"BOTANICUS INTERACTICUS": Interactive Plant Technology

This is brilliant!

Choosing colors

Model process

I'm currently sandpapering the wooden layered model so that it becomes one fluent shape. I also fill up the tiny gaps with MDF filler. This needs to dry for 2 hours and then I need to sandpaper it again.

When this is done, I will give the model its first primer of paint.
It takes some patience and strenght, but you can already see how good it looks!

Elements of features of affordances, a quick reference sheet

This is the result of my research; a quick reference sheet that you can use when you are visually designing the features of an object that make an affordance. 

Written by a kid

Sit back and relax and watch these awesome movies of Written by a Kid, where children make up a story that will be made into a short film! Brilliant!

Lasercutting

The lasercutter just finished the last slice of wood (number 84 out of 84).
I'm happy I was allowed to finish this in one day, it took me 12 hours.
Tomorrow I will put the slices together.

Updates - Musicsystem, Technical, Model

I'm back from holidays since a week, and Project Virtuoso hasn't been standing still.

Than made a music system in Max MPS, this movie gives you a sneakpeak of last Tuesdays version. At the moment the music can be influenced using an Ipod touch. The music system still needs some balancing, which Than is working on now.

Also Mikail and Raymond have been working on the conduction baton. Using the technology of Adruino, we are now able to measure up/down, acceleration, tempo, and left/right. Pointing left and right is not entirely done yet. It is a challenge to decide when somebody is really pointing left or right, or just waving with the baton from left to right. Therefore Mikail and Raymond are now programming a system where there is counted how long somebody is pointing left or right to decide if somebody is pointing or just waving.

I have been working on the model of Virtuoso, which is also a real challenge. 3D printing such a big object is way too expensive and it is also hard to find a 3D printer that can print that big. Therefore I decided to make a model out of layers of wood, using a lasercutter to cut the wood in the right form, put all of the pieces of wood together, sand down it down to the round form. After making the base, I will give it another layer of epoxy. After this layer I will paint the model in the pattern design I've designed for it. Above this layer of color goes a finishing gloss coat.

At the moment I'm working in Adobe Illustrator, making all the layers. It is a lot of work, I have to make the layers in the right size (the musicbox is going to be 32 by 26 centimetres), in the right shape (for this I've created a 3D model in Autodesk Maya as a base for the shape), I need to consider and design technical aspects (how do you open it, where do I put the speaker, how does the light work, where do I leave space for the Arduino).

After doing all of this I also need to make a horizontal design of every slice (there are 84 layers). This is how the wood will finally be cut. The lasercutting will be done next Tuesday at Fablab Amersfoort.

So that's my update for the last three weeks. I hope to show you the model next week!