Difference between revisions of "Space Cadet Desk"

Latest revision as of 08:35, 5 March 2015

This is a project that I worked with artist Peter Blunt on will be in One Spark. Inspired by the Jetsons and old Star Trek, we made a Retro-Future Desk (Peter calls it the Space Cadet Desk, but I have standards) It has lots of blinking lights and buttons to push and a psuedo-theremin using an IR distance sensor. Peter is a master craftsman in wood working and he did all of the construction, while I worked on the electronics.

Google+ Pictures here: https://plus.google.com/photos/101251666522239139683/albums/5995636879352451873

Or on my wiki:

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  First casualty of bad wiring.

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  Peter routing the hole for the IR sensor

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  Working in an active woodshop gets very loud.

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  Desk is together, but minimal electronics are actually in it.

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  Unfortunately due to IO conflicts and power issues, I had to disable the MP3 decoder board. It will be back though!

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  The Arduino Mega was the 'heart' of the machine. A proto-shield was added on top so I could more easily solder to it.

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  The servo is driven by an Adafruit Boarduino, a capacitor on the power lines is there to help smooth out the power draw.

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  Me, looking like I'm working on something.

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  Overhead view of mostly finalized wiring.

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  Leftside wiring complete.

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  Another overhead view

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  Close up of server mounting, power switch is in the right foreground.

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  the adafruit tlc5947 board drives the single color LEDs.

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  Trying to get creative with a wire-level view.

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  Overhead view of entire desk top surface.

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  Getting all the wiring and components to fit in the enclosed space was a challenge throughout the project.

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  The joystick in the desktop controls the smaller 'antenna'.

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  Of course the desk is beautiful, no if I could just fit in the shot.

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  A close-up shot of the two antenna, one lights up based on the 'engine' color, the other moves with the joystick.

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  Full view of desktop, lights and antenna.

Specs:

• 1 Arduino Mega
• 1 Adafruit Boarduino (Decimila clone)
• 3 8x8 Bi-color matrices (with SPI)
• 2 24 LED PWM boards
• 7 Adafruit Neopixels(RGB LEDs with built in controller chips)
• 1 unused mp3 decoder board (conflicted with PWM boards :-( plus power issues)
• 1 Servo
• 1 IR sensor
• 1 Joystick

By default the Bicolor matrices run the Conway's Life cellular automata simulator, and a pitch indicator when the theremin is active. About 2500 lines of C code went into making it all function together, LEDs & Matrices & IR sensor & joystick, in 8k of working memory.

It is housed at the Southlight Gallery, near Hemming Plaza, on Hogan Street between Adams and Monroe.

For One Spark , we are in the Art category, titled "Art of Furniture" Project #20942 Give us a vote or two if you like the project.

Our project page is here: http://www.beonespark.com/discover/creator_projects/art-of-furniture

Peter plans to continue to make more themed art desks in the coming year. This was just the first of many.