Author: guibot

Artica @ Rock In Rio and SuperBockSuperRock

MusicBox is the new PT’s music channel, at the festival they wanted to had the application on a big screen and have the possibility to control it using hand gesture. We were hired by Hipnose to accomplish the challenge.

This was ment to be with the so known kinect camera, but what they didn’t know is that the kinect doesn’t work outdoor, so we used a laser sensor and it worked flawlessly!!

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This installation had a huge PA (power amplifier – sound system) outside, and when there was a concert at the main stage we need to cut the sound so we also customize four headphones to let the people still listen to the grooves. Margarida and Fernando did a great job with the headphones!!

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We also added a led strip, it was ment to give instant feedback to the user, when a hand was detected it changed color to green, on click it gives red and on idle went blue.

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also check Sapo’s video:

ICU2 – I See You Too

ICU2 is the evolution of the 1st iteration, this new version was totally upgraded, all the pans and tilts systems are from ServoCity, and the software had been re-written from scratch, the face tracker component is on a openFrameworks program wich makes it more performative, and on the Processing side we had a preset based animation program, everytime it looses a face it will load a preset with a diferent animation, this makes it more organic and less repetitive, I will talk more about the software on another post.

This installation is ment to work without the screen, it focuses the attention of the viewer on the ICU, but both of the exhibitions had the screen there as you can see. The knowledge pavilion required the screen to be there because it shows all the control side of the mechanism, and they want to show it to the visitors, and on the FCT Open Day, this exhibition was ment to be visited by new engineering students so we decided to let the screen to be there as well.

Workshop “Introduction to Robotics”

Teatro ABC.PI invited Artica to give a one day “Introduction to Robotics” workshop at “Ponto de Encontro” in Cacilhas (Almada), and the good news is that it is totally free, the not so good news is that you need to hurry up because there is a limitation to 15 participants. This is an initiative of “Quinzena da Juventude” and “Camara de Almada”.

Workshop Introdução à Robótica

ICU2, almost there

ICU2 is going to Pavilhão do Conhecimento in February and we are finishing the hardware and software. Some servos needed to be swapped and I needed to print a suport for a standard servo, this video shows a bit of the printing process and the printed thing assembled.

There will me more updates very soon.

SapoBot

SapoBot is a robot that wonders through spaces avoiding obstacles detects holes on the ground, follow walls and follow lines, to change between behaviors you only need to press the shell, and when he detects a collision gives a frog sound. This project was comissioned by Sapo, means frog in portuguese.

This bots were made with a Farrusco chassis and Motoruino and once again with the great IDMind hardware and electronics skills, all the credits for the eyes mechanics and all the rest of the hardware upgrade goes to them.


The shell was made by Fernando and Margarida Antunes, don’t forget to check their amazing art work at http://margaridantunes.weebly.com.


This is a Farrusco on steroids!! Only the pins 0 and 1 for serial communication are free, all the other pins are taken for a considerable amount of sensors and actuators: 3 infrared sensors to measure distances on the front, 3 infra red sensors facing the ground, a speaker, 1 RGB LED, 1 servo motor, 2 dc motors and 2 bumper micro-switches to detect collisions.


The eyes are meant to give some human expression to the bot, they turn organically to both sides according the direction that the robot takes.


We coded an application in Processing to check all the sensors and actuators, allowing to save settings on the microcontroller EEPROM. This code will be available on Artica’s github soon.


Time to drink some juice :]


And the result is a happy family!

Einstein VideoPlayer

Einstein VideoPlayer is a project that I initiated during a dance performance entitled “Einstein Dreams” created by Rui Horta. All this took place at Göteborg Opera in Sweden, September of 2010.

Einstein is not just a tool to play videos, it allows anyone to play a list of videos, cross fading between them, with the possibility to adjust the video output to many kinds of surfaces.

“Content is king”, I believe that this tool can be an ice breaker to anyone that intends to playback videos in thousands of different manners.

This is the first public release, however this will always be a work in progress project, and being open source we intend that you use, modify, hack and share this tool.

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Link to Artica’s Github

DIRECT DOWNLOAD EINSTEIN v1

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EINSTEIN VideoPlayer
CLICK THE IMAGE TO SEE IN FULL RESOLUTION

List of features available ATM:
– playlist with file names;
– parametric crossfade between videos;
– parametric fade in and out to black and/or white;
– keystone / corner-pin adjustment;
– record and load custom presets.

Future versions will include:

– mask overlay with a PNG with transparency;
– independent multiplayer system (optional);
– one player as Master and the other player as Slave (optional);
– customization for several outputs;
– edge-blend;
– subtitle overlay;
– Improve modularity for fast prototyping and custom projects;
– Improve performance;
– Create the same GUI paradigm to control audio and light;
– Cue list to control everything;
– MIDI, DMX and OSC protocol to control Einstein, and to be controlled by Einstein.

Continue reading Einstein VideoPlayer

Júlio de Matos

“Júlio de Matos” is a comedy performed by Joaquim Monchique. The set has a non-conventional projection zone, and I had to adapt all the contents to it. I invited David Rebordão to help me with video capture and editing. David is a promising Movie Director and Producer, check out what it is the most watched portuguese film ever made: A Curva.

The video below is just a sneak peak of what you might expect if you dare to watch the show.