Monday, April 20, 2009

Welcome to Geekdom!


I've been playing around with different ideas of things I would like to make and what direction I would like to take my art in, and have come to the conclusion that there is no conclusion. From where I'm standing it just doesn't make much sense to try to limit myself to one thing when there is this ever evolving world around us with so much advancement happening every day. Why stop at one thing?
My latest love has evolved out of a long standing passion I've had for the art of robotics. The intimidation of how complex designing and developing a robot has always kept me away from attempting anything of the sort, with the exception of a series of Rock em Sock em style robots i had painted a few years ago. Recently I have encountered what i think may be the bridge to carry me into this brave new world and it comes in the form of a little thing called "Arduino". Arduino is an open-source electronics board which comes with a multitude of add on parts and forums full of people sharing their ideas and creations. This little doozy lets you hook up all kinds of sensors, LED lights, cameras, motors, switches, and the list goes on and on. Once you've thought up the project that you would like to create and bought or found all of the components you would like to include, there is some basic computer code needed to be written and then sent to the board via USB connector and vuala the magic begins. Essentially in my still simple understanding, the Arduino board can be used to make any for of neat self thinking robot you can conjure up.

Here is a link to their site which is packed full of great information about the Arduino: http://www.arduino.cc/

For lots more info from the open-source community you will want to go here: http://www.freeduino.org/

I have also recently found a class here in Philadelphia which is geared toward anyone interested in how these little boards work and requires no previous experience necessary, which is right where I am at in the process. Check it out here: http://thehacktory.org/classes/arduino-beginner-microcontroller-amp-electronics-class-0

No comments: