continuation from the previous part 2 post with some new ideas after the talk about the past FYP showcase from Assoc Prof Laura Miotto, I’ve been inspired to do something that focuses solely on the showcase, since the showcase will mark the end ADM life of all current year 3, I would like to do something for many of the peers that would enhance student’s FYP showcase capability as well as the visitor’s experience of the visit.
As the founder of Kimchi and Chips, Elliot Woods asked during the Emergent Visions Symposium,
“What is the work that only I can make?”
This question hit me like Tiger Woods golf clubbed me in the head…
Yes, what is the work that only I can make in this coming FYP showcase?
back to my first post, I’ve already know what my strength is at this point of time, I would really want my FYP to have an impact on others, why not use my strength into making other’s FYP presentation to potentially having slightly more possibility? Wouldn’t that be great?!
so, this will be an idea which I know that I would enjoy spending a year to complete.
A set of robots(3 to 6) that will display student’s work in complementary of their booth where visitor could get more information(project info/booth location).
Just imagine, every student have their booth while a robot moving around in the FYP show displaying their project on its screen, when a visitor saw it on the screen, got interested and wanted to see the booth, they simply click a “Bring me to this booth” button and the robot will do so. How much more potential exposure will that bring to that student?
And on another aspect viewing this project, what will be realer than an actual application of an FYP project during the FYP show? What the visitor sees is what was actually made specially for that FYP show, if it doesn’t work or spoiled halfway, it simply meant that I did not plan well/have a backup or do a good enough job but there will not be an imaginative scenario where “This FYP was supposed to work in another location” *I am not saying that that kind of project isn’t good, but just what I would not like to do*
Project Brief ver.1-
To design a set of Robots that have the ability to move around while avoiding people/obstacles during the FYP show. The purpose of the Robots is to expand the presentation possibility of student’s project while enhancing the experiences of the visitors. Safety of the people around the robot should be of the utmost importance and under no circumstances whereby injuries caused by the robot should happens.
Project Specification Ver.1 –
Each Robot should have a minimum battery life of 6 hours on single charge.
Every Robot designed should be unique and serves different function.
The Robots should be designed with ease of maintenance system that allows ad hoc repair.
The interface on every Robot will be touchscreen enabled to suit the behavioral characteristic of the targeted user. ( young adult of developed country)
Network between Robots and a Central Hub should be setup to enable a smooth flow of communication and for controls during the exhibition.
Similar Project :
Although it will be really hard to do so, but I aimed to complete a project of this standard but the task which my robot will do is much simpler.
Moodboard:
this will probably a good gauge as a robot size which i will build.
of course, the screen wont be so big as the price would be expensive.
468_999 by ksenolog.
I like the colour scheme of this type of robots,
bot by operion.
Although it is rather dark here, but the top simplicity is rather cool.
bot concept design by chriss2d.
I might build a similar robot like this minus the limbs.
samurai bot by andynd.
Colour scheme.
catsbot by trudsss.
colour scheme and friendliness
fishboxerbot by hubertspala.
unique design that is out of the box.
giga bot concept by ultimatemaverickx.
colour scheme, + shape
hammy the hammer head by andynd.
I really like this cute robot and simple shape
hdri bot by ethan.
Shape.
kuning bot by adry53.
Colour scheme
red boy by adry53.
Colour Scheme
business bot by milenplus.
Colour scheme + the overall friendliness aspect seemed similar to what I have in mind.
mean frog by glaaarg.
cool robot like this might be nice too.
mech 3 by astrokevin.
overall presentation of a poster-like layout will be good on my FYP booth,
mech by nemanjas.
mech suit by flyingdebris.
Overall shape and details minus the limbs
mekachu by trudsss.
Colour scheme and cuteness.
mobile memory unit by tehan.
I like this and the idea in which the walking camera is a “Mobile Memory Unit”
remember to by inkgummi.
overall feeling + the screen head is nice.
robot by ahmadturk.
Colour scheme+ details + shape.
sir crow by trudsss.
Cuteness and the robotic like armor with organic head.
sniper bob by boxer18.
details + colour scheme.
Computational System Research:
There were many considerations made for this aspect of the project, firstly, the Cost and Value Analysis of the system must be made, of course, if money isn’t a problem, then this part would be really easy as I will just get the suitable parts which I need for the FYP, but sadly that isn’t the case… Money is a problem in FYP.
So, how can I maximize the output of my project by using the minimum amount of money? I have to also consider about how strong/fast the system is, and how would I like to have the user interface (touch screen) to be incorporated into the system.
These are the types of computation system which might be possible for my project at reasonable price –
Raspberry Pi 3 –
This is the latest Raspberry Pi 3. It features a 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARMv8 CPU with 802.11n Wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.1. Like Raspberry Pi 2, it also has 1GB RAM,4 USB ports,40 GPIO pins,Full HDMI port and Ethernet port. This third generation Pi is an excellent tool for hackers, makers and educators because of its small footprint, low power consumption, and low price.
Pi 3 comes with build in WIFI system so that would save me about $30 for WIFI module, output of screen is easy to setup(like a normal computer), runs on Linux system, which I have a slight experience on and as a bonus, I own one of this so that would save me some money too.
Latte Panda –
A LattePanda is a complete Windows 10 single board computer. It has everything a regular PC has and can do anything that a regular PC does. It is compatible with almost every gadget likw printers, joysticks, cameras and more. Any peripherals that work on PC will work on a LattePanda.
In terms of processing strength, completely overpowered Raspberry Pi 3, the price is however much steeper than Pi 3, also as an added bonus, I already own a Lattepanda and I would rather work on Lattepanda over Raspberry Pi as it runs on Windows system and that would save a huge amount of time for me, plus overall it is much faster at processing video and even runs Max MSP(a programming software) which is what I will probably be using. I am sure Latte Panda will be more responsive than Raspberry Pi 3 at the cost of more $$.
Cheap Desktop CPU –
Yes, I praised so much about Lattepanda, but the cheap CPU nowadays is already cheaper than a LattePanda, although bigger,heavier and more power hungry, it is way cheaper than a Lattepanda at relatively same processing power and also, a cheap CPU usually comes with Internal HDD(atleast 128GB) while Lattepanda only has a mere 64GB(minus operating system installed, leaving about 40GB). Best part, Desktop CPU comes with built-in cooling fan, which overheating is a problem for Lattepanda.
*REFURBISH is the word here hence the cheap price*
since I don’t really need a brand new computer to get the job done. This is the normal sized CPU, which is rather big but I am sure it is small enough to be build into a robot.
Second handed/refurb touchscreen laptop –
For me, I think that this is the best system i could think of for now which I will need, firstly, touchscreen laptop meant that I do not need to purchase another separate touchscreen(which is usually really expensive) secondly, it comes with all the benefit of a CPU like cooling fan and such, also, laptop have a additional battery which reduce the load of the power supply, like if the main power supply ran out, there will still be time for the system to send out notification to the control system which then battery could be replaced. lastly, laptop will be slightly lighter and uses lesser power in comparison to a CPU, which make it really good over a normal CPU.
These are really good deal I think, I have been also browsing on carousell to find cheap and well condition touchscreen laptops, will update when I found some.
By having a computer doesn’t meant that this project will work, of course, what I am going to do on the computer is all that matter.
Since I don’t have sufficient knowledge in programming for windows system or app, so I also looked up for some online courses which I think I may follow during the holiday.
If I were to use a car battery, I would get the deep cycle/marine battery as it is made for continuous discharge when connected to my computer within the robot/motors.
Thanks to Tiffany and Joan for the awesome snippets that were used as the featured image as well as in the videos, and helping with lighting up all the candles + documentations.
Also Thanks to Bao, Fabian and Suhwee for helping me to place all the candles onto the candle platform.
I’ve seen the actual project with real candles in the dark room the first time as the class saw it.
Light & Darkness was created to give a sense of alternative space within an ordinary space, in this project, I wanted to create a space so that the audience will forget that they were in the IM room, the room was build with pure darkness and stability in mind as nothing should collapse as I wanted to hang the candles platform instead of building a table-like structure to give a sense that all the candles were floating in space(which is also the reason why everything, including the candles platform was black), this worked really well as the candle platform would swing gently which increased the magical feeling to my space, Also, all of this will be enhanced in the digital version as I would add a series of stars(LED, not projection) to the room’s wall to increase the feeling of enchantment. The smell of the candles, as well the burnt smell created when extinguishing the candles worked much better than I expected, as I wanted to have smell that is not too overpowering, I’ve used 239 unscented candles with 60 scented candles, this combination worked like a wonder because there is only a faint smell outside of the dark room. another point that worked better than I expected was the random placement of the scented candles created a colourful candle array when they were all lighted up and this increased the overall aesthetic of this project’s analog version greatly.
After this analog version, I’ve noticed a few points to take note of, it is actually quite hard to light up all the candles so more lighters will be needed and the current lighter that I was using appears to be rather difficult to be used, so I’ll probably buy some more lighter which is much easier to be operated and uses lesser strength. Also, I would have to paint the metal wires that was used to hang the candles platform into matt black as the metallic would reduce the magical floating aspect of this project.
again, I had progressed much further since that post, mainly in designing the workable electrical and mechanical system that could fit into the Telephone and to write the Arduino code up.
First, lets start with the Final Video!
Back into the Process
Since the previous post which I’ve roughly did the belt system that drives the music card into the laser reader, I had added the motor to the system and tried it, at this point, it seemed to work as I thought all I need was to slow the motor down and it will be alright.
First I sawed the phone to remove the material for me to cut them easily later
and slowly, I cut them up
after chipping the plastic off, i constantly checked the dimension of it and trimmed a little at a time to prevent having a larger hole than I needed.
With this hole, I could finally see how it is looking internally and if there are any parts i made which was too tall in the case.
After I cut the hole, I proceed to modelling the card slot and i took inspiration from the ATM just to have the user to have something they’ve experienced and know how to put the Music Card in without instructing them, since subconsciously, I assumed that they interacted with a ATM at some point in their life.
This is the inspiration that I took from
I used Tinkercad to modeled it and the cube like doesnt look like ATM card slot.
so i tried to use curve lines, and MANNNN Tinkercad was not meant to be used this way!! these angles and tilts of a pipe line was only done by brute force trail and error.
Version 1 on the left and Version 2 on the right.
After the modelling which i am really happy with, I proceed to print it.
I changed filament to clear filament to print the card slot which was modeled according to the ATM
Half way printing, its looking really good
test of size with the music cards.
and i tested by plugging in one green LED in it and MANNNNNN IT LOOK SO MUCH NICER THAN I EXPECTED!! I WAS IMPRESSED.
Since it was looking good, I went ahead and make a nicer LED system for it by soldering 4 LED(3 on the bottom and one for the top).
I used the flat and clear when Unlit Green LED so that i could stuck it in the shell on top.
and I soldered the 3 on the bottom and tested it out.
placing it in to see the effect again.
The light was too glaring so I sticked white electrical tape to diffuse the LED to make sure that they glow nicely.
and this is how the system would work.
How the phone should look
Next, I Epoxyed the speaker onto the bottom of the front belt drive since there is already a hole in the bottom shell for the speaker.
This is the DC motor driver which is used to run the 2 DC motor in the system.
and I soldered the pins too.
I thought I woundn’t need to solder this again… but… i happened to solder this for the 4th times..
I extended the wires and used thinner and softer wires so aid me in the messy wiring withing the telephone afterwards.
this is the wires for only the photoresistors.
and I soldered the relays which control the 14 laser diodes and the 4 Green LED lights which runs on 2 AA battery to reduce the load on my arduino and to make sure the laser and LED have a stable current flow.
It was at this point then I realized that if i reduce the speed of my DC motor to the speed of the music, I wont have enough torque to pull the card in..
After an afternoon of panicking and finding alternative motor or even thinking to redesigning my whole belt system….
So to solve this problem, I tried to get the medium speed which is faster than what the song should be and will stuck about 30% of the time and removed the buttons (which detects card when user insert into it that trigger the motor to turn the belt.) that caused more friction. And I also jump start the motor by making it to spin at full speed for half a second to break the initial force required when the motor is starting.
The messy configuration, components and wirings.
It took me some time to sort out these messy wiring and make sure that none of the wires interfere with the track that the Music card is going through.
The overall layout before the mp3decoder mount was printed and installed.
The relay which controls the LED and 14 laser diodes, it work as a ground for other buttons to do the pulldown resistor.
the only part in the whole system that was not soldered was the connection to the Arduino Mega as I intend to reuse it in the future.
Closeup of the 14 Laser Diodes.
The soldered joint of the DC motor.
I’ve epoxyed the nuts of all the wheels for the belt drive to make sure they stay where they should be and don’t unscrew/tighten themselves.
I also Epoxyed the relay onto the case of the AA battery to make sure nothing is loose in the case.
Soldered connection from the phone coil wire to the 8 Ohm 0.5 Watt speaker.
I also Hot-glued four big nuts in the phone to increase it’s weight to make sure that when the phone is in the place, it is heavy enough to press the button down.
the assembled phone
after the MP3decoder mount was modeled and printed, it looks quite good overall!
I used this 400 Ohm resistor to reduce the volume of the tune when playing the music card.
And added a relay that cut the power of the MP3 Decoder since I am not able to control it digitally, the only way was to let it play until it is the start of the next track and cut off the power to stop the voice track. it also switches the circuit of the phone from the MP3 Decoder to the Arduino pin at the same time.
Some may wonder how did I make the Music Card..
I copied a few from online like Demons by Imagine Dragons, Harrypotter’s Hedwig Theme, and Pokemon Theme song, These were labeled on the card and those that weren’t labeled was What I composed myself. Since I have no music background, I did it by trial and error to give it a tune.
This was screen recorded when I tried to compose my 4th tune for this project:
after this was completed, I screen shot it and import into Illustrator to trace it into the Card layout which I made.
AND how about the voice command in 7 different accent?
well, this is relatively simple, just type whatever I want on Webbased Text to speech reader and have it read it out in different accent and edit them in premiere pro to cut them up to the exact same length(9 seconds) and put them into the SD card within the Obseleting Instrument’s MP3 Decoder.
Why did I made it to speak different accent? It was to engage the user and make them feel like there was really life in the system where they called/receive call from a real person, like if they discussed with their friend and their friend said that there was a Indian accent while what they heard was the British accent, they might want to try Obseleting Instrument for a few more time. The accent there is there to add variables in the system.
In Conclusion
Throughout this Project, I’ve learnt many things like how to model objects in Tinkercad and make measurements properly, there are always failures in everything that I modeled before it works, and this is why 3D printing is a good prototype process where I printed it out and tested it to know if it work or not, if it doesnt, I will shave off some piece to see if it fits, if it does, I will make new measurements for the edited model.
Also, to have a Telephone case in the start and scale everything into the Telephone case was really a challenge especially at the start when I could not measure how big the internal was and could only make a guess and print some test print to try it out.
In this project, I realized that if I were to do a project that require multiple fields of knowledge like mechanical and electrical, It was better if I did not know how hard it will be, if I were to know that every part of the project will be something that I don’t know, I will be too afraid to jump into this project. I did something, realized that it doesn’t work and find solution to that single problem and proceed to work on the project and faced another problem, solving and learning one problem at a time lead me to the completion of the project.
Now that I had completed the project and looking back. Obseleting Instrument is really a complicated project as a whole, but thinking about it, I am just putting many small system into one project- like using one laser diode and a photo resistor as a switch, playing a tune when triggered, a physical button to sense if the phone was picked up, using a relay to control circuits of different voltage, running two DC motor at the same time and so on… Obseleting Instrument is just a collection of small systems, which I personally thinks was what made my journey of doing this project really interesting because I explored the basics of these components and learnt a whole lot through it.
Continue from my part 4 of this project updates, This is the final part which leads to the completion and is rather long as many things from getting the power supply, modelling, testing, painting, assembling to coding had been done in the past 2 weeks.
First, the final video of The Curious & Timid Turtle.
And then, into the process….
NEW POWER SUPPLY!!!
At the end of last post, I was waiting for the power supply to reach and it did during these 2 weeks so I’ve tested it out, The one that I bought is a AC-DC converter at 6V 20A when all I needed was 6V 8A, i decided to buy the higher Amp one just if i need more amp in the future, and I could also share the supply to my Interactive device project during the End of sem show.I did some wiring afterwards.
Since the last post that I’ve decided to change the system in the legs to save space and shorten the overall length by stacking a smaller MG90S on the MG966R to act as a lever system to pull control the legs. After testing this system out and seemed to be working, I merged it with the turtle leg that I’ve modeled in Zbrush, I don’t know about Zbrush before this project and it tool a long time just to model the shell, the legs and the feet.
Backleg model
Backleg model before final
Frontleg model
Frontleg model before final.
I merged the leg with the previous test “rod-like” leg because I’ve already gotten the dimension in there so i just need to scale the Zbrush modeled leg accordingly to fit the “rod-like” leg.
changing of the entire base layout to reduce size and increase EFFICIENCY for the back legs.
At this point, I was wondering if I should change the MG966R(metal gears) into SG-5010(plastic gears) due to weight issue I might face later after adding the shell and so on, so I weigh the motors and decided that I should change the back leg to SG5010(but I changed it back to MG966R one day before submission due to the internal gears got loose in SG5010)
MG966R is 54g
SG5010 is 44g, the difference is 10g so by switching 2 motor, I could save 20g of weight in my system. and so I did.
Major changes were made for whole layout of the base due to various reasons – the backleg will move differently from the front and since my project is basically a turtle with round shell instead of a flat one, it made more sense to use a smaller but higher layout rather than a flatter and wider one to make use of all the space within the shell.
This was the previous layout(Version 4) which made the whole shell really flat and big
and this is Version 5(left) and Version 6(right) which I stacked the servo for the back leg on the shoulder servo of the front leg.
Since my Zbrush was cracked, it crash rather often and I did the same thing over and over if I forgot to save frequently and hence it took quite long to model anything, but well~~
The head started off as a sphere
and tried to model it as close as the turtle head as possible.
and some general shape edit
slowly, I edited it to look like a reptilian head, and instead of getting the real look of the eye, I’ve decided to enlarge the eye to give my turtle a cute look (and because the eyelid looks too hard to model).,
As for the shell… it took so much time and crashes to get it right, because the shell cannot be too thin(unable to print later) and cant be too thick (too heavy) and I cant find a function that could allow me to see the thickness (like reduce opacity of the material to see through), so everytime to check the thickness, I have to export into STL, and import into Tinkercad to check the thickness.
This is like the version 11 of the shell.
I used this image as the sample for my shell pattern
topview when I marked the turtle pattern onto the shell
and i further carve the pattern out.
the rim of the shell i did without any reference and I marked it out
and carved into it.
Everytime I made major changes to the shell, I’ll have to import to Tinkercad to check the thickness and shape.
this was almost the final shell before splitting the shell for printing.
I split the shell top(transparent) and bottom(Pink) in Zbrush because its following the shape of the pattern of the shell, and the top half into 2 in Tinkercad as a straight cut will ease my printing later. I also added 4 holes that allow me to reassemble them using bolt and nuts later.
The comparison of V4 base with V6 base. V6 is much shorter at 150% higher,
The white one was Version5 which was a test print that I realized that the motor is unable to be fitted into it so I cut some material off and remeasured.
the front of the base is a liner bearing that i could slide the rod for the head.
I sprayed the overall colour of the turtle with Tamiya Acrylic paint.
halfway through the spraying, I remembered that I need to epoxy the two pieces of the shell together first.
and so I epoxy it 3 times and sand off the extra epoxy to hide the glue line by a bit.
although it is still visible, I think it is a reasonable standard since I will be painting it further with darker color afterwards which will hide the glue line more.
and i masked the eye using tape for me to spray it black and glossy
and i carefully cut out the tape in the shape of the eye.
After this, I added a few lines of code to substitute the button pressed with sound sensor to make the turtle more intractable and a few more actions that made it more timid looking (head peeking out to check the environment before the whole body come out.)
In conclusion:
Overall, I really liked this project although I kind of regretted trying to make a turtle during the process because the shell is giving a lot of layout and movability problem made me kept thinking that if I were to make something without shell, it will be so much easier, but the reason that I first wanted to make a turtle is the best is because the shell naturally hide all components that break the user’s perception that this is a robot and a turtle is my spiritual animal, now that I finished the project, I am really glad that I sticked to my initial idea of making a turtle and persevere through all the problems I faced(mainly hardware and mechanical problems which I changed my system and design so many times.).
With more time, I am sure that I could code the turtle be able to be scare back into the shell by another sudden loud noise – I tried to change the delay in my code to Millis multiple times and it do every action in the sequence twice so I sticked to using delay for now, which disabled me to write the activation code for using the sound as a trigger since it is in a delay loop. But, it looked really nice for now even if there is only one sequence of movement and I am glad that people were thinking that the turtle is cute when they saw it.
After the Study model of the last part, where I stopped at the lever system and realize that it is not as strong as it should be, my improved method is to use 2 servo to do the same action, After a long time trying, I found out that the overall height of the servo will still be as high and as big as a standard MG 966R servo motor, and the MG966R will provide significantly higher torque than 2x SG90 at roughly the same height.
So my new solution to this is to use the heavier and stronger MG966R as the feet motor. Since they are relative big, I need a system to fully utilize the height and the movement of motors to make it as compact as possible. Since the center of the turtle shell is usually the tallest part, it make sense to stack the first rotating joint (the shoulder) above each other to greatly reduce the total size of the turtle by making it slightly taller.
Improved prototype of the system which reduces the shakiness of the Shoulder Motor(which is important as Shoulder is the first joint, if this vibrates, it will be amplified become very obvious in the feet.)
after countless of testing to get the perfect balance of height in horizontal and vertical, this system should be able to progress into what I will use in the final, there are still improvements to be made in the base height of the Shoulder Motor as when the Arm spins, it will still touch the ground.
for now, it probably can walk and hide like this..
Next up is to further refine this system and find the suitable system for the Elbow joint.
These 3 different species were given by the conservationist Mr.Foo, there were a total of 7 Chrysalis, 5 Leopard Lacewing, 1 Plain Tiger and 1 Lemon Emigrant. All 5 Leopard Lacewing had emerged this week and the other 2 will be coming out tonight or tomorrow morning.
Leopard Lacewing (Cethosia cyane) Female Pumping fluid into wings to extend them.
Leopard Lacewing (Cethosia cyane) Male – underside
Did a lot of butterfly related task this week which includes getting the chrysalis from Mr.Foo, setting the chrysalis up for documentation, waking up way too early to get the video of the eclosing process. laser cutting and build the final casing for the butterfly and presentation, Researched on what butterfly eats and how to feed them. buying Curry leaves from supermarket with vegetables for the butterfly to live with. And tried to get a second hand monitor screen from an online seller, the seller did not turn up and did not reply. Our 160 degree wide angle web camera had arrived from china and we will test it out really soon with Max.
While I was writing this post, The Lemon Emigrant eclosed! (and I diden see it nor video it!) now that the Lemon Emigrant came out, the last one that will be coming out will be the Plain Tiger.
Also for coding, we further researched about our max patch and spend most of our time studying and trying to merge/tweak the standard patch as well as what other people did for their project, some of the patch were too hard to understand until today’s lesson when LPD explained most of what the patch does then we understands(slightly) what the patch does.
From this week to next week we will focus mainly on the max patch and get something that could roughly work in terms of butterfly/motion tracking, visual generation and output to control a real life appliance using UDP or the wireless I-Cube X.
Write up a rough Max Patch for Motion tracking using camera and particle/visual generation from the point/blob that was tracked by the motion tracking.
Catch more caterpillar/cocoon from different area and see how long they need to become butterfly + research more about butterfly.
Actual Milestone Done in Week 10 -11
Purchased the materials and built box for the project using acrylic.
Purchased a mini webcam and tested it with Max, the viewing angle is
Tried to find caterpillar off the wild and also met two community gardener in different location who said there wasn’t any caterpillar seen recently.
Managed to get two chrysalis of butterfly from friend.
Managed to talk to a conservationist in Singapore and he agreed to give us some chrysalis of butterfly of different species for our project.
searched for particle system and tutorials for Max and had been trying to make them work.
We went to Dama in Ubi to purchase our acrylic to build the box for this project, the box have the length of 2.5ft by 1ft by 1( 76 x 30 x 30 cm ) and net will be attached to one side of the box for ventilation.
Helping the Chrysalis to shift the house from the insect container to a proper container for better documentation process and prepare for the timelapse during the emerging process.
The lid of the container was replaced with a net hotglued in place for proper ventilation for the Crysalis.
Also, I’ve joint a butterfly community in singapore and tried to ask for people to help me to get caterpillars of chrysalis of butterfly, and Mr Foo, a conservationist in Singapore agreed to give us some chrysalis for the project!
Our Project will take the idea of “The Butterfly Effect”
Basically for this project, we will be having many butterflies in a container with a habitat that allows them to survive for weeks, the butterflies will be used as an input for the camera’s tracking system and every time a butterfly fly over certain area, a visual will be generated through Max MSP.
The whole container will be placed on a specially made table with a projector in the table and a square hole directly below the container of butterflies, the bottom of the container will be opaque and the projector in the table will be projecting up to the bottom of the container through the square hole, making a screen like appearance at the base of the container.
For our project, we need to have real butterflies, after our research, we found out that Oh’ Farms will be selling caterpillars, on Saturday, we went there trying to purchase the caterpillars, however they were sold out and said the primary school purchased all of their caterpillars and they will restock in 2 weeks time, the shopkeeper also said that it will take around a month for the caterpillars to fully grow into butterfly, so unless we got the caterpillar this week, it will be not possible for us to have butterfly for the submission. So… Alternative plan is to go catch caterpillars/cocoon of butterfly ourself This is Stick insect Oh’ Farms sell, I think its kind of interesting.
As for the butterfly, I think the best way is to find for butterfly in the park and instead of catching the butterfly straight, it will be easier to catch caterpillar or cocoon, therefore we went to Parks and look for butterfly, since there is butterfly of the species there, there will be its caterpillar nearby. Acraea violae (Tawny Coster)
The above photo was taken in Yewtee Park, I also found 4 cocoon from the trees and bush there, it might be the cocoon of moth, but nonetheless, if it look like butterfly, it will work
For this week Milestone,
We’ve got our idea out, found where to find butterfly/cocoon/caterpillars and got ourself some cocoon to try wether it will become a moth or butterfly, we also purchased some cheap mini webcam from the web and will use it for our project.
our planned timeline for our project will be:
Week 10-11:
Write up a rough Max Patch for Motion tracking using camera and particle/visual generation from the point/blob that was tracked by the motion tracking.
Catch more caterpillar/cocoon from different area and see how long they need to become butterfly + research more about butterfly.
Week 11-12:
Build the Container for the butterfly and test the max patch within the container with fake butterfly mockup from paper.
Catch more caterpillar/cocoon from different area and see how long they need to become butterfly + how long could a butterfly survive + more butterfly research + get food for butterfly/caterpillar
Week 12-13:
refine the max patch to get it to work with a smooth flow and generate good visual worthy for submission
try to connect two computer together
learn how to output control real life electronics like a fan or light bulb, either straight from max or serial to Arduino.
Catch more caterpillar/cocoon from different area + get food for butterfly/caterpillar
Week 13-14:
further refine everything and make sure all component of the project works seamlessly.
Shoot the video for our final submission
Edit the video
Catch more caterpillar/cocoon from different area + get food for butterfly/caterpillar