the MakerBot at different speeds, it plays different nodes. There is a script that converts MIDI files in to MakerBot scripts that do just that, and the MakerBot becomes a musical instrument. Frank Capodieci, a friend of CrashSpace, composed an original piece of music called the Concerto for Three MakerBots that we premiered during our Hand Made Music Night.

This week for the semi-occasional Wednesday Speaker Series we’re excited to present Mark Frauenfelder! As you should be more than aware Mark is the founder of BoingBoing, Editor-in-Chief of MAKE, ex-editor of Wired, and author of several books, not the least of which is the recently released Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World
. Here’s an interview with him in a little rag you might have heard of called Time.

Mark will likely be talking about the new book, MAKE culture in general, and all things DIY. If you’ve recently gotten your hands dirty in any of our shops, any of your own shops, or have been thinking about it, or haven’t been thinking about it, this is the perfect way to spend your evening.

Talk starts at 8PM.

Free for members, suggested donation of $10 for non-members.

We’ll try to Ustream it too, but no promises.

[Photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid]

Brandon brought his Batch XIII bot which included some interesting modifications, including a Lenovo mini computer which he had mounted on the side to control the bot.  He is also developing a modular tray to fit in the power supply area of the MakerBot which includes a smaller power supply, all the electronics, and a LCD status display.

Brandon recommended putting ReplicatorG 0017 on the CRASH Bot, and boy was he right – it’s a great update and greatly simplifies the build process.

A first-timer named John was curious about printing RepRap (Darwin) parts, so I downloaded the set off Thingiverse and printed one as a demo of what was involved.  It was bigger than previous parts that have been printed, so it was a good test for the MakerBot as well.  It took a couple hours to work out the quirks of the new RepG, but the resulting print was pretty awesome:

The sides are very straight, and the top and bottom are nicely filled.

I’m going to try one of the bigger cube-like pieces next, but I think the bot is working pretty well now.  I still need to put together an operation checklist on the wiki because there are still a few quirks to deal with (mostly with the software).  And Chris and I are going to try and swap out the control computer because the crashes are getting more frequent. (Though strapping a computer to the side now seems like a really good idea.)

We will be having a class on basic MakerBot operation in the near future, as well as classes in 3D modeling for MakerBot printing.

When: Sunday, 27 June 2010, 12p-3p
Where: At Crash Space
Register now!: on Eventbrite

Workshop Description:
This course will introduce makers to an exciting new palate of conductive threads and fabrics. Unique properties and qualities of each material will be discussed.

You will learn how to construct your own textile sensors (switches, potentiometers, pressure, tilt and flex sensors, etc) as novel controls for electronics.

Potential applications include: wearable technology, textile-based gaming interfaces, novel interfaces and controls for electronic music, 3D architectural and product interfaces, and much more.

Basic sewing skills (hand and machine sewing) would be nice but not required. If you don’t have any sewing experience, please review this video.

About the Instructor:
Syuzi Pakhchyan is an experience designer whose work investigates the intersection between code, cloth and culture. Her design and research interests include wearable technologies, physical and soft computing, and interactive textile design.

Her book “Fashioning Technology: A DIY Intro to Smart Crafting” explores the emerging creative practice of soft circuits and soft technologies.

For more info on Syuzi, see her bio page.

Photo by Jon Sykes

On Friday, June 25, CrashSpace will be hosting Los Angeles’ first ever (as far as we know) Handmade Music event.   Described by Peter Kirn (CDM) as “part party, part mixer, part Science Fair, and part performance,”  Handmade Music is a place where geeky musicians (and geeks interested in music) can let loose, show off and discover new sounds, technologies, interfaces, and workflows.

This post is our call for artists.  We’ve posted something similar to the mailing list, but having a publicly linkable version never hurt anyone.

So, if you design or perform with custom technologies that you’ve made (like Max patches, NoiseToys, circuit bent Speak’n'Spells, or XyloVans), we’d love to put you in the spotlight.  Please email kevin at soundcyst dot com with a description of your work, pictures and/or videos, and whether it’s more of a Science Fair project or performance project (or both!).

The deadline for submissions is Thursday, June 17 at 11:59pm, so get on it! =)

While the exact schedule is still in flux, the event will start at 8pm and go until late.  We’d appreciate it if all presenters and performers could commit to being there the whole night, but if that’s not possible, let us know when you email and we’ll try to work something out.

Keep on hacking!

-Kevin

It was pretty quiet, but we ended up with some working MintyBoosts.

Kelly was a solder newbie, but she got hers working right away!

We have some extra kits if you want to buy one, or we can do another build night.

So I, of course, headed straight for the money.

This is a familiar sight to any of you who grew up near a Chuck E Cheese.

This is a timed ramp and deflector to sort out coins. It’s set to accept only quarters.

The coins pass through a width detector (a space with a spring loaded arm pressing against them) if they’re too thick they slow down, and then hit this wheel, which spins to let them past. Heavier coins spin the wheel faster and drop more directly downward.

Lesser coins aren’t deflected enough towards the rear and hit that little brass divider and fall forward to the reject tray. you can see it’s got adjusters, so it was probably manually tested after being assembled.

If the coin gets this far, it hits a fine wire as it rolls through the final ramp, activating this switch and telling the machine we just got a quarter.