Tilt Switches

Yay! The tilt switches arrived a couple of days ago and Robbie and I tested them with the rest of the electronics then temporarily fitted them in our recently constructed cubes. They seem to be working reasonably well but still need a lot of tweaking as they are quite temperamental. Hopefully some adjustments on the code will do the trick.

As far as the cubes go, They are intact as I just mentioned, except for the lids, but they still need finishing. So we've had a play about on the lazer cutter to see about getting VeBu cut into the surfaces of the cubes, still not sure about it yet. As well as this it also needs painted and sanded and to get the tilt switches mounted inside properly.

However, after a talk with our lecturer we agreed that we should look further into the shape of our blocks. Why are they cubes? What are the alternatives? Something just doesn't feel right about them just now. They are not as fun and intuitive to control as we had hoped. And just when things seemed to be going well......

Electronic Prototype

Fortunately we have managed to make a lot of progress in the last few days. After a bit of help from our lecturer, we have wrote the PICAXE coding that gives the exact electronic effect that we had hoped for our device. This means when a switch is activated it only plays the sample when in contact and stops when disconnected. Due to this development we were able to quick construct this Electronic Prototype (above) that will hopefully give everyone a fair impression of our aims for the dj cubes. The prototype is basically using most of the technology we will be using for our final product except this has no tilt switches or cubes.

Also, here's a link to a video of the prototype in use

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex1nExac-1A

Problems, problems, problems.....

As I said in our technical prototype post, i would follow up on the button problem. The buttons where not working as we would like, technically or electronically. For certain functions of our sound device to work we needed two buttons to be pressed at the same time. It seemed quite difficult to press them at the same time and also the software was having problems with recognising it.

To solve this we decided we would incorporate reed switches and magnets into the cubes. This meant that when the reed switch in one box came close to the magnet of another box, the sample or sound would be triggered. So we got our reed switches ordered, received and rigged up in a way to test this. It seemed to be working slightly better than the buttons at first glance but then we realised an even bigger problem.

Our new worry was that when the reed switches and magnets were in contact, instead of being recognised by the software (picaxe and puredata) once, it was being recognised about 10 times a second. This meant that, whenever we got out samples created, they would be starting and stopping 10 times a second!

Obviously we still have a lot of work to do....

Technical Prototype

The software combination of picAXE and Pure Data is not an enjoyable one, certainly not at this point. We have it all set up and developed to a suitable stage at this point, but it seems every time the software is left unused for a couple of days it falls out with us and refuses to cooperate. Luckily, cardboard doesn't get moody so our prototype could be mocked up relatively quickly. With the prototype finished, problems of the buttons not working correctly and software problems in recognising 2 buttons operating at once became apparent. To solve these problems, the buttons are going to be replaced with a reed switch and magnet combination. More on this in the future.

The aesthetics of the boxes are now being thought about in more depth than before. We have decided to design the main control boxes to represent the type of music they will be programmed to play, i.e Hip Hop will involve a lot of gold and bling, Electro will involve bright colours and lights. Designing the boxes around certain music genres will create an added depth for the user and an element of intuition into using the product.

The Chosen One

So we have finally narrowed our 100(ish) ideas down to one. One idea that we believe will match our brief and our insight. We are looking forward to making it even though we don't know how it will all be done. Here is a brief rationale which we hope will explain our idea sufficiently.

A master cube with multiple functions. Play different

samples or use as an equaliser by simply stacking the

master cube and two auxiliary cubes in different

combinations. The sample playing, or wave range playing,

will depend on what position the master cube is placed in

the stack. This gives a very hands on and intuitive way of

manipulating music.

More than one set of cubes can be used at a time. This

means tracks can easily be mixed together.

We will now get started on a technical sketch prototype and get our heads around the electronics of our idea. Our next post should explain our idea further for anyone who doesn't get it yet.