I have created a new circuit which is in production and for sale right now called The Dawm
The Dawm is a breakout board for the TLC5940 chip. This chip has the possibility to pwm (pulse width modulation) 16 different ports over serial communication from example an arduino microcontroller or similar. (This means in ordinary language that you can for example dim 16 LEDs up and down individually)
One nice feature of the TLC5940 is that it is daisy chainable, which means that one chip can be connected to the next one and so on for plenty (500+) of pwm ports. Each one of the ports is individually controllable from only using 5 pins from the microcontroller. This creates great possibilities like creating low resolution screens or light patterns which is fully customizable and so on. Also control of motors and other outputs is possible.
So now have the work started for preparing for the upcoming course physical prototyping 2 advanced. Will do a theme in the course with interactive architecture reconnecting back to my time at Aup and also because it feels like it is in the time right now. More and more buildings get hooked up and start to be “intelligent”. This will be my first course which I will be primarily responsible which feels really nice. Of course I will heavily rely on my colleges here in the lab to help me out and without them everything would collapse… Will be a fun autumn to see what can be built at the end.
Here is some of the information and examples I will probably show. If anyone else have anything please send a note. Will be a lot of stuff from Usman Haque which I think is a really interesting artist and creator. Will also hopefully be using his pachube to do some experiments.
The last 7 weeks I have been in London working together with the Arup Foresight team with one of their projects called Faraday. The project is about how Science can be taught in the British schools in key stage 3-4 and the end product is a building proposal for two new Brittish schools that is being built this year. Together we have developed concepts and end product specification in six different categories ranging from how robotics can be used in educations and what and where to buy the products to how to display the history of the school and use that information in education. A very broad range of interactives which we in the end managed to break down in deliverable format for a constructor to use.
The last seven weeks have also given me a good insight at how interaction design can be used and are being used currently at top projects like the Water cube for the 2008 Olympics and in 3d simulation for visualizing projects.
Now it is time to play catch up until all the workshops which we are going to be organizing. Really looking forward to both the Malmö festivalen things for kids and the evening Lighthouse and the professional workshops to teach arduino and other physcial prototyping tools.
Yesterday was the final examination show at K3 Malmo University. I had my project Lumilos for show and it went well. Many people coming by and talking about it and it felt good. The Lumilos project ended pretty nice if I can say it self. The wall as seen below is nicely covered in light and the Poweruino circuit performed flawlessly during the whole show. So now is the circuit tested for running for 3 days straight and not a single problem. It responds directly on commands sent to it and is running smoothly. Using i2c was perfect for this project and really easy to work with. Will be interesting to start using Poweruino in some other projects. I have already some plans and will blogg about them as they come up.
Another nice thing seems to be on the move right now. I might go to London and ARUP during the summer as an internship. Really excited about going and sees it as a great opportunity. Hope everything falls in place now soon…
So have received my circuit now and have built it togheter and tested it and it works flawlessly. was a nice relief when I turned on the power for the first time and it came alive. Here is a picture of how the circuit looks like assembled. Will now this week incorporate it into my project which is in display on Monday at Malmö Högskola between 16-19 if anyone is interested.
Today I have finished the design of my circuit for controlling powerleds. It ended with a design which can be seen below and I namned it Poweruino. It is a name based on arduino which is the ground I have built upon and power since this circuit enables me to drive powerleds which uses 1 A at 3 voltage. This design will also enable me to drive motors or anything else that is a little bit more powerhungry without any problem so it is a very versatile circuit. If there is any interest in buying it please contact me.
The last couple of days I have really tried to get into the written part of my project. It is not any part I find funny at all but it is a must. Have created togheter with a friend a punishment and reward system so that I will be more eager to write the stuff. A bit like Pavlovs experiments with dogs. well if that is what it takes Im willing to try it.
Another more positive thing is that my shipment has arrived from hongkong, dealextreme. Takes for ever to get it but hey it is cheap as hell and so far nothing has been stopped in the custom.
Will be a lot of stuff from Usman Haque which I think is a really interesting artist and creator. Will also hopefully be using his pachube to do some experiments.
Pdf
