An Ear that draws
The five humans senses give us the ability to enjoy, taste and perceived our world. Art in it's most general form, is a print of thoses senses
on an process. Art wheter it's a paint, a song, a dance is the expression and the reception of the senses. Some people may be more sensitive to their senses then others, and other lack one or more senses, causing
handicap but also skills wich result of an adaptation to compensate the missings senses. Some people also perceived senses in a way that the "typic" individu could not imagine, like the synesthetes, those people who hear
color or see sound. Everybody sees and hear, feel and taste in their own ways, nothing is the same for everybody, we are all unique in our ways of perceiving and sensing the element all around us.
For my Final project, I want to demonstrate that the senses is a tool for us to perceived the world, but not a perfect tool. I want to show that while a sound is normally heard, it also exist on others levels, and that if every sequence of sound is unique, then it's physical representation will be too.
The Idea came to me while I was listening to the amazing soundtrack of Kid Koala, Music To Draw to : SatelliteĀ
What will it do:
I want to do a two axis machine (plotter) that will also have a microphone and will draw over sound. It will be a 2 step projects, where the first part will be to take sounds via a microphone and process it into a Gcode, while the second part is gonna be a simple plotter that will use this Gcode to draw using only two axis (x,y) and one color.
Who's done what beforehand?:
I found a few similar projects, but none of them had the same approach as me about the application and philosophy behind my idea. Drawbot that uses sound to draw already exist, but I didn't found any of them that use a microphone to generate Gcode, those I found always uses an audio file.
One really nice project that will for sure be a source of inspiration in the making process is the TRS Drawbot this little Drawbot is simply drive by two servo motors conect to an audio jack. The Idea is to use an existing draw, convert it in a stippled version and use the traveling salesman algorithm to connects the dots. We then convert the draw into a .wav format. We can finally send that .wav format
trough the jack plug.
There is also a super interesting TED talks that is really close to what I wanna demonstrate.
The talk is done by Neil Harbisson a young man who was born with
What materials and components will be required?
For the list of material see the BOM found here, They will come from a numbers of electronic store, digikey mostly, and hardwareshop like RONA for the machine parts. Almost everything will be bought on the web and ship to my workplace.
The total price of the machine will be around 250$ and will have lots of spare parts for future projects.
What parts and systems will be made?:
I will design the software with processing for my waves draw, taking an input from a jackaudio passing trought a multiplexer and my msgeq7 chip, all the electronics input and output will be homemade using my milling machine to machine my boards.
I will also design and built the machine using rod and bearings, nuts and screws two stepper and a servo. Everything will be design by me. The processing code will be write by me with help of similar code and human ressource around the lab.
My motor drivers will also be made and design by me.
What process will be used?:
A lot of knowledge gain from the fabacademy will be used to achieve my final project. here's are a few:
-CAD
-LaserCutting
-CNC milling
-PCB Milling
-Vynil Plotter
-Electronic Design
-Machine Design
-Interface programming using processing
-Embedded programming.
I also may use 3D printing for a few part of my machine (pen holder)