Interactive Sculpture 2014 Session 2 Arduino

Nic introduced the group to using an Arduino

As an example of how an arduino could be used to animate an object he showed Rumenas Chicken. This was a piece of worked developed by a co-research with a learning disability form the Sensory Objects Research project.



Nic showed use various types of Arduino we used an Arduino UNO

We programmed the Arduino to make LED lights blink at different speeds and lengths, we started with the simple Blink programme then programmed more.

Lee a student from Systems Engineering helped out with some advice.

Niquelle worked on a more complicated project using several proximity sensors.

Enhancement Week 05/11/14

We held our first session of the Interactive Sculpture Workshop. We introduced the group to the 3D Printer and Laser Cutter in the Art Lab.

We also looked at various workshop tools such as littleBits and Squishy Circuits the group was asked to think of workshop activities they could develop with the kits.

 Group tries creating ideas to use littleBits in a schools workshop

Autumn Interactive Sculpture Workshop

Squishy circuits

You can make your own squishy circuits dough from simple ingredients. Visit the website for details of what you’ll need and the method for how to make your own. There are also some instructions here for creating your own simple circuits.

http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/apthomas/SquishyCircuits/

LittleBits

The littleBits website is packed with ideas for projects, and also gives you plenty of details of what the modules do, and how to use them:

http://littlebits.cc/

You can now buy the bits in the UK. One retailer that we know of is:

http://robosavvy.com/web/

Arduino

The Arduino line of microcontrollers is an industry standard for building your own interactive projects, and probably has a bigger maker network than any other product like this. The main site can be found at:

http://www.arduino.cc/

To download the (free) software (which you will need to program the Arduino device) go to:

http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

I would suggest downloading Arduino IDE version 1.0.6 as this is tried and tested. If you want to use a Yun or Due board, you will need Arduino 1.5.8 instead.

For more information on sensors and hardware that you might like to use in a project, try the Adafruit website:

http://www.adafruit.com/

They have a lot of information on how to use their products (which are generally very good) including how to get started, sample software to use, and ideas for projects.

Laser Cutting and 3D Printing

If you want to 3D print or laser cut objects, then you will need a bare minimum of software for the design. The laser cutter that we have in the ArtLab is a LaserScript 3060 with a 60W laser tube. You can cut and engrave acrylic and wood (also cardboard, fabrics and paper) very accurately with this machine, but you cannot cut or engrave metal – it’s not powerful enough.

You will need a 2D modelling application to design your objects for cutting, and it should save (ideally) to dxf format. You can also import halftone and 1-bit bitmapped images for engraving. The software used with the laser cutter will import ordinary jpeg images, but they will need to be converted, and the software is very slow and clumsy to use. Good applications for design are AutoCAD, 3D max, Illustrator, Photoshop, GIMP. You can get the Autodesk products (3D Max and AutoCAD) for free by signing up to Autodesk Education:

http://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/all

Illustrator and Photoshop are installed in the Art Dept. on many of the shared machines, and GIMP is free to download from:

http://www.gimp.org/

For 3D printing, you will need a product that will save to .stl format, so use either Blender, AutoCAD or 3D Max. Blender can be downloaded for free at:

http://www.blender.org/

Interactive Sculpture Session REDLAND SCHOOL WORKSHOP 10.07.14

Members of the Interactive Sculpture group ran a workshop Creature in a Cup at Redlands School

Here is the brief sent to the school

 ‘Creature in a cup’ electronics and art workshop for schools

What it is about

This workshop will give you hands–on experience with technology, introducing you to simple electronics (using littleBits, https://littlebits.cc/products) explored through creative art based workshops. See some prototype creature’s here http://introductiontointeractivesculpture.blogspot.co.uk

What children will be doing

Using everyday materials, with an accompanying discussion of some ideas considering temporary, interactive artworks, you will create 'A Creature in a Cup'.

The electronics will give you the chance to bring your cup to life, (e.g. using littleBits your creature could make synthesised sounds in response to a sensor, could link to a series of LED lights, trigger movement, activate a motor... its up to your imagination).

We will explore how electronics can bring simple everyday materials to life, these creatures will exist for just for the workshop,  their movements, shapes, sounds will be captured in a short video recording their life cycle from cup to creature. We create a blog post documenting the day and showing the video of Cup Creatures in action.

When it will be, how many hours on how many days etc.

Workshop times to be arranged with school

What they need to provide?

Recycled containers such as paper/plastic cups, cardboard boxes, plastic water bottles, egg boxes etc

Any craft materials such as cloth, foil, feathers etc and tape, glue, scissors etc

We will provide

littleBits electronics kits, video recording equipment, laptop.

FEEDBACK FROM WORKSHOP
The teacher from Redlands School collected some feedback from staff and children about the workshop.  She also mentioned that the workshop has been used as a stimulus for work in literacy, writing information texts about the creatures the children created.

Many thanks to Katy Hathaway and to all the fantastic children from Redlands School

Redlands Primary School – Creatures in a Cup Workshop

Children’s feedback:

We loved:

making creature models

wiring the littlebits

presenting

video

sound effects (especially music)

The best bit was:

changing sounds

having the freedom to do anything you wanted

watching each others' presentations

drama at the end

making a male creature too

when everything came together and our creatures worked

We learnt:

how to connect littleBits to make them work

connecting different parts

electricity isn't always wires

how to make circuits and how they worked

the green bits always go at the end

It would be even better if:

It was longer!

explain at start of session how to use the stuff

clearer on when we needed to start making

using headphones for sounds (noisy)

keeping electric bits

more electric bits!

making whatever you wanted

you could come back again!

Staff feedback:

·      All children were completely immersed in the electronics and their creature creating.

·      Workshop really captured the imagination of girls and boys, and children who are normally quite quiet were animated and played a substantial role in their groups

·      High adult-pupil ratio meant that all groups were well supported in their exploration of littleBits and how they work

·      littleBits were excellent – intuitive, very well-suited to this age group and provided children hands-on experience of circuits and their practical use

·      the presentations and videos at the end gave the day purpose and captured the creatures in all their glory, before they were dismantled. Many children commented on how much they enjoyed this part of the day.

·      Scope for two days work rather than one, maybe first morning looking at littleBits in a more structured way, talking about how they work and what they can do (children got a lot out of their exploration of the components before creating their creatures), then planning and making their creature. The second day could focus on finishing off, presentations and film-making.

·      Excellent stimulus for follow-up work in literacy (we’re currently planning and writing information texts about our creatures!)

Widening Participation Summer Workshops 2014

Students from the Interactive Sculpture Workshop helped facilitate an event on Thursday 10 July 2014, Art and Design Portfolio Day, to  stimulate work for portfolio to apply to foundation or BA courses in Art. We offered the workshop 'Creature in a cup: interactive sculpture' more info about the day here 
Below is our final performance video and details of the development of the work made in one day.

We used littleBits electronics kits to introduce the idea of animating everyday objects to create challenging and different perspectives on everyday life.

 Fluxus and Surrealist art as were considered as a starting point, we also looked at the Fischli and Weiss video, 'The Way Things Go' We then discussed the kind of work we would make from there. The group worked towards a video event, experimenting with electronics and creating sculpture from everyday objects.

Our group were keen to create something loosely based on George Orwell's book Animal Farm that some had been reading for their GCSE, some were also keen to add an element of film horror to the work, we mentioned David Lynch's Eraserhead in discussion.

Starting with the idea of animating a paper cup this led to animating paper plates. The group decided to work together to create a dinner party for animals,

Judy Chicago's Dinner Party was also mentioned in our discussions. The performance was shared with other participants from the Art and Design Portfolio exhibition at the end of the day. 

'Animal Farm inspired Dinner Party’ 

Production Team: Alexander Eyles, Kajol Kumar and Gavin Larcombe from Long Close School Slough, Mia Willis, Will Thomas, Alia Coleman, Nic Hollinworth and Kate Allen from University of Reading.

FEEDBACK we received some email feedback from littleBits

Animal Farm Party 18^th September 2014

Here at littleBits, we definitely LOVE your project and would definitely want to feature it! It is truly a work of art! What message were you all portraying, if you don't mind me asking? 

On a side note, can you possibly upload instructions to how some of the projects were made? I'm sure other enthusiasts would like to view how you all built your projects! 

Awesome Masterpiece! 

Cheers!

Calvin Robinson

Calvin Robinson

Office Manager | littleBits

Make Something that Does Something

Animal Farm Workshop 31 July 2014

Just saw your Animal Farm Video...how cool!! Would you be willing to post this as a workshop on our education page? Would be curious to learn more about the directive and how the students created their art. We are working on a new template for easier uploading, see attached, which should be live on our site in the near future.

Best,

Erin

Erin Mulcahy

Community and Program Manager | littleBits

Working with littleBits and other ideas for interactive sculpture 17.03.14

The group were joined by Uriel who did a great job helping us devise ideas and trial ideas for art and circuit workshops for schools using littleBits.



We had set our group the challenge to develop an art activity using littleBits that they could bring to a school and work with the children.

Kassie raised an important issue, due to the expense of littleBits anything using littleBits would need to be extracted at the end of the session to be used again. This could disappoint children who had worked hard developing an idea. Uriel reckoned he didn't mind and proved this at the end of the workshop by dismantling his work.
A solution could be to create a film that would become the main work, Harriet and Charlotte suggested creating a sound track for the film with littleBits, there are time issues with this idea.

Kassie suggested creating Robots as it fitted well with the types of sounds produced by the Korg Kits by littleBits. We decided to all have a go at making Robots to see what challenges rose. 

Kassie and the Blue Robot

Harriet Robot Slurm see more in her post

Charlottes was more guitar

Adams lit up green moved like a Darlek

Uriel had an idea to create a machine that would dispense chocolate when a coin was put in a slot. We discussed this and thought a machine and a Robot have a lot in common so we devised a Robot that would dispense chocolate. 

Uriel drew some classic Robot eyes and worked out how to light them up, he tried various sensors, sound, switch but chose a movement sensor which was place where a nose would go if a Robot had one.

The vending of chocolate was a real challenge Uriel worked through all the problems discussed it with Nic, he ended up using a motor to turn a tube with a hole in it which would catch and dispense a Malteaser.

The dispenser for chocolate ended up inside another box using orange connector wires, Uriel also added a buzzer that made an annoying noise every time a Malteaser dropped. From the workshop we began to realise how hard it was to make simple ideas happen and it was important to be inventive. The group hope to visit a school in May 2014 to hold a Robot workshop.

Uriel and his Chocolate Dispensing Robot

Slurm- The Mini Synth Party Worm!

Slurm, the mino synth worm in his beautiful final form.

keyboard, oscillator allowing pitch change, and wave length.

His eyes light up in time with the tune played on the keyboard.

Yesterday we played around with Little Bits kits, in which I used the Synth Kit, a collaboration between Little Bits and Korg allowing you to create a number of different synth arrangements.
We thought about how to incorporate Little Bit Kits into workshops around schools to get children interested in electronics and circuits, numerous idea arose how to do this ins a fun way and to complete in a day during Summer. The idea of getting the children to make robots from various materials and working the Little Bits kits into their hand crafted robots.

Another was getting children to create mini synthesisers like my one above and then each creating a tune, combining each rhythm into a song and then if there was time, involving the children to make a music video to go alongside their song they created as a way to remember their work in a creative and fun way.

To test out these ideas, I combined making a robot and included it with lights from the Classic Little Bits kit to become his eyes and then connecting the Synthesizer keyboard and oscillator onto his back, hiding the battery pack under his cardboard body.

Today I made a proximity sensor using a SONAR

Trigger Switches and Arduino 03.03.14

This week we introduced the group to Arduino micro controllers and programmed it to work using a switch that they made using copper taffeta and resistive plastic by 3M.

Nic demonstrating Arduino to the group

Somethings to look at

Interesting article here about Google Glass

Also this exhibition:

Control. Stephen Willats. Work 1962–69
23 January to 30 March 2014
Raven Row Gallery

Make it Wearable Challenge

Thanks to Harriet for this post,
Make History by submitting your idea about the future of wearables to Intel's Make It Wearable Challenge (VISIONARY track) Monday 2/24/14. Your futuristic ideas have the potential to shift universal perspective and improve the world in a meaningful way. To enter, submit a 1-minute YouTube video describing your wearable technology idea or vision at http://makeit.intel.com for the chance to win $5,000. 

Workshop 1: Squishy Circuits and littleBits

In the first workshop we started off by constructing simple circuits using Squishy Circuits conductive and insulating dough, lighting up LEDs and sounding buzzers:

First meeting of Interactive Sculpture Group 2014

Creating 'squishy sculptures' with conductive and insulating dough

A bank of LEDs connected with conductive dough

Another artwork constructed with squishy circuits ..

Next everyone had a go with electronics kits called littleBits we hope that the group will come up with their own ideas to develop some art and electronics workshops with the kits to take into local schools.