Looking for collaborators - electronics, microcontroller expertise wanted!

HI,

I'm currently preparing for my MA in Interaction Design in September next year, and am building (and attempting to build) various delightful objects, generally within the lighting and display areas.

Some o these objects I hope to get to market.

I have spent the last six months learning as much as i can in the electronics and microcontroller arean - I'm learning C++, Python, and various hardware, concentrating mainly on the Arduino environment, but have played with Texas Instruments dev boards, STM32 and Raspberry PI.

However, I'm no expert , and am often frustrated when I can't make some of my many ideas a reality - when I know these things are possible, and my expertise is not sufficient.

So I'm looking for collaboration, payment is available, or partnership in any project going to maket. I understand the latter is less enticing than the former, and I'm very flexible in working both ways, often n the same project.

As a test case, let's look at something I HAVE been able to make, to a certain level at least - the timothy³ cube the timothy³ cube...

I'd like to collaborate on various functionality:

  1. Programming patterns for the cube. Currently I'm running various demos/examples from the Neopixel and FastLED libraries. These look good, but aren't designed to work specifically with a cube shape, so I'm looking to create patterns that ARE sympathetic to the 3D cuboid shape.

  2. Allowing the user to interact with the cube via Bluetooth LE. I have had some suu=cces her - in that I can connect to the Bluefruit Feather 32u4 from Adafruit, and get it to read values sent via the Adafruit app, which are then used as a variable in my code, allowing colour changes etc. Currently though, this is very primitive.

  3. Electronics - particularly power. Allowing the cube to run on mains via 5v power supply, and batteries. To have the cube hot-swappable between the two (got this working OK) but also to have the batteries charge while mains powered.

That's it for this project, but I have many many projects I'd like to get going, and with the right person or people, I'm sure they could be realised.

Join me!

That's it for this project, but I have many many projects I'd like to get going, and with the right person or people, I'm sure they could be realised.

I'd be more inclined to think "count me in" if the key question, "what do you want me to do" had been answered.

The LED cube is interesting, but that has been done before. Programming it isn't all that interesting, without clear requirements. Charging the battery isn't a programming issue. That is entirely hardware, and has been done before. My phones, for years, have been able to charge the batteries when plugged in.

Yeah, it's been done before, but not by me.

I've just entered the field. I'm not a programmer nor electronics engineer, but am striving to be both.

What do I want you to do? Paul, I'd like you to produce animations/sequences and patterns for the cube, using whatever process you like. I think what akes this interesting is that this is a cube, a 3D object, whereas most LED work is flat.

Interesting things to do:

  • Make patterns that ripple from one corner to the opposite corner.
  • Using an accelerometer:
  • [/li]
    • make the cube look like it's full of a (possibly viscous) liquid.
    • Have a 'ball' bounce around the 6 screens of the cube, as ifit's INSIDE the cube
    • Have snow or rain that fills the cube, and always falls from above
    • animated arrows that always point up

Lots of other ideas.I want to add sensors, hook it up to web data, have it display text etc..

Basically, explore together (you know, collaborate?) to make this thing look better than the others you mention.

Why? - 1. so I can learn from you, 2. so I can have a better object sitting on my desk and in my portfolio. 3. To possibly build a collaborative relationship.

I'm not posting for a job or specific work required - I want a collaborator, a brother in arms, someone who feels that THEY can learn something and have some fun with this cube thingy, and maybe partner up with me on other ideas, and who knows, make some money at some point.

Yes, I know your bloody iPhone can be charged, BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO IT, and I want to work with someone who does.

Samuel Beckett once told me that originality wasn't what one should strive for - being good was original enough. Well, I'm trying to make the best fucking LED cube out there, and I'm looking for help.

If you want a job, go to Linked in. If you want to have some fun, msg me.

BTW - are you Paul Stoffregen? If you are - man, I'm a huge fan, love your work. And the teensy 3.6 - wow, that's one amazing microcontroller, right? Was it the first microcontroller? Is it the only Microcontroller? No. Is it the best? Damn right. Do you get me?

If you are intersted in controlling your cube over bluetooth, you may want to see my app 'Fishtank Moon', where I control a fishtank moon on a neopixel strip with a custom android app.

As this project is in github with an unlicense, you can just rip out the comms parts: the android service and the arduino code bits. My code implements a protocol that supports sending messages (byte arrays) with checksums, and will recover from communications hiccoughs.

You build your application protocol on top of that - in Fishtank Moon, it's one letter to indicate what function you want and the rest of the message containing the payload, but this part of the code, the app-specific stuff, is separate from the underlying connection gear.