A couple weeks ago, a friend found his employer is discarding a number of panels made for large trucks. Inside each panel are 5 little stepper motors which are used to turn the speedometer and other "analog" dials. Yesterday I took it apart, figured out specs for the motors, and I'm happy to say a couple are working on my desk under computer control.
Now I'm searching for some creative idea to use a dozen or two (or more) of these little guys. It could be lots of things spinning automatically, or it could be interactive, where you do something detected by sensors and the art attached to the many motors turns in some fascinating way...
The motors are only strong enough to turn something lightweight, like a thin cardboard disc maybe 5-6 inches in diameter. They certainly can't lift or move objects, other than making lightweight art spin. Max speed is about one revolution per second.
But the cool thing about stepper motors is they move slowly and accurately, under computer control. So it's not like an ordinary motor that spins really fast when you apply power, but instead turns an exact angle depending on how many pulses the computer chooses. The motors stop and hold position when no more pulses are applied. So if it's part of some interactive art where one disc needs to turn 45 degrees and three others need to turn 60 degrees because someone did something, no problem. The computer can just apply the right number of pulses and make any combination of motors spin accurately in well coordinated motion.
Any creative ideas?
Right now it's just a pile of little motors and a bunch of circuitry & software desperately wanting some creative inspiration.
Art ideas for little spinning things
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theCryptofishist
- Posts: 40312
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Fancy fabric flowers?
Eyeballs?
Line everything up just right and get schwag?
hook up to some sort of voice box and turn those waves into computer commands?
Spinning LEDs?
Use to count something--get a final count at the end of the art?
I don't know, not thinking of much right now.
Eyeballs?
Line everything up just right and get schwag?
hook up to some sort of voice box and turn those waves into computer commands?
Spinning LEDs?
Use to count something--get a final count at the end of the art?
I don't know, not thinking of much right now.
The Lady with a Lamprey
"The powerful are exploiting people, art and ideas, and this leads to us plebes debating how to best ration ice.
Man, no wonder they always win....." Lonesomebri
"The powerful are exploiting people, art and ideas, and this leads to us plebes debating how to best ration ice.
Man, no wonder they always win....." Lonesomebri
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LeChatNoir
- Posts: 5907
- Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2003 8:52 am
- Location: Louisville, Ky
Fishy, you posted the perfect thing in The Bar earlier...
Make some of these black light spin art guys out of old CD's, then mount them to the stepper motors. Would they be light enough? Maybe arrange them on a vertical surface in an organic, flowing pattern.... think looking straight down on a patch of mushrooms. Could be really interesting to watch them spin at different speeds, and directions.
Make some of these black light spin art guys out of old CD's, then mount them to the stepper motors. Would they be light enough? Maybe arrange them on a vertical surface in an organic, flowing pattern.... think looking straight down on a patch of mushrooms. Could be really interesting to watch them spin at different speeds, and directions.
The New and Improved Black Cat... now with 25% more blather
Been working away on this, mostly on the technology, still dreaming art-wise. Got a few motors hooked up and spinning under software control. This isn't the art that'll actually appear, of course... just some images taped on so it's easy to tell how far the discs have rotated.
These discs are 6 inches diameter, from a cake supply store. Turns out I can buy a box of 100 for $13. So I'm thinking about getting a few boxes and having a "draw your own" session in the middle of the week, and we'll put up sets of discs people have drawn... in addition to one or two I'll bring (likely a "hope & fear" theme and a set of goofy eyeballs).
I'm going to buy some ultrasonic sonar sensors. At first I thought of building my own, but that's a lot of design work, and it turns out Parallax has a very affordable one.
http://www.parallax.com/detail.asp?product_id=28015
With some of these distributed around, I can detect the position and movement of the people nearest to the art and make the discs spin in response.
These discs are 6 inches diameter, from a cake supply store. Turns out I can buy a box of 100 for $13. So I'm thinking about getting a few boxes and having a "draw your own" session in the middle of the week, and we'll put up sets of discs people have drawn... in addition to one or two I'll bring (likely a "hope & fear" theme and a set of goofy eyeballs).
I'm going to buy some ultrasonic sonar sensors. At first I thought of building my own, but that's a lot of design work, and it turns out Parallax has a very affordable one.
http://www.parallax.com/detail.asp?product_id=28015
With some of these distributed around, I can detect the position and movement of the people nearest to the art and make the discs spin in response.
Finding lenses that are lightweight enough might be a small challenge, but doable....As would be finding scraps of lighting gels, or anything else that "light goes through and comes out different"- You could create a moving stained-glass window, or series of overlapping focal devices that would, at intervals, line up and create interesting effects. Or create a series of overlapping color/pattern wheels. Or some jerky, robotic-moving Balinese-style shadow puppets!
Howdy From Kalamazoo