Eduardo Bringas

So things have been going well these last couple of weeks. The belt buckle is coming along, my freelance work is consistent and I've applied to work at ITP for the fall. I had a great weekend with my family and friends boy my niece is sooo cute! http://www.flickr.com/photos/lepow/21809099/

I was given 2 cuban cigars yesterday out of the blue and spent the twilight smoking them with Jon. I was watching the slugs climb up the stoop and watch the fireflies pass by as we smoked our cigars. It was wonderful! I guess it was foreshadowing but Jon was telling me about how he misses having a girlfriend. He really loved Teresa and I went to tell him that she could have been the right person but at the wrong time and what happens? I get a call from a women that I've been getting to know over the last few weeks, who I have been really enjoying getting to know and she tells me she is still getting over her ex boyfriend. Sigh I say! Sometimes you have to laugh at the way things unfold. Oh well, other then that, Tom Cruise is an absolute wacko. I wish people like him wouldn't speak their opinions. http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/06/27/cruise.psychiatrists.reut/index.html Now I'm going to see his movies and be tainted by the fact that he is a clueless wonder. This was funny however http://mirror.randomfoo.net/memes/2005/06/Tom_Cruise_Kills_Oprah.mov

I GOT THE FUCKING JOB!!!!!!!!!

MY work will be @ BAM This FALL! Can this be true? I'm shaking as I type.

codique: realizing that one thing you want to do is an absolute priority.

I got everything working and ready for tomorrow but its not a very stable system. Two of the servo rub against each other and one every so often gets caught in the cord of the other, Though its all working, I'm not too happy about the system. I consciously decided to use servos for two main reasons. 1) They are weather proof and can withstand the elements, 2) they dont need much voltage to run, though they do suck up amps. Even though I wanted this piece to eventually run on solar power, I might have to nixx the idea. I think I'm going to use a stepper with a gear box for the next prototype. Lets see If I can get it up and running before my money runs out.

Been super crazy the last couple of days, couldnt doc my progress on my thesis, so here is the low down.

Presented the project, everybody liked it. Red, the dept head, came up to me and congratulated me on a awesome project. She couldn't see it because a friend of hers was in the hospital but she heard that it was amazing. Doug Rushkoff, one of our guests for our presentation said it was really good and would like to see it finished and up somewhere. The greatest thing was like 20 of my peers came to see me present, I was sooooo nervous and before I started I looked up and saw a pool of people coming in to see me. That really touched me.
As I mentioded in an earlier post, I blew out one of my serovs because of the torque, I think I blew up another one. What happened was the morning of my presentation everything was working fine, but I stepped out to get cornerBeam for the eddge of the box and I either left the project turned on or somebody turned it on and it blew out the power supply. I didnt know it was the power supply and I was super freaking, man I hate when this shit hapopens, and I started testing everything. Somehow I moved the angle of the motore a bit and it was in line with one of the pillars that held the top and when I turned it on it smashed into it, another 80 dollars gone the tube. Anyway It wasn't working like I wanted it to but I faked it for the presentation. What I did was rather open and close the flower I just opened it. Since the servo wasn't working well it couldnt lift the petal but it could lower it. Anyway its over... sort of. i want to make it pretty for the show. Al Roker from the Today show may do a segment on the Show, and they asked me to present it to hiom so I want it to look really good.

Write a bit later I'm hungry and Jon is waiting.

I added a second servo motor and tinkered around with code and at the end the piece is working sort of. I was kind of upset earlier because my servo motor was not running properly. It took about 5 hours before I had the piece running usually, at most, it would have taken 5 minutes. In the past I used the $10 servo and hooked it up the pic running off the same power. It turns out for some reason, that I needed for them to run off separate power sources. This will be interesting when I start working with solar panels in the spring, I might need to set up to power sources, one for the pic and one for the motors. The motor Dan lent me is great, it is a Hi-tech HS-805BB here is a link http://www.servocity.com/ServoCity/Products/Hitec_Servos/HS-805BB_Mega_Power/hs-805bb_mega_power.html. For the final piece I'll need 24 of them @ 44 dollars that will be a grand total of $1056. Guess I'll be looking for grant money real soon. As for the presentation, as I have already written, I gave myself a cushion of two days. I'm hoping I can do all the construction tomorrow, since I have figured out how everything will be running and is to be built. I think that this will be possible, One other thing is, that I have to go out and buy a pipe tomorrow with some type of clamp to be the stand.
Tuesday, I will go home, finally, relax, maybe see a movie, and edit my concept paper to hand in as a work in progress thesis paper and write/ build the presentation.

Last night was my first test pulling the load of the leafs with the servo motor and it failed. The servo was only able to lift one leaf. I then realized I was working with a 300mA powersupply and figured that was the problem. This morning I finished wiring the whole box and started to test it with a bench power suppy. The servo draws in about 800 -1000 mA and it powered three of the leaves. I'm going to go out and buy a heavier torque servo and that should do the trick. All in all thigns are going pretty good. I'm one day behind my schedule, but I alloted 2 day buffer so things are moving smoothly. Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can go out and buy the new servo and start building the base of clepsy.

Today, I finished building the overhang to the top of the stand and spring loaded the box so that the petals create a tension to stay open. The springs I used were 3lbs of tension 2 inches long. I didnt use the full capacity of the spring because then that would overwork the servo. I might have mentioned it last night but I went back to using the one power servo. It is much simpler to use then the four servo motors. But it is slightly modified. Thanks to Eric, I'm going to use screw eyes as a way to direct the string to the base rather then using pulleys.
I also found that the base of the petals is too big. I didn't realize this till I saw it with the wooden panel overhang. If I have time, I will rebuild the base, but for now I will continue to finish this piece. I panned to give myself a 2 day cushion for video taping and preparing the oral, but I might be able to take one of those days to build the box.
So far I'm running on schedule.

During class today I thought of something that will cut down my production time by at least a day. I originally bought a power gear box for a high torque servo figuring the petals were going to be heavier then I expected. For the last day or so I have been thinking about the way I was going to build the pulley system with springs to open all the petals with the one power servo. But it occurred to me that I could use four cheap servos, one for each petal, and scrap the pulley system idea, for now.
So far I'm on schedule. Tomorrow I'm hoping to have the servo's mounted and programmed. Leaving me with Friday to build the stand. I'm really amazed how smooth things are going. I think having the whole month of october to plan has really helped.

Today I finished the lever arms for the petals. I sawed off slots from the wooden base, the next version I'm going to use aluminum. I took a steel rod and cut 4, 7.25 inch rods. I then bent them into an s. The top was 3 inches the bend was 1.25 and the bottom was 3. I then drilled and attached them to the existing hinges. Alejandro, suggested I get better hinges because these were to wobbly. Serendipitous moment, The petals drooped in too much because I didnt account that the hinge was going to raise the petal a 1/4 of inch but with the hinges I can put a backstop and have the petals upright exactly where I want it to be. Tomorrow, I have to place the back drops and begin working the roping of the levers. I also need to purchase springs to open the petals. I wish I ordered those pulleys I thought I needed. They would come in handy right now.
-ED

I thought I posted something yesterday about the process of creating the petal, but I could not find anything on it. Well to sum up, I'm done with my internship project, Finally! I finished the wood mold on Saturday and I started to make the petals. My first attempt was unsuccessful, chico told me to fold over the copper to add more strength to the petals so I took a rectangular sheet and started working it over the wood mold. What I go was an irregular shape, not leaf like at all. For my second attempt, I took a piece of aluminum foil covered the wood mold and cut out a template. With the template I cut the copper in that shape and started to bang the copper into its curvilinear form. I didnt start out using the wooden mold since when I started banging the copper the other end would shoot up like a see saw or teater totter ( what a funny word teater). What I did instead was to start by hand using a wooden mallet or rubber mallet and started to bang the copper on a table but slight lifted. I tried using a regular metal hammer but it left dimples on the copper.
That was this weekend.
Today I started to build the stand for the petal and mounted the petal to a piece of wood. From my measurements the span of the flower is 39inches. I'm really liking how its coming out. I bought aluminum sheet to cover the stand. Ana Busto might have an aluminum pipe for me to use but, I'll find out tomorrow. I'm also starting to think about the placement of the servo motors. In my drawings, I made the stem of the flower a little bit bigger, to have play with the lever, what I might be able to do is put the servo/gearbox at the base of the stem where the Al pipe meets. But I deal with that tomorrow.
Also, My Thesis Prof is giving me the extension, YEAHHH!!!!!!!.
Well till tomorrow

In the last week I built a wire frame mold of the petals more for a visual aid then anything else. I needed to get a feel of the height and size and also address mechanical problems. So far it looks pretty good. I also realized I needed a spring that wants to keep the petal wanting to open. As of now there is no push for the petals to open and the servo is only meant to close the petal so I'm hoping that this will do the trick. The one concern I have is that I might have to power the servo to keep the petal closed. Ideally I would set it so that when the servo is powered off it would return to its off posisition, which would be the closed state. I'm hoping that since I got the power gearbox for added torque on the servo that accumilkated torque of the box will be stronger then the pull of the spring. Also I got the spectra fibers in, MAN those things are super strong!

After my presentation to Red on Wednesday, I have only been working on my internship project. The guy wants me to go to France to install it. It would be for a week and thats a lot of time to give but its a great opportunity. I'm going to email Red tomorrow about this, while I'm working at my internship. Ugggg
So what do I have to do.
Order servos, start working on the petal molds.
Have Chico look at my system to see if its all right.
Write some more thesis stuff.
Find out about the bird seed cake Idea.

This is the week of no sleep. I've been neglecting thesis a bit due to the fact the the Fetus to man project is going to be sent out next week. For those who dont know what it is, it's a huge clock that tells time by a human like sculpture. Anyway, since Chico's engineer left him. I've been doing all the work. He now asked me to go to france for a week to install the piece. I'm going to talk to Red, the head of ITP, tomorrow and ask her for her opinion on the matter.
So what do i have to do.
1) write out my midterm thesis evaluation
2) work on the prototype
3) research servo motors with high torque.


Tonight I'm going to finalize the midterm thesis evaluation

here are a couple of links that I can use for my thesis

A site detailing all the birds that are seen in NYC
http://www.nycas.org/nycbirds/

About bird feeding
http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/winnebago/mgqa/011229.html
http://www.birdfeeding.org/
http://www.havahart.com/bird/birdseedprint.htm
http://www.littlechickadee.com/Food-chart-by-bird.htm

About using cakes
http://www.birdola.com

A site that sells servo arms
http://www.swbmfg.com/

A site that sells servos
servocity.com/

I originally intended to make a 4-sided pyramid housing to open and close the structure because it will produce that flower like shape when opened and it was an easy structure to build. Looking at copper that was minimum 1/8 of an inch thick to produce a strong plane that wouldn’t droop, turns out its super expensive so I decided aluminum or galvanized sheet metal. But that was too heavy and I couldn't use the servomotor that I intended to use. The servo is nice because it positions angles and it durable to weather. So For like 3 weeks I researched gear motors with some type of switch that would indicate fully opened state and closed state. Mind you, I wasn't fond of using that type of metal and the plans became more and more complicated. Out of the blue, my solution came to me this weekend. At my internship, Chico was asking me about my thesis, and I told him that my midterm presentation was coming up. He commented that he went to a few of the presentations and found that most thesis's made technology for the sake of technology, there was no real idea behind the art. So I proceeded to tell him the idea behind the piece. He told me that the concept was strong and the technology of he piece was strong too but the aesthetics were weak. I told him I wasn’t fond of the pyramid that I really wanted to make a curved like flower bud housing but I didn’t know how to do it, He then spent 2 hours showing me how to do it. It turns out that I could use an 8 or 16 oz. copper sheet, super light and the curve shape was pretty strong. Everything clicked! I can now use servomotors for the piece and it’s going to look like the way I want it to. On the train ride in today I was sketching the mechanics of the piece, I should have a nice drawing up tonight on the site.

So for the last month or so I have writing journal entries about my thesis on my new laptop. I probably saved up for this laptop for over a year waiting to get the new model. When I got it, in the first couple of days, my powerbook started getting cancer spots on the screen and its not just me, a lot of people have been reporting this problem. Anyway, I called up Apple and they were going o ship me a new one once I mail mine in. I needed to wait till most of the preproduction was finished, which is now, and i figured its about time to move it over to the web. Over the next week or so, I'll backtrack and put entries up on my blog.

Where do the nights go.....

oh oh I know * waving my left hand in the air

Answer: In my computer's CPU
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THIS SUCKS I JUST SPENT 3o minutes writing in this journal and that ALL that was saved.
HA funny joke the binternet just played.

Anyway here is the rundown
maybe I'll write it out again tomorrow

?I was a dancing fool on tueday @ james b-day
?I eat, shit, sleep and do homework for most of the week
?I felt like crap after dano's class SQL,JAVA, LINGO, SOCKETS & THREADS.
?I saw Rose walking by tisch, she ignored me and I laughed about it
?I start swimming at coles 20 laps baby.
?Squirrels need to run at a higher frame rate. Their movement is so jerky
?Proud of allen, going back to school.
?I'm logan, allen is the stinky nightcrawler.
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~alyssa13/xmen/
?Prototype class was heartwarming on thursday. I have a new found respect for Tom & Rebecca.
?Amits ten minute demo in Electronic Csnvas blew me away.
?felt bad for the bum that told me "drink up, smoke up fuck up. Life is too short"
?KOKO kicks ass. I'm glad I hung out with her on tuesday.
? I smoke to many cloves