Prodical’s Blog

I started this blog as an exercise in recording my own thoughts, research and creative activity – as well as learning more about the WordPress publishing platform.

Early on it was pretty much a solely personal exercise… but as I’ve tweaked the site layout, added Search Engine Optimisation, generated a few trackbacks from busier blogs etc. I’ve been noticing a steady increase in visitors.

My posts generally don’t have ‘Allow Comments’ enabled – so I thought I’d open a sticky ‘Comments Welcome!’ post that did. So if… :

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I’ve been working away on a couple of projects recently – the Auduino synthesiser and DMX control of a Colour Kinetics iColor Flex SLX 50 node light string - and though I’m not quite ready to post about these yet I thought some of my interim research and workings worth noting…

Arduino to DMX

I found a recent Frizing project – ARDUINO TO DMX CONVERTER – which uses the same RS485 chip as Daniel Hirschmann’s Super DMX Shield – which I bought all the components for from Farnell bar the 8 Pin DIP IC Socket (doh!) – so although this was all PC based I thought it might worth looking at in the interim.

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I’ve started a shopping list of Arduino related things I need and want… as I research and come across things of interest… and here’s some of my thinking and things I’ve found out.

Starter Kit

I need an Arduino starter kit of my own – and looking around at the various options on offer I think that the Fritzing Starter Kit seems amongst the best choice… and not because it’s brimming with components – quite the opposite in fact – but it does come with a useful plastic project box, a servo motor and hookup wire set which I’ve not seen elsewhere… and at 72.45 € – £60.57 – it seems a good deal and supports the Fritzing project too…

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My SparkFun components arrived… taking 9 days from order in the US… but since I thought I’d build Dave Mee an Auduino as a thank you for lending me his Arduino kit I bought some additional 4.7k linear rotary pots, knobs and an audio jack socket from Maplin for an equitable £9.95 in the interim. They’re chunkier – but chassis fitting.

So I had a good day at Fablab Manchester on Friday…
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With my SparkFun components in the post I’ve been preparing for building my Auduino – researching the Google Group a bit more thoroughly and following up on some of the links… and it really does seem like an ideal ‘my first proper’ arduino project…

I think the demo video on Jesse’s Studio Blog post illustrates how much fun this could be…

So I’ve now collected a series of Auduino sketches that variously:

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Had oodles of fun (sad I know) browsing the sparkfun.com and robotshop.ca online catalogues looking for components for the Auduino I’m planning to build… and getting a bit sidetracked with all sorts of interesting things…

Essentials include:

Audio Jack 3.5mm – £1.03
Audio Jack Breakout – £0.65

Rotary Potentiometer – Linear – £0.65
Potentiometer Knob – £0.65

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I’m currently researching how to make and control sound with an Arduino as well as sourcing possible components for the mooted Monomatic Modular Music Box for the “Analogue is the new Digital” exhibition as part of AND Festival in October.

With a total budget of £400 solutions and parts need to be cheap & cheerful – yet do the job…

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I’ve been googling how to transmit DMX via an Arduino… and following up on links in the DMX512 section at the Arduino: Playground…

Daniel Hirschmann’s Super DMX Shield

Ideally I’d like to buy a ready-made shield:

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It’s been a while since my last blog post – so this is an overdue round-up of what’s been keeping me busy.

It feels like I’ve been focusing on Processing to the exclusion of anything else for sometime… and not just my own creative development… but also all the time and energy I’ve been investing into InProcess:ing – the open forum for sharing creative coding and practice at Madlab.

Don’t get me wrong… I lurve Processing… but I think it’s time to take a bit of a breather and outline ideas and strategies to move forward with new opportunities and other creative ideas that have been bubbling on my back-burner for a while…

Themes include:

1. KiNoSeq – a kinetic nodal sequencer for the iPad
2. Fun with Arduino
3. PEAL ‘Hand Bells’
4. The Augmented Tonoscope
5. shado – monome widgets
6. Dirty Electronics – Skull Etching
7. ‘Analogue is the new Digital’ exhibition

Some of these are relatively brief and included within this post – others are more substantial so I’ve opened up a separate post in their own right.

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I’ve been following Hans Kuder’s flexible, nodal music sequencer Tiction for a while – and while there’s not been much development recently – I think it has plenty of unrealised potential. So much so that I’ve been thinking about how to develop an original application – one inspired by Tiction – but that realises the multi-touch capabilities of the iPad.

There are other emerging nodal sequencing applications – most notably:

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It’s 10 weeks since I took part in the Arduino and Physical Computing Workshop at Madlab and I’ve been meaning to post about it… and actually do something with it too.

Of course I’ve known of Arduino for quite some time…. Monomatic’s PEAL control system is built using one… but I’ve never actually played with one myself. Thanks to Dave Mee who ‘lent’ me his Arduino Duemilanove kit.

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