I've created a test model using a mason jar, dowels, hot glue and some plastic thread I found while wandering around Micheal's. I think it went together very well and aside from having to remember the width of the jar's mouth there really wasn 't too much work involved (a pic will follow). A few of these could be made fairly quick and aside from the dioramas I could have quite a few made and ready to be displayed. I would have to expand my scope beyond merely nuclear family gender roles though, something i think could be done I would just need to research a wider variety of personas to base each tube on.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
New ideas! (?)
Okay, I've got most of the minor a parts just bidding my time checking on cost of large glass containers. I am hesitant to use glass since it breaks when it's dropped. These things are going to be large and the possibility of them shattering into thousands of pieces keeps popping into my mind. I think plastic would be a better choice and easier to work with since I'll need to make the holes in the bottom of them larger to accommodate the mobile structures I am going to make for the pictures and such. Unless of course the glass containers I find have larger holes in them then I won't have to worry about cutting anything and no ship-in-a-bottle construction methods.
On a completely different note I had some other possibilities brought to my attention (sketches of which I will post up later) using smaller versions of my vacuum tube people and going with the dioramas of family life. These would involve something similar to the large ones where I would place pictures of each gender role inside a mason jar-sized container on a sort of skeleton, like seeing inside a jellyfish or an x-ray. Then I would put green LED's inside these to give that healthy radioactive glow! There would be a large backdrop of a nuclear explosion that would also be lit from underneath to have a green glow. The sketch looks neaet and thinking of making three dioramas side by side with a nuclear explosion behind them makes for a compelling image, at least in my mind. I'll have to check again for prices of large containers and if I can't find anything on the cheap smaller tubes and healthy green glow it is!
On a completely different note I had some other possibilities brought to my attention (sketches of which I will post up later) using smaller versions of my vacuum tube people and going with the dioramas of family life. These would involve something similar to the large ones where I would place pictures of each gender role inside a mason jar-sized container on a sort of skeleton, like seeing inside a jellyfish or an x-ray. Then I would put green LED's inside these to give that healthy radioactive glow! There would be a large backdrop of a nuclear explosion that would also be lit from underneath to have a green glow. The sketch looks neaet and thinking of making three dioramas side by side with a nuclear explosion behind them makes for a compelling image, at least in my mind. I'll have to check again for prices of large containers and if I can't find anything on the cheap smaller tubes and healthy green glow it is!
Parts picked up and Arduino working
*original writing 11/24/10
This weekend I went to Home Depot and grabbed some dowels, epoxy and small planter buckets. These will be turned into the vacuum tubes bases, plug bits and central spine that holds the pictures in the tube itself. I will more than likely spend Thanksgiving weekend primering and cutting these materials to the colors and lenghts I need as well as test fitting them together. I picked up screws to make the connections secure and I might throw in some epoxy too, though I am mainly going to use that to attach the bases to the tubes. Now here are some pics and a short video of the arduino test I did using five LED's. It works pretty good so I'm going to move onto ten LED's per board.
This weekend I went to Home Depot and grabbed some dowels, epoxy and small planter buckets. These will be turned into the vacuum tubes bases, plug bits and central spine that holds the pictures in the tube itself. I will more than likely spend Thanksgiving weekend primering and cutting these materials to the colors and lenghts I need as well as test fitting them together. I picked up screws to make the connections secure and I might throw in some epoxy too, though I am mainly going to use that to attach the bases to the tubes. Now here are some pics and a short video of the arduino test I did using five LED's. It works pretty good so I'm going to move onto ten LED's per board.
Wiring diagram
*original writing 11/18/10
I made a simple wiring diagram of the LED's going to one vacuum tube. I'm simply going to double this for two and use the same setup for the second set of tubes.
I will also be posting up some of the reaserch I did on the term nuclear family and the main influence/inspiration for this project. I also found a item to use as the glass part of the vacuum tubes (it is also made of glass!). It is called a carboy and is mainly used in beer/wine making. They usually start out at 5 gallon size which is perfect since I pretty much used measurements from plastic 5 gallon containers for my vacuum tubes.
I made a simple wiring diagram of the LED's going to one vacuum tube. I'm simply going to double this for two and use the same setup for the second set of tubes.
I will also be posting up some of the reaserch I did on the term nuclear family and the main influence/inspiration for this project. I also found a item to use as the glass part of the vacuum tubes (it is also made of glass!). It is called a carboy and is mainly used in beer/wine making. They usually start out at 5 gallon size which is perfect since I pretty much used measurements from plastic 5 gallon containers for my vacuum tubes.
Arduino!
*original writing 11/4/10
I finally sat down and got my arduino boards out to do test out using multiple LED's. After some serious websurfing I found this thread on the arduino forums about multiple LED's. It was pretty useful in explaining why delay is not the command to use for multiple LED's, what millis does or at least how it works and a few ther things (along with some nice code to boot!). I setup 5 LED's on one arduino board and just added more code and just messed with the numbers, pretty simple and I think it will suit my needs very well. I'm just tweaking the numbers now in order to make a blink pattern I like and that will look as if the vacuum tubes are communicating. I plan on having each tube blink at different speeds with the parent tubes at a moderate pace and the children blinking faster. Once I get a baseline for the parents it will be much easier to tweak the speeds and of course I'll be getting outside opinions of it all.
With the Arduino stuff pretty much taken care of I am going to go about gathering the materials I need in order to build a prototype tube, just the inner setup, so I can get an idea of how much wire I will need and the best way to make the smaller plugs that will connect the wiring in the tubes to the arduino boards. I apologize for not having pictures of anything my camera battery needs food badly and I don't have the charger. :P
I was also out of town last week which is why I was unable to take care of things like camera batteries and such. I was checking out some neat stuff down south at a magical place about a movie that is coming out soon....
I finally sat down and got my arduino boards out to do test out using multiple LED's. After some serious websurfing I found this thread on the arduino forums about multiple LED's. It was pretty useful in explaining why delay is not the command to use for multiple LED's, what millis does or at least how it works and a few ther things (along with some nice code to boot!). I setup 5 LED's on one arduino board and just added more code and just messed with the numbers, pretty simple and I think it will suit my needs very well. I'm just tweaking the numbers now in order to make a blink pattern I like and that will look as if the vacuum tubes are communicating. I plan on having each tube blink at different speeds with the parent tubes at a moderate pace and the children blinking faster. Once I get a baseline for the parents it will be much easier to tweak the speeds and of course I'll be getting outside opinions of it all.
With the Arduino stuff pretty much taken care of I am going to go about gathering the materials I need in order to build a prototype tube, just the inner setup, so I can get an idea of how much wire I will need and the best way to make the smaller plugs that will connect the wiring in the tubes to the arduino boards. I apologize for not having pictures of anything my camera battery needs food badly and I don't have the charger. :P
I was also out of town last week which is why I was unable to take care of things like camera batteries and such. I was checking out some neat stuff down south at a magical place about a movie that is coming out soon....
Moving forward
*original writing 10/28/10
Most of my planning for creating the tubes is done and now I am moving onto creating the code for controlling the LED's through an Arduino. I still have to determine how many LED's I can control through one Arduino since I want to have at least five LED's per vacuum tube. I'm pretty sure if I use resistors then I should be ok, though I will be plugging these into a wall socket in order to power them in the final setup I still want to be safe and not burnout anything that might cost me $$$ to replace (mainly the Arduino's). I am also going to go to TAPS plastics to see about having some plexiglass tubes made along with top and bottom pieces. I can glue them together myself and am fairly certain I can cut holes into the bottoms of each one. I also need to go to a Home Dept/OSH to find some 6" +/- wide planter buckets, And dowels, I need to get me some dowels. And as a last thought the first thing I should do is go get some prices!
Most of my planning for creating the tubes is done and now I am moving onto creating the code for controlling the LED's through an Arduino. I still have to determine how many LED's I can control through one Arduino since I want to have at least five LED's per vacuum tube. I'm pretty sure if I use resistors then I should be ok, though I will be plugging these into a wall socket in order to power them in the final setup I still want to be safe and not burnout anything that might cost me $$$ to replace (mainly the Arduino's). I am also going to go to TAPS plastics to see about having some plexiglass tubes made along with top and bottom pieces. I can glue them together myself and am fairly certain I can cut holes into the bottoms of each one. I also need to go to a Home Dept/OSH to find some 6" +/- wide planter buckets, And dowels, I need to get me some dowels. And as a last thought the first thing I should do is go get some prices!
Sketchup mockups
*10/14/10 original writing
I spent some time to get measurements of the box and used that to determine an appropriate size for the vacuum tubes. I'll have to put a scale in these sketchup drawings so people can get a better handle on the size of these things. They are roughly 16" tall and 12" wide. The sockets at the bottoms are 6" in diameter. I plan on having a three tier system for plugging them into the base. As can be seen in the following picture the bottom of the tube will have a socket with an open bottom to allow the socket setcion with the plugs and mobile to be placed inside the tube.
I spent some time to get measurements of the box and used that to determine an appropriate size for the vacuum tubes. I'll have to put a scale in these sketchup drawings so people can get a better handle on the size of these things. They are roughly 16" tall and 12" wide. The sockets at the bottoms are 6" in diameter. I plan on having a three tier system for plugging them into the base. As can be seen in the following picture the bottom of the tube will have a socket with an open bottom to allow the socket setcion with the plugs and mobile to be placed inside the tube.
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