Intermediate and Advanced level workshop!

Servo motor control with PD and MAX
Master Class with Thomas Ouellet Fredericks (of Plan B)
Wednesday November 20, 7-10 pm

Learn the technical how-to's of FLOCK [in], the upcoming installation
at InterAccess by Plan B (Marc Fournel and Thomas Oullet Fredericks.
Hurry! Registration is limited.

Servo motors are excellent for art installations as they can be
positioned and controlled with great accuracy. (They are also often
used in radio controlled objects, toys, and of course, robots). They
are relatively inexpensive, responsive, strong and can be accurately
positioned in an 180 degree arc. They work best with specialized
boards like the SSC II (http://www.seetron.com/ssc.htm) or SSC-32
(http://www.lynxmotion.com/Product.aspx?productID95&CategoryIDR)
but the Arduino or a wiring boards can also be used.

Pure Data or MAX/MSP environments are used to control the boards
through the serial communication protocol, a very important technical
aspect to master when working with microcontrollers.

Many aspects of this workshop can be applied to the control of
different types of motors as the serial communication protocol is also
often used for the control of DC or stepper motor boards.

Participants learn:
- The servo motor protocol ( a specialized form of Pulse Width Modulation).
- Electric connections of servo motors.
- Demonstrations of the SSC II, SSC-32 and Arduino boards as servo motor
actuators.
- The serial protocol in Pure Data and Max/Msp.
- Applications of servo motors.

IMPORTANT: Requirements – Participants must have the following
background before taking this workshop:
- Knowledge of Pure Data (http://at.or.at/hans/pd/installers.html) or Max/Msp.
- Either a SSC II, SSC-32, Arduino or Wiring board.
- If you are using the SSC II or SSC-32 servo motor boards, you will need a
serial connection on your computer (new macs will need a USB->Serial adapter).
- Servo motors.


Thomas Ouellet Fredericks is an independent artist, a part-time
university teacher and a consultant. After completing a Master's
degree in communications at Universite du Quebec a Montreal in 2003,
he specialized in the creation of interactive installations, whose
user interfaces are modeled on behavioural and psychological
contemporary research. Fredericks' work often uses biological
elements, or their simulation, and poses a definite emphasis on the
sense of touch. For the last year he has been investigating the
emergence of complex reactions from densities of simple agents
propagated in the physical space, resulting in the latest
collaborative piece, Flock. He is a proud member and active
participant of the open source and Creative Commons movements.
Fredericks' work has been shown nationally and internationally. He
lives and works in Montreal. More information about Fredericks can be
found at http://ciam.dyndns.org/~vitamin/danslchamp/mrtof
<http://ciam.dyndns.org/~vitamin/danslchamp/mrtof> .

Some examples of artwork made using servo motors:

http://www.smoothware.com/danny/woodenmirror.html
http://www.artbots.org/2005/participants/WavePuppet/
http://www.ekac.org/robotichronology.html
http://regexp.bjoern.org/archives/000159.html


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Interactivity for artists: the Most Awesomest PureData Workshop… ever.
Instructors: David McCallum and Dafydd Hughes
November 25, December 2, and December 9, 2006, 12-5 pm

Want to make software for your art that behaves the way you want it
to? Are you frustrated by the limitations of existing software and
keen to create tools to suit your own artistic purposes? Then PureData
is for you. PureData (pd) is an audio- and video-based
graphical-programming language, similar in use to the well-known
program Max/MSP, but free and open source.

PureData allows artists to create small "patches," or programs, that
take information from the real world, such as live-camera feeds,
audio, video, motion sensors and other sources, and analyze this data
to create any desired output - such as video or audio playback and
effects and more. Graphical programming is most commonly used in
immersive and interactive installations as well as live video
mixing/VJ events.

Participants learn the basics of audio programming, including sample
recording, playback, manipulation and synthesis, and video programming
using the "GEM video environment," including video mixing,
manipulation and simple 3D rendering. Instructors tailor workshop
content to suit the needs of participants as much as possible.