ben

ben

  • Joined: November 30, -0001
  • Articles: 102
  • Comments: 26

1.12.11 – Laser Etched Art

So, in addition to my regular workload at the Craft Tech Lab, I’ve been staying late to do more ‘artistic’ work. I wrote up a couple of quick programs in processing, exported the results to .svg format, and sent the…

uCube code – no serial

This is some code for an early version of the UCube that doesn’t rely on Serial input. Useful for testing.

12.13.10 – SpeakJet and UCube Update

Last week I helped a few art students put together a text-to-speech setup using the SparkFun Voice Box board, the TTS-256 Speech to Text chip, and the SpeakJet synthesizer chip.  We’re not quite done working on it, but here are…

I’m published!

My first (semi) serious article on sustainable design for developing countries was just published at Elephant Journal.com check it out:

Links for design and ICT4D

Here is a list of links I used to help research my article on sustainable design for developing countries (I will post a link to the artlice when it goes live). Thanks especially to Shagun Singh and John Dimatos for…

11.16.10 – UCube Update

After spending most of the day on the laser cutter, inhaling what are undoubtedly toxic fumes, I have made some progress on the UCube. Nothing terribly exciting, but I did cut the rest of the Z-Axis poles, and improved the…

11.04.10

The president of the University of Colorado came to the Craft Technology Lab today, so everyone’s been working hard over the past week to get a short demo together. The not-enough-sleep feeling is not so good, but I did manage…

10.26.10 – UCube Z-Axis Cylinder

It’s a happy day, folks. I’ve got the first prototype Z-Axis for the UCube working. It took a lot of a error checking, conductive tape, soldering, and luck, but it seems to be holding together so far. Still need to…

10.16.10

Work on the UCube is going ok, but slowly. I was able to purchase some more parts last week to help build out the first prototype. The problem I’m struggling with now is the most effective way to design the…

uCube v.01

Here’s the first version of the uCube code, which integrates the convexhull + stl code with taking input from the physical 4x4x4 cube. You will need the libraries I mentioned in the convex hull example, plus the serial library. The…

Convex Hull + STL Export

Big breakthrough today on the way toward realizing the UCube. I finally got code working in Processing that takes an arbitrary number of 3d coordinates (in x,y,z format), finds the convex hull, and is able to export a file of…

10.04.10 – Maker Faire Wrap-Up

After taking a week to catch my breath (and do all the homework I’d been putting off), I’m recording the rest of Maker Faire NY and other news of the past week or so. First off, Maker Faire was amazing.…

9.21.10

A few trivially exciting bits of info: I received my ~$400 order from DigiKey today, to help make the first prototype of the 3D-Geoboard: Pictured: A brand new Weller soldering station(!!!), 100ft ea. of red, black, and white hook-up wire,…

9.16.10

SADbot got a shout-out today as part of a blog post on Alibre, the awesomely cheap 3D modeling software. Word on the street is that SADbot co-creator and Alibre extraordinaire Dustyn Roberts is going to be speaking at the Alibre…

9.15.10

I engineered something today! Nothing fancy though. I was searching for a way to be able to make the z-axes of the 3d geoboard movable. For this to work, I had to separate the switches from their connections to power,…

9.13.10

I’m getting excited from my first trip back to NYC, in order to attend the Open Hardware Summit and to help present SADbot at Maker Faire. There’s even a picture of SADbot on the ‘Featured Maker’ page, as part of…

3d Geocube code – upgrade

Cleaned up and improved the code significantly for the 3d geocube (working title). Thought I’d post it, mostly for my own records. Note that the newer Arduino code uses the String library to format the xyz coordinate strings. I hear…

Early 3D grid code

So, as part of my research at the Craft Tech Lab, I have been assigned to (attempt) to build an input device. This device would be in the form of a physical grid, in three dimensions, whereby the user would…

8.23.10

First day of class is complete, and I’m not despondent about my changes of actually making it out of here with a degree. Hopefully that feeling with last until the end of the week. In Intro to Computational Theory, I…

8.21.10

It’s been 8 days since I landed in Boulder. Qwest was finally able to turn on the internet for my apartment today, so that’s one important item off the list. It’s been a long week of administrative crap – I…

SADbot v.05 Code

This is the Arduino code for version 5 of the SADbot. I believe this is the version that appears in the Making Things Move book.

8.17.10

Today was my first day of Engineering Grad orientation at CU Boulder.  It was mildly informative, to be generous. In better news, here are some shots of the Craft Technology Lab, where I’ll be spending most of time for the…

SADbot

SADbot (The Seasonally Affected Drawing Robot) is a solar powered, interactive drawing machine, originally installed at the Eyebeam window gallery in Chelsea, NYC, in partnership with Dustyn Roberts. Think of it like a sol-powered etch-a-sketch.  It uses two 18.5” x…

Device X

As a consultant for GRND lab, I designed and fabricated the outer casing to a patient data entry device for health clinics in Malawi and Uganda, a project they are working on for UNICEF. It allows the user to input…

MAPP

MAPP, or Mechanical Art Production Platform, was a Master’s Thesis project from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunication Program. It is a 3-Axis Robot that runs both algorithmic and user-controlled custom software to create unique art pieces. It was featured at ‘Dance Robot…

Project Roebling

Project Roebling is a work in progress, being developed by Eyebeam, in collaboration with Digital Democracy and the Center for Future Civic Media at MIT Medialab. It is an open-source social networking web platform designed for community-based organizations and non-profits.…

eyebeam.org

A completely redesigned website for Eyebeam Atelier using the Drupal content management system. A large amount of Drupal customization was done to create the functionality of the website including custom theme and module editing. Eyebeam is the foremost art and…

Raphappy

Winner of a $100K grand prize grant from MTVu and Cisco Systems, RapHappy has evolved from a student project with Matt Fargo to a multi-platform, multimedia experience. RapHappy.com is a social networking website for recording, collaborating, rating, commenting, and listening…

Equipment Inventory System

A web-based, open-source system for businesses to keep track of inventory and loan-out equipment through a checkout system. Originally developed for Eyebeam Atelier. The code is available under a GPLv3 license here. Please note that I do not offer any…

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< /titled > is a print work, built using Java and Processing. It uses a web crawler to form hash tables of html tags from a given website, then develops a concordance of all the html tags. This information is…

Secret Message Sweatshirt (SMS)

The SMS in this sweatshirt does not stand for short message service, but for Secret Message Sweatshirt. The SMS sweatshirt combines thermochromic ink, conductive thread, coin-cell batteries, and a hidden switch to reveal a message of the wearer’s choosing at…