Silly weekend project - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2017, 10:56:46 pm
content: OK, so, No1 son has an art project for homework.Now, sometimes he gets more than one week to do these projects but one homework "task" is supposed to be half an hour so two weeks would mean an hour, three weeks an hour and a half. Some of the projects, however, are very challenging to do in that sort of time.This would be fine if No1 son was at all arty but, like me, he isn't. Actually to be fair he is much better at art than I am or ever was but that is still notthatarty so SWMBO often gets roped in to help out, and it often takes way more than the alloted time.This half term the last two week (one hour, remember) project is "create a monster from junk". To be honest this sort of thing annoys me a bit because it rather presumes that one has the sort of junk from which it is possible to create art just lying around - I'm sure some families do but not all.I think that secretly the art teacher is hoping that she will get twenty projects which look like this......but I'm not too sure it's going to work out like thatAnyway, you might be wondering where the electronics comes in - well, what junk am I likely to have in fairly large quantities? Electronics stuff of course, so I was dispatched into the attic to find "useful stuff".Here is our offeringI think he's quite cute actually.The eyes are GU10 LED lamps. The 10W ones are an excellent replacement for a 50W halogen but have a failure rate of about 50% as the power supplies in them have a habit of dying by self-immolation. Usually this leaves the LEDs intact and I have loads of lamps in the junk box.A bit more thought and we decided that it would be nice if the LEDsdidsomething so that gave me an excuse to try playing with some PIC code. I've been meaning to drag my electronics hobby into the 21st century for a while so I got a few 12F675's and a programmer.There was one small challenge which was how to wire the LEDs up. They are high power ones which running properly want a bit over 1A at 2.7V and they are connected in series. As I was going to drive them from a PIC powered from 4.5V there was no way I could light the whole chain and I could not easily cut the tracks on the aluminium backed PCB. Well, I probably could have taken them off and put them on another PCB but the one they were on fitted properly in the lamp and I didn't want the extra work if it could be avoided.So I did this:which allows any one LED in each lamp to be lit. The bottom two are commoned because I did not initially realise that GP3 can only be an input. The LEDS run at 10mA and 33% duty cycle but are surprisingly bright at that. Power is from 3xLR44 held together with heat shrink. At 6mA on average that should last a good 20 hours so plenty of time for demos.Here is the result in actionhttp://wild-pc.co.uk/vids/art_project.htmlBasically it is a souped up blinky LED project but I thought you might enjoy it!Any problems with the video let me know - this is also an excuse to try some HTML video players in an attempt to avoid YouTube - This is usingvideojs, I don't think there is any way to embed the video in the post.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2017, 12:08:55 am
content: Gah! That first picture is the sort of thing nightmares are made of!

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2017, 07:48:43 am
content: Quote from: james_s on February 08, 2017, 12:08:55 amThese sort of homework projects give me nightmares.If there is a drawing/painting/sculpting version of dyslexia then I have it

author: NMNeil
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2017, 03:03:22 pm
content: I think I dated both of them in my youth, but I attribute it to alcohol and dubious disco lighting.

author: NivagSwerdna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2017, 03:20:18 pm
content: I really like him.Does he have a name?

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2017, 04:28:23 pm
content: Quote from: NivagSwerdna on February 08, 2017, 03:20:18 pmTechie Monster

author: Vgkid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2017, 05:32:50 pm
content: I think it looks pretty cute.

author: tpowell1830
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2017, 07:32:20 pm
content: Quote from: grumpydoc on February 07, 2017, 10:56:46 pmOk, if you're gonna stick arms on a PCB, they gotta move! Plus, Where's the color?

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2017, 07:58:23 pm
content: Quote from: tpowell1830 on February 08, 2017, 07:32:20 pmYes, that would have been significantly more awesome but you can only take a homework art project so far.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2017, 08:12:20 pm
content: That's awesome!My 8 and 10 yr old boys get these kind of short notice homework projects but rarely are they so amenable to electronics.This last weekend it was helping my youngest build a basketball net Valentines box and my oldest a "wheel of torture" - that is - a spinning casino type wheel with various options a Roman emperor might dish out to prisoners "burn at the stake" , "throw in the coliseum" "draw and quarter" "fight a gladiator",etc.- with only one "set free" option.You've inspired me to try harder to include electronics in these homework projects.