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