take 5 and focus

I’ve been busy creating the PCB sync discs and finally have 5 floating in a warm water bath to dissolve the staples copy paper so that they will be ready for etching this afternoon. It’s a bit like removing wine labels from glass bottles. I’ve peaked at the discs briefly and the traces are not adhering correctly. Right now I’m working on the mechanisms that will hold the disc and also the key that will rotate to complete the circuit and fire off the motor bank. I’m still debating how to control the DC toy motors but my studio peer Nick had a spare gearbox from a remote control car that should work nicely (image to follow). Now the key will spin slowly and the pattern of action of the motors will be more apparent. So… great, I have turning motors but the BIG question becomes; what will the motors actuate? I have two current ideas that I’m working on.

Puppet 1: I’d like to get the pony’s eyes to work again without the body. The head will be attached to a sync disc that will cause it to turn and blink intermittently. This puppet is a prime candidate for some microcontroller attention—i.e. I could use the Arduino board. I would love to attach temperature or IR sensors to the mechanism so that as people approach the puppet her head swivels towards the individual and the eyes blink.

Puppet 2: I’ve also laser cut lightweight paper marionettes that will be suspended from a motor bank. The marionettes will be controlled by a bank of servo motors which will be turned on and off randomly by the sync disc. These should be suspended at eye level in the gallery space.

The whole purpose of my investigation is to create areas of play that will engage an audience on some level. This preliminary research has been key to developing my thesis on interactive architectures and how we might be able to play with buildings rather than in them. I’m eager to see how these puppets take up space, how they move and react to each other and how an audience/participant responds to them. I’m attracted to the notion that these puppets will possess a life of their own, and in some highly rudimentary way exhibit “intelligence” with or without human interaction --almost as if they are going about their business and we walked in. Inevitably, these characters will inhabit their new homes while in Montreal in ways that I have yet to imagine.