Just like Tom Thumb's Blues

a quick overview of tiny projects from the past month or so. some pieces are proprietary, so none are captioned. 
a laser was involved.

Digital Pianomophone debuts at CIF Open House

The crack team of radical fabricators and zazz technicians debuted the Digital Pianomophone on Saturday at the Columbus Idea Foundry Open House.
Those responsible: Michael Newman (Engineering OSU), Matthew Bowman (here, elsewhere), Alexander Bandar (www.HandMadeByRobots.com, Director, CIF), Mike Schoenborn (COSI), and Andrew Rahman (andrewrahman.bandcamp.com/).


The Pianomophone operates via a micro controller that fires the solenoids, pitch and timing assigned by ultrasonic sensors located in the gallery, key of C minor.


Jessica Francis took this photo during the opening

s/l on the Buddha Den

long-time co-conspirators Don Thrasher and Kyle Melton flatter s/l for a moment at Buddha Den

http://thebuddhaden.net/2011/01/21/squelch-latency/

The Digital Pianomophone

The Digital Pianomophone is a collaborative project being prepared for the opening of the Columbus Idea Foundry on Jan 22.  www.ColumbusIdeaFoundry.com The spinet piano has been armed with solenoids to play notes in a C min scale activated by hidden sensors in the facility. 

Attendees will move through the space, "playing" the piano.

Michael Newman, Matthew S. Bowman      Concept, Design, Mechanics

Dr. Alexander Bandar     Concept, Programming, Philanthropy 

Mike Schoenborn      Circuit Design, Programming

Andrew Rahman      Musical Pre-Arrangement

Several photos and two videos follow in this post, but a thorough documentation of the project will be compiled after the opening.

We started with the basic piano modification tools, soon to be a kit available for sale.

Solenoids mounted on a polycarbonate armature, machined by Columbus CNC www.columbuscnc.com

 There is approximately .1" between solenoids for the upper linkages to pass through to the keys

It works this damn well.

this will be explained later

 this is the rocket we helped build right before dinner on Saturday.

tons of wire, solder

 All mechanicals in place, wiring harnesses, MOSEFT control board, Arduino Mega

Keys fire from independent sensors

The Columbus Idea Foundry will hold its open house on January 22, 2011. Visit their site (link above) to RSVP.

Fretless Acoustic Guitar

Family heirlooms. My brother gets the '28 Ford sedan with suicide doors. I got this guitar. (they were both in equal states of complete disrepair) 

The body is cracked, and someone tried to strip the finish before I got to it. The neck is bent too much to properly operate, and the bridge was providing a generous quarter-inch of extra room on top. 

So the frets were pulled and filled with MicroLite, then sanded smooth with 200-grit polishing pads. I took the old bridge out back and shot it. Had some tuning heads laying around (who doesn't) and strung it back up with the lower four of a D'Addario flatwound set, .056-.026W.

The new bridge is a block of walnut with .0625" rubber pads between the strings and body. The pad between the body keeps the bridge from sliding around and softens the sound of attack. 

Tuned 2/1 to a viola, C4, G4, D5, A5.

Recording the ShopBot

We set up a Zoom recorder with an XY m/s canceling mic to record the surfacing path of the CIF's ShopBot. The machine runs the perimeter of the table and planes it level. The cut noise is a bit erratic, occurring only when the bit catches a high spot. The router noise remains constant, but has an approach and decay from the mic position.

I was hoping for a bit of a doppler effect, but that might be achieved by putting some condensers at opposite ends of the table and panning them hard left and right to the capture device.

CIF Opening performance

On January 22, 2011, The Columbus Idea Foundry will hold its official reopening at its new location. Andrew Rahman, myself, and a few others are devising an audio performance for the event, utilizing both predetermined and live sonic properties that occur in a fabrication shop. The event will be recorded, then that recording transferred to a container housing an mp3 player. The sole function of the container is to play the audio event when accessed. 

On Wednesday Nov 24, Andrew and I had uninterrupted access to CIF for about four hours. We ran a bunch of power tools and hit all of the steel shelves with wood blocks. I'm not sure if Andrew recorded any of this, but I rolled a Tascam 488 with a Shure PG-81 to tracks 1-2.  Have to dump it down from cassette. 

The nonsense gave us two tangible pieces at days end. The first was an attachment to a drill that spins wooden blocks, the second was a thumb piano cut on the ShopBot.

More to come as this project unfolds.

www.columbusideafoundry.com

http://andrewrahman.bandcamp.com/