Met Nigel tonight and he explained a lot about latex, and stores etc. he volunteers in SFX houses at CBC or something. After talking to him and hearing about what working in shops is like, I’d rather do Art, creepy toys, and Halloween/horror house supplies. Oh, I’ll take what I can get, but I know what I’m aiming for now.

It doesn’t sound like I’d get all that much experience by working in a shop either, seems to be so frelling competitive people don’t share knowledge. I’ve encountered that a lot already, but all I can do is not let it effect me. I believe in sharing knowledge and open source art.

My problems with liquid latex seem to be mostly from the fact it’s a crappy volatile material. Cheap, but low shelf life. And ocad’s latex is 3 years old.

I’ll be switching to foam latex and possibly dragon skin by smooth-on. There’s some experimentation ahead but this solves the problems I was having with casting in latex. This info was incredibly useful to me. Beyond setting me up for thesis, I’ll be able to go into my latex toy series full tilt this summer with nothing holding me back but cost. Moulds + expandable foam rubber + airbrushing = fast, mass produced toys. All I need now are tags for them.

I’ll also be able to create V2.0 of my Nike skin shoe. I’ll be redoing the circuitry/robotics/ colouring / latex. I’ll most likely create some generic silicon skin moulds and then create a series of 10 very different shoes.

And---- I’m officially the electronics studio Monitor for Wednesdays. So if you need someone to explain a Transistor to you, stop by the lab, I’ll be there and I’ll do my best to confuse you even more.

Somewhere beyond happiness and sadness, I need to calculate What creates my own madness/ And I'm addicted to your punishment
I feel irrational / So confrontational
I never look back cause I don't even want to
And I don't need to

I have wanted to add LCD screens to my thesis project, but didn’t think I would find any for a good price.

I was in futureshop buying a cordless phone (34.99 with caller id! ) and I saw something I’ve never seen before, the “Hip Gear, Screen Pad”. I never saw it here, but apparently it was a failed product in America. Basically it’s a game controller (3 versions, Xbox, Playstation, Gamecube) with a 2.6” colour screen built-in (built-in is a loose term, and so is the mounting job on this product). Overall right away I can see numerous reasons it failed, but none are important for me to go over here.
The important thing is instead of costing $149.99, it was going for 29.95! (I was shocked and couldn’t believe my eyes!! Right next to it they had another portable gaming screen for $219.99)

One persons junk is another persons GOLD. I must have starred at it for 20minutes, I just couldn’t believe it. I kept flipping it and peering through the plastic thinking it had to be PART of a full product, the mounting for a screen perhaps? Or, a complete misprint in price!) Everywhere else small TFT screens are $99+ and usually 7” of PURE crappiness!

This screen is 2.6”, but it’s crisp and sharp, I can read computer text on this tiny 2.6” screen! You can’t do that on one of the 7” ones!

What’s better? Hacking it was EASY! It took me all of 5minutes to rip apart and rewire to my TV. Priceless! Oh, it also has built in speakers. For $30 this is a complete steal!
I baught 4. 3 for me, 1 for my buddy Rob. (happy belated Xmas…) I want 2 for thesis, 1 for future use. It’ll take a few years before I see any other LCD screens for such a low price. And the odds they’ll be such high resolution is completely doubtful.

In the project I’ll use it as planned in the bordering store display surrounding the packages, but I will also embed a second into another Genpet package. At the moment I think they’ll both have the same video, but if I have time I’ll make them different. I want advertisings for these things playing on the screens, with happy kids and lots of flash.

I debated this for awhile, I want to keep my costs down, and I’m broke, but this is too good of a deal to pass up. Shiny blinky ALWAYS gets peoples attentions. Why cheap out if it’s going to make the piece so much better? I refuse.

Also found the motors I’ll be using. And sound proofing foam. And I’m cooler than you.

Sometimes the tool you need doesn’t exist yet. That’s why we have soldering irons and Beer* (*Brandejs.ca does not condone drinking liquor while welding or soldering, *snicker*).

Usher in a new tool I named the StamPIC. It’s a basic stamp, but it outputs to the pin configuration of a 16f84a PIC microcontoller. The circuit has a built in 5volt regulator ( the stamp has a regulator, but seeing as I paid $60, you can never be too careful, I’d rather my 75cent 7806 regulator get blown first) as well as a nifty on off switch! (version 2 will have a modded blue glow from underneath*)
* may be complete BS.
(Why use a regulator? Ahh the dirty little secrets of DC electronics. My 6volt adaptor actually outputs 11.3 VOLTS ! When I measure it with my voltmeter. Thus, regulating is key. This is normal. Go, ummm, standards and good labelling…)

The thing with Stamps is they’re nifty. They light up, and you can program them fast, they have built in power regulators, built in serial programming ports, etc. It’s one click, smoothness, but they’re $60 each! Not too useful unless you’re rich, or rip apart all your art pieces when done, neither option I like.

The PIC microchips are $6 each (+ $1 oscillator) but they’re annoying to program as they require a separate programming board (insert take out, check program, repeat 10 times, break leg off microchip, go buy another chip, waste time and money and so on. Not cool)

So what’s one to do? Can’t we have the best of both worlds?
>> Yes.
That’s what my circuit does!

The Basic Stamp outputs it’s signals to my special adaptor that funnels down to a cable with an 18pin IC socket on the end. It looks like a tiny PIC with a big ugly (dustin) cable coming out of it, and works in the exact same way.
The programming language is the same, so when all is tested and working, you only have to program the PIC once.

Hope that makes sense, but it’s hard to explain most of what I do now in simple terms, it’s becoming rather specialized and not all pretty pictures….
Damn art school tryin to learn me.