A Fleet Of Pressure Washers Powers This Interactive Public Fountain

November 11, 2018 by Dan Maloney 15 Comments

Public art installations can be cool. Adding in audience interactivity bumps up the coolness factor a bit. Throw civic pride, dancing jets of water, music, and lights into the project, and you get this very cool pressure washer powered musical fountain.

The exhibit that [Niklas Roy] came up with is called Wasserorgel, or “water organ”, an apt name for the creation. Built as part of a celebration of industry in Germany, the display was built in the small town of Winnenden, home to Kärcher, a cleaning equipment company best known for their line of pressure washers in the distinctive yellow cases. Eight of the company’s electric pressure washers were featured in the Wasserorgel, which shot streams of water and played notes in response to passersby tickling the sturdy and waterproof 3D-printed keyboard. The show was managed by an Arduino with a MIDI shield, which controlled the pressure washers via solid state relays and even accepted input from an anemometer to shut down the show if it got too windy, lest the nearby [Frau Dimitrakudi] be dampened.

The video below shows how engaging the Wasserorgel was during its weeks-long run in the town market square; there’s also one in German with build details. And while we can’t recall seeing pressure washers in public art before, we do remember one being used as the basis of a DIY water-jet cutter.

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Seth Molson Is Designing The Future, One Show At A Time

October 29, 2018 by Tom Nardi 27 Comments

From the banks of levers and steam gauges of 1927’s Metropolis to the multicolored jewels that the crew would knowingly tap on in the original Star Trek, the entertainment industry has always struggled with producing imagery of advanced technology. Whether constrained by budget or imagination, portrayals usually go in one of two directions: they either rely too heavily on contemporary technology, or else they go so far in the opposite direction that it borders on comical.

But it doesn’t always have to be that way. In fact, when technology is shown properly in film it often serves as inspiration for engineers. The portrayal of facial recognition and gesture control in Minority Report was so well done that it’s still referenced today, nearly 20 years after the film’s release. For all its faults, Star Trek is responsible for a number of “life imitating art” creations; such as early mobile phones bearing an unmistakable resemblance to the flip communicators issued to Starfleet personnel.

So when I saw the exceptional use of 3D printing in the Netflix reboot of Lost in Space, I felt it was something that needed to be pointed out. From the way the crew made use of printed parts to the printer’s control interface, everything felt very real. It took existing technology and pushed it forward in a way that was impressive while still being believable. It was the kind of portrayal of technology that modern tech-savvy audiences deserve.

It left such an impression that we decided to reach out to Seth Molson, the artist behind the user interfaces from Lost in Space, and try to gain a little insight from somebody who is fighting the good fight for technology in media. To learn how he creates his interfaces, the pitfalls he navigates, and how the expectations of the viewer have changed now that we all have a touch screen supercomputer in our pocket.

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Return Of The Infamous Triforium

October 19, 2018 by Lewin Day 2 Comments

The Triforium is a public art installation in Los Angeles, weighing 60 tons and standing six stories tall. Built in 1975, it was designed to combine light and sound, all under the control of computer hardware of the era.

Sadly, it was plagued with technical problems from the start, and over the years, became an object of ridicule. However, this “polyphonoptic” masterpiece will live once again, thanks to the dedicated effort of The Triforium Project. The Triforium Project are hosting a series of free public performances on Friday nights in October and November, so if you’re in the area, be sure to check it out. The series starts tonight, so get on it!

The team were able to recover the original software that ran the sculpture’s effects — stored on 8-bit paper tape, which was not uncommon for the era. These were manually transcoded, and an emulated version of the original program has been created. In the interest of not causing further damage to the sculpture, the original lights are being left untouched. Instead, an LED system will be fitted to the sculpture to enable it to be relit.

A reflection pool at the base of the sculpture is long gone, as is the original audio source. When first built it housed a carillon — a musical instrument that uses a bell for each note in the scale. In the case of the Triforium, the carillon was made of 79 quartz bells played either manually or by the computer and amplified over a speaker system.

In 2006 that carillon was removed (replace with a digital audio source) but the gods of dumpster diving were smiling that day. It was snapped up by someone who recognized the uniqueness of the instrument and shared their story as a brief webpage. We hope that some day this will also be restored to working condition and played along with the Triforium in an exhibition. The sound of a carillon is amazing to hear in person, and we suspect the timbre of quartz bells to add an indescribable layer to the experience.

For those who can’t make it to an upcoming public performance, you can at least get a feel for the scupture through Google Street View. We do love a good public art piece here at Hackaday — whether it’s a giant head, a set of wings, or doodles in the sand.

[Thanks to JohnU for the tip!]

Redeem Your Irresponsible 90s Self

October 18, 2018 by Bryan Cockfield 5 Comments

If you were a youth in the 90s, odds are good that you were a part of the virtual pet fad and had your very own beeping Tamagotchi to take care of, much to the chagrin of your parents. Without the appropriate amout of attention each day, the pets could become sick or die, and the only way to prevent this was to sneak the toy into class and hope it didn’t make too much noise. A more responsible solution to this problem would have been to build something to take care of your virtual pet for you.

An art installation in Moscow is using an Arduino to take care of five Tamagotchis simultaneously in a virtal farm of sorts. The system is directly wired to all five toys to simulate button presses, and behaves ideally to make sure all the digital animals are properly cared for. Although no source code is provided, it seems to have some sort of machine learning capability in order to best care for all five pets at the same time. The system also prints out the statuses on a thermal printer, so you can check up on the history of all of the animals.

The popularity of these toys leads to a lot of in-depth investigation of what really goes on inside them, and a lot of other modifications to the original units and to the software. You can get a complete ROM dump of one, build a giant one, or even take care of an infinite number of them. Who would have thought a passing fad would have so much hackability?

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SandBot Happily And Tirelessly Rolls Patterns In Sand

October 18, 2018 by Donald Papp 1 Comment

The patience and precision involved with drawing geometric patterns in sand is right up a robot’s alley, and demonstrating this is [rob dobson]’s SandBot, a robot that draws patterns thanks to an arm with a magnetically coupled ball.

SandBot, SCARA version. The device sits underneath a sand bed, and a magnet (seen at the very top at the end of the folded “arm”) moves a ball bearing through sand.

SandBot is not a cartesian XY design. An XY frame would need to be at least as big as the sand table itself, but a SCARA arm can be much more compact. Sandbot also makes heavy use of 3D printing and laser-cut acrylic pieces, with no need of an external frame.

[rob]’s writeup is chock full of excellent detail and illustrations, and makes an excellent read. His previous SandBot design is also worth checking out, as it contains all kinds of practical details like what size of ball bearing is best for drawing in fine sand (between 15 and 20 mm diameter, it turns out. Too small and motion is jerky as the ball catches on sand grains, and too large and there is noticeable lag in movement.) Design files for the SCARA SandBot are on GitHub but [rob] has handy links to everything in his writeup for easy reference.

Sand and robots (or any moving parts) aren’t exactly a natural combination, but that hasn’t stopped anyone. We’ve seen Clearwalker stride along the beach, and the Sand Drawing Robot lowers an appendage to carve out messages in the sand while rolling along.

Life Imitates Art: 3D Printed Banksy Frame “Shreds” Oeuvre, Prints Money

October 16, 2018 by Adam Fabio 14 Comments

[Dave Buchanan] is giving the world his own take on the now famous shredding Banksy frame. This version has a few extra features though – like reverse shredding and printing money! Like many of us, [David] was impressed with the Banksy art auction shredding last week. We’re still not sure how he pulled it off, and the jury is still out if it was real, or all some sort of stunt involving the auction house.

[David] took his inspiration straight to CAD software, and designed a miniature version of the frame. A quick trip to the 3D printer and he had the actual frame in hand. He even hand-painted his own copy of Girl with Balloon on canvas. Assembly didn’t quite go as planned, a few parts had to be adjusted — i.e. cut off and hot-glued together. But in the end, the hack worked – the frame would shred and un-shred the painting whenever someone cranked the handle.

If you haven’t guessed yet, [David’s] frame is a version of the classic money printing trick. What looks like two rollers is actually a simple belt drive. The mechanism pulls in one piece of paper while pushing out a hidden piece. It creates the illusion of printing money – or of shredding art. Given Banksy’s sense of humor, we can’t help but wonder if his frame worked the same way.

[David] is working on a re-design of his piece which will be easier to build — so keep an eye on his Reddit thread if you’d like to print your own.

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Another Drawbot Uses A Pi And Web Sockets

October 8, 2018 by Al Williams 9 Comments

There’s something about art. Cavemen drew on walls. People keep programming drawing robots. One we’ve seen recently is [Andy’s] Drawbot that uses WiFi and WebSockets to draw on just about any flat surface. What’s more, the Johnson County Library has a great write-up about how they built one and if you want a go at it, you’ll find their instructions very helpful. The video below is pretty inspirational, too.

What makes this build especially interesting is that it uses a drive system with two fixed points attached with suction cups. There are a variety of 3D printed parts — some just for the build and some are older parts repurposed.

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