{ 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.

{ 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

{Rabbit_Hole}

{currently works with Chrome and Firefox browser}

For the composition assignment the final of Coding for Emotional Impact class, I want to create something with multiple layers and is self-explained. Inspired by the description of computer vision is a rabbit hole from Andy(because I’m learning Three.js by myself recently), I wanted to make a game about “Rabbit Hole”, and my biggest assumption is that everyone is sort of down the rabbit hole.

ps. It’s not really a fun game to play. Still confusing should it be fun to play or just an emotion-building nowhere…

     

Literary Nonsense- has no system of logic, although it may imply the existence of an inscrutable one, just beyond our grasp.

And below are three snapshots of what I’ve built so far. I made my own models in Maya and drew textures in Photoshop. Can’t view online because of some web-related issue I can’t solve to load the music(SOLVED_by hard coding the url of music file path). But have no ideas how to do the transition from scene to scene…

SCENE_ZERO: http://www.rabbithole.link/

SCENE_ONE: http://www.rabbithole.link/index_D.html

SCENCE_TWO: http://www.rabbithole.link/index_G.html

SCENE_THREE: http://www.rabbithole.link/index_S.html

SCENE_FOUR: http://www.rabbithole.link/index_M.html

SCENE_FIVE: http://www.rabbithole.link/index_T.html

SCENE_SIX: http://www.rabbithole.link/index_F.html

SCENE_SEVEN: http://www.rabbithole.link/index_V.html

SCENE_EIGHT: http://www.rabbithole.link/index_E.html

( Three.js + web stuff ) == super deep rabbit hole.

ICM_4_PatchBallsFlies

Here’s the combination of what I’ve learned so far from Learning Processing and The Nature of Code. I call it “Patch. Balls. and Flies”. It’s kind of messy but I’m glad all the interactions with each others work! Yah! Check it out(click click )!

Here’s some struggles I’ve been through:

1. when dragging balls, I calculated the distance with patch and ball, and then planed to add this fixed distance to the position of patch and set it as the position of balls. But since I wrote this code in void mouseDragged(), I recalculated the distance every time I dragged and that caused flickering. Thanks to the office hour w/ Daniel Shiffman, this calculation codes were moved into void mousePressed() and it worked!!! (tearing)
2. same stupid things happened when I want to bump flies with balls: I forgot to set conditions and thus make flies be affected by every balls!
3. Things getting complicated when I want to make the music band. In the end I successfully saved the original color, and changed the color once it’s been hit(hitGround == true &&  cubes.x < ball.x <cubes.x+w  && ball.y < (height-h)), and then restored the colors back later.

And codes time!

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