Premiering tomorrow at Maker Faire: a totally different project!

I went to setup Tangólumen at Maker Faire today and after 5.5 hours of setup (well, 5 if you discount that 30 minutes of that was me getting lunch) it... didn't work.

Either I screwed something up in the setup or something broke in shipping (or both... or option C [to be named later]) but whatever the cause, I didn't bring the tools with me I need to really debug it, nor did I really have ample time (or the heart) to rip it back up and fix it.

However, instead of prepping to spend a weekend saying "Well... this is what it should be doing" I went to the hardware store and picked up enough parts to hack together with the laser cut pieces I brought to control Tangólumen's lighting rig to create a brand new piece. And it's 300% more awesome.

...and I'm not going to tell you what it is until after tomorrow opens.

Tangolumen Completed / Post Review Reflections

After living in my studio for the better part of a week, reviews finally came, and Tangólumen was up and doing things. It wasn't doing exactly what it was supposed to...but it was doing things, and that's something.


Tangólumen In Action from Andrew Parnell on Vimeo.

People seemed to enjoy it, and I got a lot of really useful feedback ranging from what to do next, tweaks to make, things to consider, possible redirection, and so forth. Now that I've gone back and adjusted the lights and programming so that it's actually to spec, I really need to start inviting people into the space and use data I gather from that to further development.

Assemble Flooring - CHECK

The flooring is 100% operational and 100% assembled. I do need to run some gaff around the perimeter to keep it in place, but that has to wait until after I glue the Vcc line into place.

[X] Strip Cat 5 cables + Glue them to the panels with conductive epoxy
[X] Assemble flooring
[ ] Attach Vc to flooring
[REDACTED] Recut 1 servo-box
[ ] Cut 2x 1' of threaded pipe
[ ] Attach pulley rig to dimmers
[ ] Cut and crimp steel cable.

Oh man, it's so close I can almost taste it. It tastes like the floor, which, coincidentally, I've slept on the last 2 nights.

I am the for loop.

There's one thing that seems nearly thematic in my current project: repetition.

This is a side effect of the modular design I'm really proud of across the board in this project, but at the same time it's making the assembly portion of fabrication really repetitive.

Some examples:



There are 64 pieces of chipboard in this project, each with a 17" long strip of aluminum tape running up their center. Each piece is then taped into a grid, with cat 5 cables shared among every eight panels.



When I designed all the acrylic pieces for the pulley system, I designed it around an interchangeable system of pieces. Six pieces combine to make 1 part, there are 32 parts in this system, meaning that I cut 192 pieces (not including extras, or the pulleys). Cutting took ~30 minutes (well, an hour, but that's because I had to do it twice), assembling them was another story all together.


Review prep checklist:
[19/64] Strip Cat 5 cables + Glue them to the panels with conductive epoxy
[ ] Assemble flooring
[ ] Attach Vc to flooring
[ ] Recut 1 servo-box
[ ] Cut 2x 1' of threaded pipe
[ ] Attach pulley rig to dimmers
[ ] Cut and crimp steel cable.

i++;

Some Assembly Required

The downside to laser cutting is that if you want undercuts, you basically have to create them as separate pieces and then laminate them together. The upside is that they look, and are, awesome.



Last leg of cutting is scheduled for tomorrow. Then I just have to cut the threaded rods down length and assemble.

Prototype

Untitled from Andrew Parnell on Vimeo.

Fun With Lasers

It's been a while since I've given a project update here. In part because I've been really busy (1 job, 2 internships, and school) but mostly because I'm trying to find a way to tell you all about my progress / what I'm doing without giving away the ending.

I don't think I'm risking too much with this update, so here it goes.

The project I've been working on involves a lot of both large and small scale work. The small scale stuff requires a lot of parts to be fabricated. This gave me an excuse to design stuff to be made on the laser cutter we have in the building here.

Last week I cut some test pieces:


Which I then assembled into a 3d form so they can serve their purpose of joining threaded rod at perfect 90 degree angles.



Eventually I'm going to cut a few more of these (with modifications made, this is a learning experience.) and eventually wind up with this:


For now though I've gotta say, lasers are just awesome.