Makerspace Awareness Project

[Daniel Stadelman]

I really liked the idea of creating a project to build awareness of the Makerspace.

I especially liked the idea of the interactive electronic laser harp... !

I put up a page on the Wiki about this for storing research:

http://www.gjmakerspace.org/wiki/index.php?title=Makerspace_Awareness_Art_Installation

If you do not have a wiki user and password and would like them please let me know!

If there are any other ideas for the project, let's discuss them here.

[kyle]

I really like that idea too, here is the best example I can find of one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQGptfFWZRE&feature=related

Just another sugestion to kick around, I have always liked the LED Cubes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfcpChh9HRk&feature=fvwrel

The only site I could find about Grand Junction's art on the corner was:

They also have a contact form for any questions.

http://downtowngj.org/aotc.cfm

Contact Us:
AOTC
Art on the Corner 
970.245.9697

They also have a contact form for any questions. I didn't see any rules, regulations, small print or a sign up sheet. 

[Mike Kitzman]

I spoke with Dan, and he and I like the idea of a 3D LED Cube, but what if we hooked it up to a Kinect!?  You can use a little Atom powered computer, but apparently you can even use the Kinect with an Arduino board  ->  http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Kinect-Projects-Design-Build/dp/1430241675 

Maybe even a RaspberyPi?

[Dan Stadelman]

The more I think about a project that would suit the Art on the Corner, the more I think that an LED cube would be awesome! I am going to work on that project. 

If others would like to work on a Laser Harp instead, feel absolutely free to do so... I really don't want anyone to feel like they have to work on any one project in our group - or any project at all. Just work on whatever you feel like working on and if you don't want to work on a project that others are working on or you lose interest with a project, no worries. We'll all have more fun this way.

Anyway, the LED cube. Mike and I were thinking it would be pretty awesome to include a kinect with the project to try and display the what the kinect is seeing in the cube. This would raise the bar from a more or less straight forward project into a pretty complex display. I think the kinect would also be fun because we might be able to get it such that certain actions in a sequence (splay arms out, cross arms, touch head, etc) could start some display sequence in the cube. 

Mike and I also think that a 16x16x16 cube would be a good size for such a display... that is 4096 LEDs :)  That would be a challenge getting it wired up. Do we have any preference for color LEDs? That would make the project a bit trickier of course!

I have also been thinking about the host controller for the cube. A beagleboard-xm might be the way to go for the project because it has the capability to be a USB host. It also comes with a library to work with the kinect:

http://whatnicklife.blogspot.com/2011/03/kinect-beagleboard-xm.html

If we want to make it an art installation we will have to figure out how we can get the thing to be battery/solar powered. Mike and I were thinking that perhaps we could get High Noon Solar to give us a solar panel if we put something on the display about High Noon Solar. 

We also think that we might be able to get the plexiglass for little to no cost if we approached one of the local businesses here - Mike and I bought some big sheets of plexiglass for our whiteboards in our offices from some local business. I cannot remember the name, but it was over by the Mesa County animal shelter.

Anyway, that is all I have for now... 

It would probably be best to approach them after we get the cube working so we can show them the cube and 

[Daniel Stadelman]

Whoops... that last sentence should read: 

It would probably be best to approach High Noon Solar and the plexiglass company after we get the cube working so we can show them the cube and how it is going to work... 

hah!

[Kyle Pilquist]

I think the idea of adding Kinect is great! Interactivity would make our cube very popular! I have to admit that I don't know much about it, but from what I have seen it looks very cool. 

I relive that color LEDs would be best, but if we had to choose one color I would go for green. Most standard and ultra high output LEDs use about 20mA. I would also say that if we used a RGB led showing white would cause a 60mA drain. For a single color system at 100% duty cycle, I think we are looking at 82 amps at around 4 volts, which would  be a 27 1/3 amp draw on 12 volts. Respectively, I believe that a color system would pull 82 amps at 12 volts on a 100% duty cycle. I would guess that a typical duty cycle would be around 30%-40%. This would mean a constant 10 2/3 Amps for single 32 Amps for color.

 Actual values are going to be less, I was playing on the safe side. I also haven't figured in the other hardware required, but I am guessing it isn't going to add too much. Using a solar panel calculator, which estimated that we here in Grand Junction have 5.84 sun hours average a day, suggests that we should use 3-300 watt panels for single color, and 7 for Color. This is really just a very high estimate, which is just to get an idea of what the maximum looks like. The duty cycle on the color is probably a lot less, and there probably isn't any need for our cube to be on between 23:00 and 07:00. I also realize that there are hundreds of ways to save power, and I truly believe that we can get a color cube running steady on a car battery and a couple panels. 

Another thing to consider is that the cheapest RGB leds I can find are $1.21 a piece, while single colors will run .5-.10 a piece. So if we were to forgo the convince of a single RGB led and find a way to mix 3 single leds, you could drop the price of led lights from $4956.16 to $624.4 - $1228.8 ; or just 1 color $204.8 - $409.6. 

[Dan Stadelman]

Ha! It will be nice to have someone with actual electrical engineering knowledge on this one!

It seems like spending $4k is quite a lot of money for LEDs - I had no idea that RGB LEDs were that expensive. I was hoping I would be able to get away with contributing about $500 for the project. I think the single color LEDs will give us enough of a challenge.

We could also go smaller, like a 8 x 8 or a 12 x 12 - but I think the result will be less impressive.

If we did a cube with with one color and then added in the controller board (prolly about $100), the kinect ($90 referb), power supply (battery etc.), and then we have some sort of base and $100 bucks of extra stuffs we are up to about $700. And I am guessing that there will be more things to buy... cause that is how these projects go!!! :)

What do you guys think about this?

I am going to move some of the info here to the wiki.

Dan

[Dan Stadelman]

Shouda included the wiki link:

http://www.gjmakerspace.org/wiki/index.php?title=Solar/Battery_Powered_3D_LED_Kinect_Kube

Please edit as you find the time :)

Dan

[Warren MacEvoy]

The beagleboard-xM sbc is here & boots.  Now trying to load a more interesting kernel & get the SDK off the ground.  --- Warren