Introduction: An Artwork That Stares Back
About: paint, gizmo, wizards, pyramids, cartoons.
This is how to make an artwork that stares back at the viewer...and tweets what it sees. I also included a digital photo frame with a catalog of Messier's space objects...that way it was like a catalog that catalogs its viewers. Here is the twitter account for my piece: http://twitter.com/#!/1921681127 (the name is the IP address on the network) The tweets are absurd descriptions of the people the artwork sees. I just wrote a string array of descriptions and had the mbed choose at (sort of) random which description it wanted to give.
***NOTE*** This is not a step by step instructable showing you how to make that weird looking thing I made. It's to tell you how you could make any piece of art (or anything I guess) that tweets pictures of its viewers.
This is assuming you know basic C++ and electronics. I used an mbed microcontroller as Arduinos are not capable of compressing a jpeg file and sending it via ethernet. Mbeds us an ARM chip and the software (the compiler) you use it with is on their web page. They cost around sixty dollars and are not that hard to figure out if you've been using arduinos for awhile.
Parts: (All the info on how to hook these parts up is on the mbed page)
mbed microprocesser ($60ish)
RJ45 ethernet jack ($2ish)
RJ45 ethernet breakout board ($1)
LinkSprite JPEG Color Camera ($50ish)
The camera also needed a jumper assembly ...it didn't come with it.
Maxbotix EZ1 range finder ($25ish)
Some wire, solder, and two resistors for the LEDs on the ethernet jack.
Artwork
(Digital photo frame and steel paper clips are optional)
Here is the C++ code:
A basic mbed program: http://mbed.org/users/treebykooba/programs/TwitPicExample/ln9qdq/docs/main_8cpp_source.html
The twitpic library written by David Griswold: http://mbed.org/users/treebykooba/libraries/TwitPic/ln8r77
Also I used the LinkSprite camera library: http://mbed.org/users/shintamainjp/notebook/camera_ls_y201_en/
(I also used a library for the LCD, for the ethernet and for the range finder...all are on the mbed web page)
***NOTE*** This is not a step by step instructable showing you how to make that weird looking thing I made. It's to tell you how you could make any piece of art (or anything I guess) that tweets pictures of its viewers.
This is assuming you know basic C++ and electronics. I used an mbed microcontroller as Arduinos are not capable of compressing a jpeg file and sending it via ethernet. Mbeds us an ARM chip and the software (the compiler) you use it with is on their web page. They cost around sixty dollars and are not that hard to figure out if you've been using arduinos for awhile.
Parts: (All the info on how to hook these parts up is on the mbed page)
mbed microprocesser ($60ish)
RJ45 ethernet jack ($2ish)
RJ45 ethernet breakout board ($1)
LinkSprite JPEG Color Camera ($50ish)
The camera also needed a jumper assembly ...it didn't come with it.
Maxbotix EZ1 range finder ($25ish)
Some wire, solder, and two resistors for the LEDs on the ethernet jack.
Artwork
(Digital photo frame and steel paper clips are optional)
Here is the C++ code:
A basic mbed program: http://mbed.org/users/treebykooba/programs/TwitPicExample/ln9qdq/docs/main_8cpp_source.html
The twitpic library written by David Griswold: http://mbed.org/users/treebykooba/libraries/TwitPic/ln8r77
Also I used the LinkSprite camera library: http://mbed.org/users/shintamainjp/notebook/camera_ls_y201_en/
(I also used a library for the LCD, for the ethernet and for the range finder...all are on the mbed web page)