genzai·chi

EMF detector

Again for the school-project-that-I-cannot-mention-explicitly-by-name-because-of-Google.

As an extra tool for us to use in our investigation into the unseen, I constructed an Arduino-based electromotive force (emf) detector. I’ve made breadboard versions of this before, but now it was time to build something a little more permanent.

barebones Arduino, 10 LEDs and a plastic case from a pound shop screw set

The LEDs light up in proportion to the strength of electromagnetic field detected. Since electrical currents are intrinsically linked with magnetic fields (can’t quite remember my A-level Physics) placing the antenna near to power sockets and electrical items light up some of the LEDs.

4-way gang lights 'em up

bing

The microwave seems reassuringly well shielded:

But my clock radio and bedside lamp are a tad alarming!

It’s very interesting hunting around the room for different effects. Orientation of the antenna changes the number of lit LEDs, as does switching things on and off. I’m curious to see how the detector responds to big classroom equipment such as smartboards and projectors, but of course the main point is observing how the children respond to being able to visualise things they wouldn’t otherwise be aware of.

Noise for something you cannot see

Earlier this week I had a planning meeting with the Y3 and Y4 teacher of a school I’m working at. The theme of the project will be based around the idea of investigating the things we can’t see.

The doings will kick off with me coming to the school asking for help in locating the source of a strange sound. I’m not much of a sound engineer, but when my tummy started gurgling enthusiastically after a breakfast of cold pizza this morning I grabbed my binaural mics, a digital voice recorder and the opportunity to see what would happen if I manipulated the sound a bit.

Here’s a gurgle amplified, noise removal-ed, slowed down, lowered in pitch and then overlaid with slightly off-set versions of itself.

Note to self: must make more notes to self so I can reproduce the sequence of applied effects.

DIY Arduino

Over at fizzPOP we’re exploring group dynamics and how to strengthen our community at the same time as running compelling events and extending our skills.

We’ve been doing free-style hack sessions for over a year now and we’ve also run a fair number of workshops and events (Such as Howduino and Theremin Day) on specific areas. We’ve been paying attention and, whereas the atmosphere at the events we run is absolutely fantastic, it’s not sustainable for us to run things at this level on more than an occasional basis. We can however incorporate elements of the big events into the little things we do every fortnight.

Right back in the beginning we pondered on the importance of shared goals and working as a group. We’ve recently returned to this with themed sessions – Hack a Toy and Processing Anonymous being two examples.

Starting on Wednesday the 18th of August we’ll be experimenting with themed hacksessions on a more formalised basis. You’re still welcome to come along and work on individual projects if you like, but the steering group and other members of fizzPOP will be taking it in turns to initiate and coordinate clusters of activities around particular themes. It’s really interesting watching theses themes get negotiated online as people discuss what skills they can share and also what skills they would like to acquire.

This Wednesday the theme will be DIY Arduino – home-made versions of the Arduino board that are more minimal, less expensive, or simply do a specific job – and it is I who has been herding the cats. There are a range of different interests and skill levels at fizzPOP (all are welcome!) but several common focal points seem to have emerged in the online discussion:

• building a barebones arduino board, either on stripboard or breadboard
• burning the bootloader using ArduinoISP and building daughterboards to make this easier
• designing and building low power variants
• and using the barebones board as a case study for learning about PCB design

Since there’s a bunch of us interested in building our own modules, I’ve been able to buy a load of components in for a lower price than compared to smaller quantities. I’ll be selling components for a bare bones Arduino (NB, it really is just the basics!) for £4.50.

This kit of components (plus battery connector) will be available for £4.50

This is significantly cheaper than the £25 or so you’ll pay for the full-blown board and, as an artist, it’s what makes multiples and building things like the sonar goggles possible in my work.

So, if you’ve dabbled with Arduino before and are looking to take things to the next level, or perhaps you’ve not yet dipped a toe in because you’ve found the cost prohibitively expensive, than this is the session for you. It won’t be a formal, led workshop, but there will be a room full of people applying their brains to related challenges and with assorted relevant kit etc. Think of it as being in a room with 20 mentors.

There is more information on the fizzPOP website:
http://www.fizzpop.org.uk/hacksessions/themed-hacksessions-and-diy-arduino/
http://www.fizzpop.org.uk/hacksessions/hack-session-wednesday-18th-august/
and a sign-up page on the wiki:
http://wiki.fizzpop.org.uk/18-08-10_Hack_Session

glow bugs in a jar

Continuing my learning of electronics doodads, this week I have been introducing myself to the 555 timer and a display driver.

I’d rescued a load of the 555 chips out of some junked circuitboards, so when I saw this instructable for fireflies in a jar I thought I’d give it a go. (This page was also useful, as was this datasheet because I could only get a 4033 not a 4026 – pin 14 to ground people, pin 14 to ground.)

When the parts came the 1500uF capacitors were HUGE, so I thought I’d run with that rather than trying to make wires and parts invisible.

Here’s what I ended up with instead of fireflies:

Each glow bug is made out of - and only of - the components requred for that part of the circuit. All parts are functional.

After trawling some charity shops and finally finding a couple of glass jars, I squeezed in five bugs, the circuitry and some sand donated by a friend.

Making it really difficult to photograph in the process!

Battery and circuit embedded in the lid. Who wants a laser cutter? I want a laser cutter.

The capacitors are a nice way to get the LEDs to fade in and out. I’m using a 330 ohm resistor to get that fade time. (I’m also using a 220k resistor as R2 in the timer circuit to give an interval of about 14 seconds between changes.

Here’s some not great video that sort of shows the effect:

Untitled from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Rest assured they’re pretty awesome when seen with your own eyes, ‘cos eyes are amazing.

The Secret Knock in the Box talks back

Remember the Secret Knock in A Box? Over the last couple of months I’ve had the support of Aston University’s School of Engineering & Applied Science to make a prototype PCB so that I can develop a kit for making it.

Here’s the first one we’ve made:

First PCB design (with additional hot melt glue strands, for effect)

The basic circuit works and I’m also trying out a piezo element as the knock detector. It’s very sensitive!

As well as adjusting the sensitivity, I want to explore how the box responds when you give it the correct secret knock: should it unlock itself? should it disarm an alarm? should it … ?

Here’s a little experiment towards making it knock back. Thanks to GB and his help, last night at fizzPOP we managed to get the box to buzz back the correct knock once it had been entered.

Responding Secret Knock in the Box from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Next step is probably to get to grip with transistors so I can then include a solenoid to knock instead of buzz.

The Bloop galleries

I’ve been compiling photos other people have taken of The Bloop game and sonar goggle experiments I did at the Hide&Seek Weekender into some Flickr galleries.

The Bloop at the Weekender #1
The Bloop at the Weekender #2
Sonar Goggle Experiments at the Weekender

It’s always good to see your events from the perspective of others and there are some really nice shots in there. Here are a selection of my favourites – click on them to go through to the source on Flickr.

Thanks again to everyone who took part – either as player or audience.

Two days of sonar goggles at the National Theatre

Last weekend I ran 2 games of The Bloop as part of Hide&Seek’s 2.5 day celebration of all that is playful.

Following oblique coverage in the Guardian and footage of the playtest at Warwick Arts Centre, demand for places far outnumbered the availability, even though I was asked to squeeze another 8 players in.

To be honest I don’t remember a whole lot from the games themselves: the sun shone; a tale was spun; krill jumped as far as they could and the whales swam. There were smiles; there was laughter; there were gasps; there were winces. Loads of people came up to me afterwards to tell me how much fun they had had!

Here are a few snapshots:

A krill pounces.

A whale heads from the feeding grounds towards the sound of Serge Gainsbourg.

A whale makes a bid for freedom.

A big thanks to my 3 assistants for fetching barnacles and catching whales for the duration. The rest of my photos can be found on Flickr.

Since so many people missed out on whaling on the Saturday, I took 3 pairs of sonar goggles with me when I returned for the Sunday games. In the hour or two of gaps I had between whispering ‘patatas’, looking for invisible golf holes and trying to find my queen, I invited people to come and try them out.

This quickly turned into trying to find new ways of playing with them. This is what I like about the Weekender: there’s a really nice balance of people who want to figure out new ways of playing; people who will try out those new things, people who will ask “hey, what are you guys doing, can I join in?” and people who will interact from the sidelines in a good humoured manner. Hat tip to Giacomo for his catalytic skills and enthusiasm.

Shireen models the sonar goggles

Don't mind us, we're just trying something out...

The first experiment that evolved was to release two be-goggled people into vaguely the same space and see if they could find eachother:

The answer appeared to be, “er, not really”.

We soon gained some more interested people, so we then used all three pairs of goggles and had enough extras to act as chaperones for the next experiment. A race across the room to the cordon in front of the doors:

Fun and interesting on a range of different levels and in a variety of different directions!

The rope area became involved in a live link-up game in Delhi so we adjusted our course and the next video is a snippet of trying to navigate about three quarters of the way around the Olivier Foyer:

So much to like! Thanks to everyone who contributed.

Stand by for more sonar goggliness as we build on these experiments to develop a full-blown game…

The case of the stolen trophy, part 2

Part one here, related posts here. Click on images to see the larger versions on Flickr.

The cryptic sign spotted in the newsagents near to school

The sign points to a video and the sums reveal a password

Have you got what it takes? from sneakysneak on Vimeo.

Writing individual stories

Working as a team to gather ideas for the stories

The stories are good enough! We get a list of more video links…

A message for Team Alpha from sneakysneak on Vimeo.

The videos are of clues in Morse code

Hunting for the hidden clues

A clue is found taped under the top of the railing in the walkway

The clues fit together to form a map of the school and field

We eliminate all but two of the crosses on the map, then go onto the field to investigate

Not this one: the map said to try the larger of the two options

The case of the stolen trophy, part one

Having previously been trained up as special agents, it was only a matter of time before the Year 3 and 4 pupils at Bredon Hancock’s school received their first mission.

Yesterday morning, whist reading through their weekly newsletter – the Bredon Bugle – the agents noticed a strange article which they recognised as being in some sort of code.

Coded message in the Bredon Bugle

They phoned me and by the time I had rushed out of my office in iGenCa HQ and driven over to join them, they had donned their special agent ID badges, got out their investigation packs, started work with their code wheels and begun to decode the message. After a little bit of work, this is what we found it said:

To the bird of the night,
and another brightest blue.
I have taken something
That belongs to you.

Have you got what it takes,
To unravel the mystery?
You’ll need teamwork and brains,
Or your item is history.

Your entry point,
is where it begins.
Your imagination and mine:
Let’s see who wins…

It didn’t take us long to figure out that “bird of the night, and another brightest blue” was a reference to the agents in their normal pupil roles as Owls and Kingfishers, but what did the rest of the message mean?

I called a team to help me work through the rest of the verses and someone suggested that ‘entry point’ could mean the main entrance to the school. Another agent had spotted some new state-of-the-art security cameras had been installed in that area, so we went out to have a look.

We located two of these cameras and decided we would have a look at the files on them to see if they had caught anything useful on tape.

They had!

The first one we watched showed us a person (that we recognised from previously intercepted footage) breaking into the school and then leaving again having wrapped something up and put it in her rucksack. She had some sort of device that zapped the camera though, so we couldn’t see everything.

When we looked at the footage from the other camera (that the intruder hadn’t spotted or zapped) it helped answer some of our questions: she had taken the sports trophy!

Here’s the combined footage from both cameras that shows what happened:

CCTV footage of the intruder from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Now the coded message from the Bugle made a lot more sense! We also knew we had to get permission to launch a full-blown mission, so our next task was to summarise what had happened in a report to Agent A to explain why it was important for us to investigate this.

Mission initiation report. What do we need to put in it?

One of the special agents sets out what had happened that morning

We sent the reports off, but then realised we had to act fast if we were to be able to interview someone who was likely to provide some key evidence in our investigation: Mrs Greenwood the cleaner went home after lunch so we had to speak to her fast!

Here’s what was written on the paper:

• Research challengers
• Are they are good enough?
• Think of a way to test them
• Be sneaky
• See what they do and who they tell?
• Are they a good team?
• Wait for contact
• ???

What were we to make of that?

While we were thinking, a message came back from Agent A giving us permission to go ahead with the mission. We used the school’s recording devices to interview the head mistress (who had information about the security cameras) and the secretary (who had information about what state her office was in when she arrived at work that morning).

From what the cleaner and the secretary had told us, we decided to see if we could lift any fingerprints from the scene of the crime. First we practised getting prints from our own fingers and then a few of us went to look in the foyer to see if we could get any off the remaining trophies, the door or the reception hatch.

Examining the fingerprints on the large trophy

Unfortunately we were unable to lift any of these prints, but we had a really close look and decided that the ones on the door and the hatch were probably the same.

From the to-do list that the intruder dropped, we knew she was watching us to see who we would tell about what had happened.

I was unable to join the special agents today, but I believe they were compiling a special edition of the Bredon Bugle to tell EVERYONE.

Bloop playtesting this Saturday

On Saturday the 10th of July I’ll be running The Bloop as part of the Hide&Seek Weekender at the National Theatre in London.

Trying out the sonar goggles

Following on from the recent playtest at Warwick Arts Centre and feedback from the players, I’ll be making some changes to the rules and I want to test these out before unleashing the new iteration on the Weekender crowd.

If you’d like to get a sneak preview of the new game and also a chance to try out the sonar goggles I’ve been making, come along to the mac at 4pm on Saturday for a playtest.

You’ll be able to find me in the Terrace Gallery with a host of games people at the bargmeet, once that’s finished we’ll head outside into Cannon Hill Park for an hour or so to try out some Bloop variations.

Krill hunt sonar-navigating whales from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

All are welcome, although don’t expect a full run of the game – this’ll be more about little experiments and tweaking variables. The video above gives you a good idea of what sort of thing to expect though.

It’d be really useful if you could let me know if you’re intending to come along – that way I can bring along an appropriate amount of kit.

See you there! Terrace Gallery (by the stairs) 4pm, moving out into the park until about 5pm. We’ll be the ones with the whales on our heads.