{ Brain } – beta version

Brain <beta version>

Brain is an automata that shows how the brain works when you think. Composed of handmade steel wires and knotted rope as pulley system. Brain functions in two ways:

1) Conscious –> Hand cranking the steel wheel to fluctuate the shells, and also rotating the wheels on the other face of brain.

2) Subconscious –> Using ultrasonic sensor to measure the distance, part of the brain will function automatically once the user is in position / wearing the helmet.

Exposing yourself & Taking in the unknown

The most exciting/weird experience of this project is the moment you stick your head into it. The motor above you starts moving; the vibration and sounds of the pulley system; the view you see through the wood cubes, knotted ropes, and steel wheels. It’s the mixture feelling of exposing yourself to undergo the vulnerability, and taking in the unknown to activate all your senses in the narrow space.

2D/paper –> 3D/physical

Inspired by renowned kinetic sculptor Arthur Ganson, I decided to use steel wire as the means for my Automata final project. Based on the photos and videos collecting from internet, I sketched out the shape first, and then tried to figure out how to bend the steel wire into wheel.

It’s a trial and error process, but thanks to magical Zoe Logan, I learned different pliers and jigs to make proper(at least better than free style) steel wheel. The whole journey is a little bit pain in the ass, but the result is satisfying. Beside boosting my stamina with heavy laboring, I’m glad the efforts somehow accumulating into something weird and terrifying looking.

I learned a lot from this transforming 2d ideas into 3d physical form process: the pros and cons of wire bending compare to the thick steel connected by welding; the limit of series connection the wheels with knotted ropes; the necessity of middleware of two big wheels to increase the tension.

gamma version

Multiple motors to fully construct the node system of brain on all the faces. Pill the paper off the acrylic sheets so it’d be totally transparent. Could have multiple hand crank nodes as well so it will become a cooperative “thinking” system.

Related posts

Concept Sketch, Process of Making.

Haunted House _{ Brothers’ Room }

For the class Haunted House Final, which is a real haunted house held on the floor of ITP, Jonathan, Michelle and I created “Brothers’ Room“, depicting a tragedy happened between brothers and how the lived one is haunted by the guilt and grief.

Story

• Pere and his brother died in an accident and arrived at this intermediate stage between life/death. Brother, feeling unconflicted, moved on to afterlife, but Pere stays out of guilt, because he’s responsible for his brother’s death.
• Pere is haunted by himself.

Concept

• The room is a representation of Pere’s mind.
• Showing the loop of emotions
• (1) sweet memory with brother
• (2) scared of Brother’s death
• (3) freaks out as Brother’s ghost showing up in the mirror
• (4) guilty and asks for forgiving
• back to (1)

Technique / Effects
–> Reflecting Pere’s emotions, the room reflects this with more intense light, sound, and walls shaking. At the climax, the man realizes he’s responsible for his brother’s death, the wall of the hidden room drops, and his brother appears in the 2-way mirror. The man sees him and cracks. Annnnd, start over!

• DMX lights: controlled by Arduino, Tinker.it! DMX shield, and Max/Msp patch
• Sounds / Music: controlled by Max/Msp patch
• Burned scar of Brother: latex gel, tissues, and colors
• Hidden Room Revealed: fabric and strings!

Script

Prep / Installation

Show Time

Other Scenes

Whole Crews :D

{ Brain } – process of painfully crafting your idea

SO. Here’s the report of my { brain } automata making process.

First, prototype with cardboard. Laser cut 11 pieces of pentagons, and stick them together with my favorite tool – duck tapes.

And endless steel wire bending.

Laser Cut transparent 3/16″ acrylic and build into dodecahedron  with hinges and machine screws.

And mount the motor my pulley system!

Things all sound easy but there are actually lot of painful struggling –>

1. Pre drilling hole on small wood tube is hard. Crack easily.
2. Rope has to be trimmed neatly or it will stuck with wires.
3. Bad binding with wire and motor shaft. Asked magical Ben Light, ordered a shaft coupler to connect wire and DC motor.
4. Have to relocation the motor. Should leave more space for the shaft side.
5. Friction debugging nightmare…

SO. I’m really concerned about the possibility of finishing it before Final…. but whatever, I’ll keep working on it :DDDDD

{ Brain } – Automata Final

[Stupid_Hackathon] Stupid Font

For the 3rd Stupid Shit No One Needs And Terrible Ideas Hackathon, I made three fonts:

1. Stupid.ttf
2. ReallyStupid.ttf
3. Laura.ttf

Here to download the package and it’s of course free to use!

The idea for each one is:

1. Hand tracing the most expensive font in the world. If user likes it, user will eventually buy the most expensive font in the world.
2. A really stupid font that when user types “I’m smart”, it shows “I’m stupid.” And also exchange + / -,  , / ., { / }, crossed out $ and ∞, etc.
3. For presenting artistic proposal for various projects. From now on, I don’t have to hand trace Times New Roman anymore.

Salvation _ Automata Midterm

“Nail hammering, finger nail pulling, brain stirring, body spinning.
What do you feel watching those shadows thriving darkly?”

A hand-crank automata with Cam & Followers system.

Refined version of this.

HHouse_test

Boooo.

Halloween is coming.

Automata_Salvation

AUTOMATA. VERY EXCITED.

For the first assignment, we have to develop an idea for a project that involves Automata.

• Two quick studies that explore some facet of the design, experience or concept. Can be any materials or methods including software, models, mechanism mockup, etc.
• At least one physical studies.

Because I’m still dizzy in the post-era of Maker Faire, I don’t have the whole picture about what I want to do with Automata, but I know I’m also fascinated by chain reaction, parts triggering parts sequentially in a strange and unexpected way, and I’d love to try out Whirligigs!

The idea of the project is “after finding out what your decision did to yourself and bearing all the consequences, you will be less mad about yourself from watching yourself being punished“, aka Salvation.

For the past two months, I felt I was running along the edge of the cliff. Holding all the stuff and running forward clumsily, and the deadline just kept poking me behind. And sometime it made me want to kill myself(METAPHORICALLY). And this whirligig of artist Ben Thal somehow has the healing effect on me.

I love this kind of simple movement repeat again and again and again, and it allows me to stare at it tirelessly and helps me to clear up my mind, especially the self-destruction genre.

And my first design for this concept is Stab My Face.

It’s also a practice of the amazing Harry T. Brown’s 507 Mechanical Movements #157. I chose it because it has a nice momentum to strike the stab, insteading of constant speed all the time.

Ideally, it should be driven by motor instead of my clumsy fingers, and they all should be well designed and fabricated instead of taping everything on top of the shop table.

And my second design for this concept is Pull the Guts Out.

It’s an automata that keeps pulling out the guts. The guts only moves when arm moves downward.

Using the same gear setup #157, girl’s arm rotates up and down. And once the arm goes down, the stick connected to it pushes the gear with teeth rotate counterclockwise, and then drag the softmateral guts rotate counterclockwise too. The tricky part is, I’m not sure about the movement when arm moves upward. Ideally the gear would just have little movement when arm moves up because of the teeth.

HHouse_Immersive Performance_Elevator Ticket

For the first week assignment – a simple immersive performance, to put a new slant on an everyday situation or interaction.Ben, Tom and me present the Elevator Ticket!

And here’s the nicely put-together by Tom:

In New York there isn’t much more routine then taking an elevator ride. With the exception of freak accidents elevators usually function in the same way. Press the button, wait, get in and awkwardly attempt not to look at other people, get off.

As routine as elevator rides may be, we imagined disrupting the routine of elevator usage.

In the style of old train tickets, we created an elevator ticket and instructed visitors to the NYU Tisch building that a ticket was required for using the elevator.

Using the reasoning of ‘safety’ and ‘efficiency’ we asked visitors for his/her destination floor and collected tickets prior to boarding the elevator. The ticket was not presented as an option but instead as a requirement to use the elevator.

The responses varied from mild amusement, to annoyance and non compliance. It was interesting that most elevator users accepted the reasoning of ‘efficiency’ or ‘safety’ at face value, even as we were not dressed in a way that might suggest authority.

We imagined that to enhance the performance we could  dress in uniform and have operators standing inside of the elevator asking for tickets from passengers and pressing floor button for them. During the ride the operator could talk about the imaginary floor news and wish passengers a merry imaginary scenario day when arriving.