Brandon Marsh – NMP Jacket

With all the excitement and the highs and lows that have come up with this project it’s sort of easy to lose sight of the real goal here; to come away with a really fantastic project and have learned something by doing so. I have to thank Ira Nayman for pointing out to me that I was still learning and that these little road blocks and frustrations were all part of that, it’s really helped to alleviate some of the frustration of being unable to complete certain parts of my project on my own.

That being said! I have been working hard pretty much every day trying to get as much done as possible!

I’ve soldered my own circuit board and just have to fix a few wires on the cellphone before I can do a dry run test of the entire system! I picked up some speakers from Factory Direct, their prices are pretty good, but the store policies and customer service really sucks! Anyway those speakers were incredibly easy to disassemble and work pretty well for what I need! I also found some really cool buttons at Active the other day! Now I just gotta figure out how I am going to be able to manufacture certain parts.

That being said I ordered some Wonderflex on the advice of a Theater Tech friend of mine, hopefully this stuff is as good as everyone is raving about!

Stuck

Alright so after some testing and debugging almost everything is working. I had the swtich working… but now it is switching in response to main power source and not from the opto-isolator, I tried looking back at some of my old diagrams and circuit pictures and what I have looks right. So I am just wondering what is going on, maybe I should restart my circuit?

I am running out of time.

Over the weekend I met with Kent and we did some planning and discussing about how we would wrap up the last parts of the project. It was pretty productive I thought!

On Tuesday I met with Mark, fixed a errant wires on the phone and talked about what steps I needed to take in order to get the electronics finished and secured. I have decided to give up the camera function in order to have more stability an security.

So today I ran back and forth across town and redid my circuit today. Everything went a little smoother when I started using a better quality solder. Everything seems to be working ok, the current is stable, etc. However, when the ‘cellphone’ part of the opto-isolator is activated it diminishes all the power going to the relay(. The plans originally have a 1k resistor going to the opto-isolator and even when I bump it down to 220 it doesn’t seem to matter. I tried swapping out the transistor (2w3904), but that doesn’t seem to be the problem either.

I got word that my Wonderflex came in, I called up Kent and graciously begged him to go and pick it up for me, so hopefully he will be able to do that Friday. I’m probably not even going to get to work with it till Tuesday because I have a major paper due for my history class and I have to work at the pub on Monday due to it being St.Patrick’s Day.

All these little pauses and set-backs are starting to add up and it’s making me nervous… I wish that stuff was working already! I wish I had like an assistant at this point to go grab stuff for me while I was at work or class or whatever… oh well I guess I just have to do my best.

Fixed!

Ok just a quick update before I head off to work… I took my circuit in  to Mark and other than a few logistical issues and some loose connections there was one issue. I had wired the connection into the relay wrong! It needed to be one row over! Man did I ever feel silly.

But I got to learn why keeping different parts of your circuit separate is important and how to make and use jumper cables!

Hey guess what? I’m being featured along with a few other of my classmates in the Eyeopener this week! The Article is called ‘Brave New World, Brave New Media‘

Circuitry demo for the NWP Jacket

‘Slip inside now, watch me fall and watch me flow
‘Cause we are changing structure
So kill the light and watch me glow’

Showtime!

Wednesday
Well once again I managed to pull it off at the last second, literally! I finished up around noonish, got over to the school and did a bunch of repairs on stuff that had broken or come loose. Once I got it up and running people really responded well to it!

My crit went a lot better than I imagined, so I am very relieved for that! I did some touring out in public and no-one even even gave me much notice other than the occasional look and stare! I have a few corrections and fixes to do in preparation for the big show on Thursday!

Thursday
What a day! Once again I was late to the show, doing some last minute fixes and trying to get my show cards printed. So I showed up late, but everything was working well and I had a steady stream of curiosity seekers and people wanting to show their friends and folks. Kent managed to come out to the show and got some pictures and got to see how everything worked, he seemed very impressed with how it all turned out so I am glad he came out!

The afterparty however kind of went bust after the liquor permit got revoked, everyone split up all over, so I went around to a few different places. Got some great reactions though!

Friday

Today was alright, I had some big problems with some really crappy battery clips, I did some short talks to school tours and mostly just hung out and took a bit of documentation footage. I also participated in a few things going on through the day like The Darcys Recording some tracks for a new song (I think) and taking part in a lecture by Georg Janick, a philosophy professor in Boston over Second Life. I actually called the professor through my project and spoke to his very confused wife, who I mistook for his office assistant. I grabbed some fresh few components for tomorrow’s show, I have a few people coming so I want everything to be a nice and perfect!

Saturday

Today went very nicely! All my circuits were working fine, the speakers were being a little fussy and some of the Cool Neon has a pinch or something in it, but otherwise it was a smooth day! I had a pretty steady stream of demos an stuff through the day, I got to talk to Wes’ Mom from the Darcys among all sort of other family and friends!

My folks came in to town to see the show and I had some friends swing by to check it out and everyone really enjoyed the show! I have been wearing my project out at night going drinking and stuff and I have gotten a lot of good interest from people on the street as well! Now it’s time to get some rest, edit through my documentation and get that ready to submit and send it around with thank yous to everyone who helped make this project possible

Pre-Show

I am really cutting it close once again! Even when you plan to be done weeks in advance, you still find yourself scrambling the night before!

So I sent out a few invites/notices and reminders, I am trying to wrap up all the wiring and everything that I need to take care of. I finally got to see the jacket tonight and am I ever excited! Adrienne has done an spectacular job, I am so glad I managed to get her on board for this project!

I’ll post some pictures later, for now I have another long sleepless night ahead of me.

Scott check here

Thank You!

I just wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who has been involved in my project and who has helped me along the way:

• Kent Burles, of course who has been a dedicated part of this project from the start and has pulled through for me a number of times!

• Adrienne Baker, for sticking with the project and coming through with a fantastic jacket!

• My Thesis Advisors, Lila, Kathleen, Dave and Mark

• Ira Nayman, for helping me get started

• James Fung and Raymond Lo from U of T, introducing me to Glogger and Steve Mann’s work

• Hans Jarne and Ed Hutchinson from Ericsson and Sony-Ericsson for getting me the phones!

• Josh at Cool Neon for helping me figure out what supplies I needed and fixing the small shipping error

• Scott Clifford for designing my show cards

• Tok for taking some great documentation video and photos, getting my show cards printed and helping me get to the show!

Thank you to all my friends and family who have been there to support me through the course of the project and of course my classmates who really pulled out all the stops and helped to put together an amazing show!

Now that the show is over I have been very inspired and encouraged by the work that has been done. I think that maybe yes, I could go forward making interesting gadgets and such as art and could be successful. Right now I am just getting all my ideas out and written down so that when I have some more time I can maybe get to it!