zero pressure

i’ve often remarked that all days are big days and some are bigger than others.  today at the mill we were joined by becca, the maker ed representative in the uk.  a maker and practioner herself, she’s currently an ma design student at goldsmiths in london.

https://twitter.com/andrewsugars/status/757552389066989568

i’ve been able to handle the day of talking much better than i did at the beginning of the residency.  i can’t say for sure why this is, however i do know that i feel more assured and confident as a maker at the mill with ongoing projects and deadlines to meet.  this feels really good as i can look back and see the journey to this point and feel proud of where i’ve got to and have more ambitions now than at the beginning of the residency.

making does make me happier.

having had a break from the main makes i’ve improvised with photo and video makes to add to my day.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BIS1gR-DaT_

https://youtu.be/q2wO3evG9wM

after writing yesterdays post i found myself being drawn into considering the snee snaw programming again.  despite the alteration in how i thought about the how the work was made there was still something that i really felt uncomfortable with.

i’d made a choice about how to use the osc data within the arduino sketch.  this method got the led control working quickly however as i progressed to wanting to do more, this method was starting to create more problems than solving them.

yesterday i radically altered the led control method and as a result reprogrammed everything i had done up to this point.

the net effect is that i now believe the programming of the functionality i want the work to have will be easier to achieve.

i slept better last night.  after a week of hight temperatures i’ve become adjusted and tired enough to have a sound nights sleep.

the physical form of the work needs to be considered, designed and made.  i feel the need to take time off from the programming to consider the physical form.

when i bounced around on the first day of the residency talking about me and my work i really didn;t expect to be actually working on realising the re-imagined snee snaw.

on the first day i was hyper with nerves and covering it mucho mucho bouncing.

so here i am half way through the time and yesterday i think the pushing to find a solution to how to make the snee snaw work again became a little closer.

as part of trying out the museum of making i once again set up my makerspace in the body of the museum with a really good view of the museum and all that would occur there.  it proved a good place to observe the interactions at the maker bar too and the conversations around the epidiascope.

the work done on the snee snaw yesterday was really good.  i challenged my own thinking about the concept of how it would work as i was finding that when attempting to programme the concept i had no way into how to start to make it work.

i skipped around the space while i contemplated the core concept.

the skipping was punctuated with conversations with both museum staff and visitors stopping to find out what i was doing.  i had several offers of help and this felt really rather good.

a regular feature of the residency are the informal happen almost anywhere maker chats.  these for me are one to one in which i share with and listen to one of the other makers in residence.  these chats are always helpful.  yesterday one of the chats was considering the seating concept for the snee snaw.

with the core concept of the snee snaw re-negotiated i feel happier about progressing and being ready to show the work in august.

before the mill opened i had an opportunity to show the contents of my residency box to the mill’s marketing intern.  one of her roles is to update the silk mill tumblr site.  we chatted about my practice and she explained how what i did wasn’t as easy to get as the practioner who works in glass.  having an array of objects that i’d made allowed her to get more of a comprehension of the dynamic range of interests in making that i have.

in an other chat prior to programming i checked in with the workshop manager about which workshop processes would be appropriate to create the loose parts for the steam tot brief.

as he played with the quickly generated shapes something quite unexpected happened.

i made a connection between the creation and playing with the loose parts and the big bang interactive.  with the interactive i programmed various variable conditions with which the visitors played with and created something based on their play.

i was seeing almost exactly the same happening with the three loose parts in the hands of the workshop manager.

this was a big moment on my understanding of what my intenetions are how the ideas i explore in the programming world do have a place outside of the coding window and it’s deployment.

i went to bed feeling i’d had a good day and felt excited at continuing the development and pushing to complete.

i’ve been working from home today.  the emphasis has been on establishing the osc control between the main isadora programme and the arduino driving the neopixels (individually addressed rgb leds ).

in the finished work the neopixels will communicate the relationship between the participants movements to each other.

i’ve worked with the neopixels and osc before at a much lower level.  in this re-imagining of the snee snaw i’m pushing into realms of relational maths not investigated by myself before.

i’m at proof of concept stage with it.

the figment festival want the snee snaw to be apart of it and trying to make sure that the principles of the new components are in the majority understood before officially committing to submitting the idea.

cautious maybe.

on monday i was asked how my day was.  i replied “frustrating”.  today has been similar with me experiencing again the transition from working to not working with the ensuing head scratching and working out how to make it work again.

it is a test of resilience and commitment to keep going when there appears to be nothing wrong yet the thing still doesn’t behave as i’d expect.

experience tells me in these situations of unexpected behaviour to concentrate on finding a way around the problem as often the problem is such that i don;t know where to begin to actually understand it.  i’d rather get it working with a workaround than picking at it for an unknown amount of time to get to why it stopped working.

i might find that tomorrow the thing actually works again anyway.

i’m well into the flow of the residency now.  i have several lines of enquiry set up to investigate and several makes waiting to be made.

up first was the proof of concept for the maker bar additional interpretation sign.  the makers feel we can improve the visitor experience by providing more opportunitities to form a door into what we do on the bar for first time visitors.  with this make i ran through the stages really quite quickly for me.  i think this was a result of a recent personal occurrence.

dipping into the recently acquired laser cutting knowledge, i set myself to create.

sourcing material from the off cut bin of a suitable size i quickly cut the words and drilled holes to join the two boards together.

on the laser cutter i used some guides to ensure the second board lined up as the first so i could quickly repeat the cutting process.

in the workshop i used a spindle sander for the first time to take out some uneven ness of edge and drill holes for nylon string to create the a board.

i also used some wax i had been introduced to for the big bang interactive box.   i made a bad call doing this as the wood darkened and the words became difficult to read.

there’s also a spelling mistake.

the plus side of this make came when as a group we were able to look at the object and discuss how to proceed with it.  we have also been brought up to speed with the museum’s set font for interpretation words.

i’ll be remaking the maker bar additional interpretation board after an induction to the vinyl cutter next week.

with the laser cutting complete i moved onto proving the load cell.

the arduino online community is incredibly supportive with many shared tutorials and code examples.  experience has taught me to try to initially use teh simpler version of code if there is a choice.  when testing the load cell i forgot this.

it took additional research to find a simpler code.  i have now been able to read the value from the load cell and transmit this value over bluetooth to isadora.

the load cell proving is part of the pre work for the re-imagined snee snaw.  additional works include the led research and considering the calculations needed.

with the led i’m considering the method of controlling them using osc commands from isadora and wether they will be bright enough for being outside.

the calculations relate to how i can use the values from two load cells to control the led strip, inspired by the physical form of a see saw.

this week we’ve also been introduced to the usb controlled sewing machine.  it’s quite easy to use.  i think there are subtleties to the process as there always are to make a process go really smoothly.  for the demonstration we all had our names embroidered.

at a personal level this week has been difficult and i’ve leant on my making to help support myself through this difficult time.

there are times during which code that i’m working on doesn;t behave as i’d want it to.  i have learnt to accept the frustrations of this.  there usually is a reason why the behaviour is not as expected and the key to progressing is finding that.

personally i’ve learnt to keep a level head, stay calm and take a break when it doesn’t work.

i had this yesterday with progressing the ardunio control of the led strip.  the behaviour was erratic and not as expected.  after a break i played with the set up again (at home) to see if i could solve it.

through a process of elimination i discovered the problem to be the bluetooth module still powered and connected to the arduino uno.  powering down the module returned the osc control to the led strip.  it was with some satisfaction that i started to progress with how i’ll use osc values to control direction and speed of the lit led position.