Real Time

Realtime Project - Recognition New Scientist - Found...

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:01:00 -0400

Realtime Project - Recognition

New Scientist - Found Here

Quipsologies - Found Here

Vimeo - Found Here

Realtime Project - Ferroseismic Promo Video We managed to film...

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 11:00:00 -0400

Realtime Project - Ferroseismic Promo Video

We managed to film our project working today in all it’s glory, and I was pretty impressed with the results. Give it a watch (fullscreen) and see what you think…

Realtime Project - Branding Luke and myself having been...

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 10:00:00 -0400

Realtime Project - Branding

Luke and myself having been “unofficially calling our project ‘Ferroseismic’ which is a combination of Ferrofluid & Seismic Activity, which are the two main concepts behind our project so it is very fitting. So today we decided to christian the project and come up with a logo.

We wanted something clean and simple, that echoed the project itself. The whole project is housed in a clean white structure with 4 jet black puddles on top. So a black & white logo seemed the logical choice.

We decided to add the logo as a watermark over the top of the promo video, so hopefully our logo will start to become synonymous with the word Ferroseismic!

Realtime Project - Ferroseismic Today was the first time in a...

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 09:00:00 -0400

Realtime Project - Ferroseismic

Today was the first time in a long time everything has actually gone right!

Firstly we managed to get some new glass vials, that are a lot deeper, meaning that the ferrofluid never touches the surface of the water, and you are able to see the reaction of the ferrofluid with the magnets a lot clearer.

So now that we had everything working, it was time to start filming. We filmed the project working so that we had some evidence to show during our presentation, incase (heaven forbid) something happened to our project between now and Tuesday. The end result of the video i thought was very impressive and I’m looking forward to seeing peoples reactions towards our project!

As the project is now over I guess this would be a good a time as any to mention what we would change about this project given another chance to do it…

1) Use a Motor Shield

With a a motor shield we would have been able to control the motors with a higher degree of accuracy, and would have spent about 100% less on batteries. Which is ironic as we thought by not using the motor shield would save money!?

2) Use a Saw

When it came to cutting the acrylic for the project housing, we had to use a stanley knife and brute strength as mentioned in previous posts, but this didn’t have the most professional finish to it. So given another chance we would like to use the Brunnel labs and some power tools!!

3) Use reactive Ferrofluid

The Ferrofluid we have reacts brilliantly to the magnets, but the sample of Ferrofluid we had at the beginning (from Lee Nutbean), that initially sparked our interest in using Ferrofluid in the project was about 50% more reactive than ours. So given the chance we’d like to use more reactive Ferrofluid.

But despite all problems, I’m am infinetley happy with out results and cannot wait to present this project to Hannah on Tuesday.

P.S. Special Thanks must go out to:

Pete Smithers for providing the glassware.

Jon Sigworth for giving us permission to use his track in our presentation video.

Hannah Drayson for continued advice and support.

Lee Nutbean for introducing us to Ferrofluid earlier in the year.

Realtime Project - Motors Working!! This video is showing the...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 15:00:00 -0400

Realtime Project - Motors Working!!

This video is showing the motors now working with 2 AA batteries instead of one 6volt battery.

Realtime Project - Dancing Ferrofluid Here’s a quick video...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 14:00:00 -0400

Realtime Project - Dancing Ferrofluid

Here’s a quick video showing the Ferrofluid reacting with the motor underneath in what is a pretty impressive little dance.

Realtime Project - So Close Today was meant to be the last day...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 13:00:00 -0400

Realtime Project - So Close

Today was meant to be the last day myself and Luke worked on this project until the presentation, unfortunately this was not the case…

At 9 o’clock this morning I went to Maplins to pick up our Miniature Potentiometer, which I was assured would solve our battery problems. This was not true as when I attached it to our circuit it burst into flames!! So i took it back where i was told “Well, of course its gonna blow up if you add it to THAT circuit” So after a little disccusion on customers service I was on my way back to the lab with 12 AA batteries and a 4 battery connectors. using weaker batteries did seem to do the trick, and seems so obvious now …so why didn’t anyone mention it to us sooner!! I blame everyone but myself :)

Once the battery issue was sorted there was a host of other issues cropping up, including; Wires coming loose, Petri Dishes getting smashed and magnets flying around all over the place.

As I mentioned, we are now one petri dish short of a project, so we will be heading back to davy tomorrow (Sunday) to hunt for some more…

The last problem we encountered today was with adding Ferrofluid to the water. So far in this project we have been adding minuscule amounts of Ferrofluid to the test with, so today when we added a larger amount we were surprised to find that the fluid was less reactive and when in contact with the surface of the water, it bleeds across the surface. So we shall be using a lot smaller amounts in the future.

In Conclusion:

We encountered a lot of problems today and made a 8 hour session in university seem a lot longer. Hopefully with the arrival of the new petri dish everything should go smoothly tomorrow as every problem we have encountered we have solved, So here’s hoping…

Realtime Project – Glass Cont… Today Luke and I met up again in...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Realtime Project – Glass Cont…

Today Luke and I met up again in university to see if we could find some glass Petri dishes. Luke turned up a little later than we had arranged and I was ready to start shouting, but he had the biggest smile on his face, and he revealed 4 of the sexiest glass Petri dishes I have ever seen. All I can say is “God bless you Smithers!”

We instantly put some Ferrofluid into one of them as shown in the video, and as you can see there is minimal staining, this is brilliant news as it makes the visualisation so much clearer!!

Realtime Project – The Motor Moves The Fluid! This video shows...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:00:00 -0400

Realtime Project – The Motor Moves The Fluid!

This video shows the Ferrofluid reacting to the magnet attached to one of our motors. I’ve got a feeling this is the first time we’ve tried to move the Ferrofluid without holding a magnet in our hands. Thank god it worked!!

Realtime Project – Glass So the Ferrofluid turning the Petri...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 09:00:00 -0400

Realtime Project – Glass

So the Ferrofluid turning the Petri dish brown got me thinking and I found my old vile of Ferrofluid still suspended in water, and it has no staining on the glass what so ever. I brought this into Uni to show Luke and we both decided it’s one of two things, 1) because it’s in glass, and not plastic like our Petri dishes, or 2) because our Ferrofluid was gone-off (really didn’t want it to be this). So we filled another vile (empty absinthe shot container) with our Ferrofluid in the same amounts as the original we got from Lee to see what would happen.

Luckily as you can see in the video it worked in the same way as Lee’s (a little less reactive) but no staining!! So we realised we needed glass petri dishes!!

So back to Smithers we will go!

Realtime Project – Batteries So after the battery situation we...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Realtime Project – Batteries

So after the battery situation we decided to buy some brand named batteries and went Maplins! When we attached the new batteries however they were working too well! The batteries were so powerful that the relay couldn’t turn on/off quick enough to change the speed of the motors! They were running at 100% instantly!

So I went to back to Maplins to see if they could help me out and maybe give me some kind of resistor to lessen the amount of current.

The guy in Maplins was pretty helpful and said that I needed a Miniature Potentiometer, that mean I can manually change the amount of current coming out of the battery. So I ordered 4, they should be here by Friday!

Realtime Project - Issues Today was the day we cracked open the...

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 10:00:00 -0400

Realtime Project - Issues

Today was the day we cracked open the Ferrofluid and checked to see if it worked with our installation. Everything was going so well up until this point something was bound to go wrong eventually, but I wish it hadn’t…

We started by opening all our brand new batteries brought from Poundland, only to discover that all 4 of them were completely dead! Not good! Then we put the Ferrofluid into our largest Petri dish in a window cleaner solution, as according to the internet this stops the fluid staining the container. Well it doesn’t! And then we realised we don’t have enough Ferrofluid to fill this Petri dish effectively, so we had to move a size down, as the magnet was just throwing the fluid all over the dish (not making it spike)

So in conclusion we need:

New batteries

Smaller dishes

A way to stop the dishes turning brown!

This is frustrating considering how close to finishing we thought we were to finishing this morning!

Realtime Project – Work In Progress Here’s a...

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 09:00:00 -0400

Realtime Project – Work In Progress

Here’s a little time-lapse of Luke & myself working hard on our Realtime Project!!

Realtime Project – NO MORE NAILS We used “No More Nails” and I...

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Realtime Project – NO MORE NAILS

We used “No More Nails” and I can safely say I’m a fan, the stuff I brilliant, it has held everything in place brilliantly and we now have a free standing housing for our project. It takes 24hours to set so we spent no time messing around today and added some shelves and glue together the motors to their bottle top lids! Things are looking good!

So now all that’s left to do is to crack open the Ferrofluid and see how it reacts to the speed of the motors going around. I’m very excited!!

Realtime Project – Acrylic & Bottle Tops We now have a sheet...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Realtime Project – Acrylic & Bottle Tops

We now have a sheet of acrylic and have started working on making the project housing. As the workshop on campus is closed for Easter, I went to my neighbour (painter & decorator) for some advice on how to cut straight lines into acrylic without the use of clamps or saws! He assured me the old ‘score & snap’ method was the way forward and should “work a charm”. This wasn’t the case! The edges aren’t too bad, but will need some TLC and some “sand paper loving” before we show them to anyone!

As well as this, Luke has been pounding protein shakes like a trooping so as we can use the bottle tops as motor wheels! They are the perfect size and shape, couldn’t have asked for a better wheel and due to a slight camber in the lid the magnets can hold each other in place on either side of the lid edge. So when rotated the magnet stays perfectly in position even at full rotation speed.

I have planned to go over Luke’s tomorrow and we will be using some “No More Nails” adhesive to hold everything in place! I can see something going wrong…

Realtime Project - Housing Prototype Today Luke and I cut up all...

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Realtime Project - Housing Prototype

Today Luke and I cut up all his accumulated Amazon packaging boxes and created prototype housing. This gave us a good indication of how much Acrylic we will need to buy for the real thing! Upon seeing it fully erect I think it could actually do with being a bit shorter, as we can have the motors and batteries on the same level, and the Arduino board and relays on their own level.

Realtime Project – Earthquake RSS to Relay This is another...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:00:00 -0500

Realtime Project – Earthquake RSS to Relay

This is another video showing Processing pulling in Earthquake data but this time it is assigning the data to 4 different outputs like I mentioned before. Therefore this is showing 2 motors a buzzer and an LED all showing the Earthquake data.

Realtime Project – Earthquake RSS to Relay This video shows...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 09:00:00 -0500

Realtime Project – Earthquake RSS to Relay

This video shows Processing pulling in Earthquake data and assigning it to two different realays. The code does actually allow it to work with4 but we only have two relays at the moment so the in the place of the other two we have been using an LED and a buzzer.

Realtime Project - CODE The code is now fully functional and it...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Realtime Project - CODE

The code is now fully functional and it only took 8 versions to get there, I have attached all the versions of the code to this post, just for the simple reason that I want to show them off! I have never put so much time into a single piece of code based work before, so I’m pretty proud of this, and I will explain quickly what it does:

- Finds an Earthquake

- Checks where in the world it is

- Adds the Ricta scale of the earthquake to the relevant variable

- This makes the appropriate motor spin, the speed of which is determined by the Ricta scale size.

- Checks for new earthquake

- Back to the top ^

This code is cumulative, so every time a new earthquake is found it will add the number to the previous ones. Therefore over the time the installation has been turned on, you can see which area of the world has been having the most seismic activity.

DOWNLOAD CODE HERE

Realtime Project - Housing Model Here’s a picture of a model...

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:54:00 -0500

Realtime Project - Housing Model

Here’s a picture of a model Luke made using Google SketchUp of how we would like our housing to look. Pretty swank, I think you’d agree!