 Hello Yes, I'm just I'm just gonna start so just that we're not gonna delay the next talks So Hello, good morning If you want to watch this thing just please have a seat or hang around Well, thank you very much for coming to this small improvised talk about Something Tom asked me to do this a couple of days ago, and they just wanted to fill a slot here this morning So I thought I would be cool if I would like if I would show what I'm currently working on So just a little background. Oh, right. I have this little piece of technology here That's amazing. Wow. So just to give a short introduction of who I am For those of you who don't know me. I'm I'm Andy. I I'm a blender user for about 15 years now, so I'm pretty old and I've worked on the open movie projects elephants being big black bunny tears of steel coming on this grande di lama and the last thing I did was creature factory 2 which is now out on the blender cloud and Actually, the thing I wanted to start with was kind of embarrassing This is actually my first. This is a faithful representation of my first blender image It was actually a movie of a spaceship that docks into Space station which you can see being represented by this little Plane there so that was like that was actually 15 years ago and when I started out with blender it was of course really It was just really just 90s technology and everything but I was completely amazed by the things you could do I mean like every one of you who started out with it like you. Oh my god. I can I can make stars and I can make Yeah And more stars By the way, actually, I had to fake that stars background because now the stars features and in blender anymore, but well um Anyway, I was completely amazed with what you can do in the virtual world and I was actually like back then I was in high school. I was making little I mean like that generation I was completely obsessed with dinosaurs and monsters and so I I made little little puppet movies with Dinosaurs in school and I actually made a model of my school and blew it up For a movie it looked completely terrible. I sure you but yeah, so I Always liked, you know, I always liked the virtual world, but also do something in the physical world. So a Couple of years ago. I actually did this short movie Which is a mixture of stop motion animation and blender. It's about 19 minutes long It's called Omega. I actually didn't do it alone. I had a very talented team of people like 20 other students because I'm a student Who made this thing work like this completely ridiculous world will made out of stop motion puppets foam Trash and things like that and that was actually the first project for me of that kind like going back because before that I I Basically just worked in the virtual world. I only did blender and I actually Step back from drawing a little bit because I I did drew I did draw a lot when I was a little kid and So this was kind of the opportunity for me to go back into something a bit more practical But also at the same time I had the chance to to do something With the software that I love the most which is blender and and kind of elevated what it like From what it could have been just with like with practical effects So I'm currently I'm I'm studying media arts. I'm mostly finished and the thing I'm I'm talking about here is my graduation project actually and It's probably going to be finished end of November So the thing I also do next to blender is kind of It's strange. I also do Electronic electronic music mostly I I really like performing in front of people on the stage with hardware synthesizers and drum machines so Couple of years back. I started actually making things on my own like I'm I'm a complete idiot I don't know like I know only really small like little things about that kind of stuff I know how synthesizers work and I know some software. I started programming and processing which is a Java ish kind of environment for making graphics and So the transition was really easy to go to Arduino, which is not Java anymore. It's kind of more like C and C plus plus C not C So I started making like these little projects. I I made this I made this sort of Hybrid synthesizer which is like which you can see it up there and the upper left corner Which is a mixture of a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino mega the Arduino mega mega just does the The buttons and the encoder readings and everything does the sequencing and the time stepping so that the time is pretty accurate and Then the Raspberry Pi in it is just there to provide the synth are the synths are architecture and The the synthesizers just basically software It's using pure data and it's just taking MIDI from the Arduino. So it's nothing really really complicated I also did synth upgrade. I upgraded my Dave Smith instruments Tetra with additional buttons because That was the original synthesizer. So I just thought okay It has like eight buttons or something eight knobs and I wanted to to give me more More functions, so I added those I added those Enchiometers there and little things like that So, yeah, I kind of like grew to become this sort of Making Nerd person who's also using blender and the thing was I was always thinking about how I Combine these things again like and of course the perfect opportunity for that is using 3d printing Which is I mean, it's not it's not really an exact exactly a new technology, but it's always amazed me and I Yeah, I just wanted to Explore what I could do combining blender and this Stuff which I don't know exactly what So One year ago actually I I started thinking about my graduation project at some some crazy ideas And I actually originally I wanted to build a robot of some sort, but I couldn't really find a use for for a robot I mean, it's cool to have a robot sure but what does it do and I Guess there has to be some kind of justification for it. So I Kind of I was always interested in in nature Kind of the internet interaction of humans in nature, so I thought let's make something That's that's a mixture of organic and mechanic so I started thinking about this idea of a botanical garden that's made with 3d printed plans and Have some kind of way of With the viewer to interact with that kind of stuff on a really basic level Again, I'm not I'm not a scientist. I don't I'm also not a programmer I all the things I can do are just really on the most basic level though. I thought of of making Of making this little Garden thing which basically just consists of These are seven, but now there are six spheres and On these spheres there are plants that they're just planted or growing out of these spheres and The idea from that came from there's a Japanese technique for for action for for growing plants out of moss balls. It's called kokedama and It's pretty amazing people have these little greenhouses and they have these moss balls hanging from hanging from the ceiling and All these plants growing out of it. It's actually pretty amazing to see like these huge plants growing out of this little moss ball so I thought that would be kind of an interesting image to to explore and so My idea is that I'm gonna have this this room which is completely dark and In it there are these floating or hanging spheres Some of them could be on the ground or it could be on different layers and and on each sphere There is a different type of plant. So I kind of wanted to I wanted to limit myself first. So I Mean, there's there's literally millions of possibility with this kind of subject and even in Blender you can you can do anything So I really wanted to limit myself to only like really basic type of plants. So I have carnivorous plans fern and flowers as the three main like interacting objects and Everything else is kind of just on a lower interaction level and What I mean by that is that Basically just like to make things easier for me because I just have a limited time frame on this only the top of These things the fern the flowers and the carnivorous plants. They're gonna move basically so and the rest like First ones are going to be a mechanic and the rest which is Right now, it's I think only the mushrooms fear made it to a final completion right now But I have mushrooms and little sand deserti plans. They're called succulents. I think and Another thing which I haven't completely finished yet Hmm So that's a rendering of Of how this could look like just to give you a basic idea. I mean, that's really quick for a presentation at school So all these plans are just they're not gonna be painted it's all gonna be a very sort of clean artsy aesthetic all just white plastic and and The each of these fears inside has like Has that what has the brains in it basically to make that whole thing work? so on the most basic level each of the spheres is going to have It's going to emit light and it's also going to react to light Well, that's probably one of the easiest things that you can do using Using hardware just stick the light sensor and it's shine a light at it It does something have it emit light when it does something else But then you get this kind of interaction at least I hope it does like when you have multiple of these fears And they have different cycles of light They're they're probably gonna interact with each other on some level depending on the brightness so each of the spheres is going to have 24 LEDs and There's also going to be a speaker in the bottom It's going to emit sound so each of them are going to emit sound and light and they're gonna react to light How does that work well, it's also really really simple Each of the spheres has an Arduino Leonardo Leonardo Leonardo Which is Leonardo, sorry, I don't I don't speak Italian. So Which is just out of cost reasons, I mean the the Arduino Uno just costs about 30 bucks or something and the Leonardo Leonardo is about 25 or 23 I don't know so it's just less and the the chip is a little surface mount thing So it's probably a bit cheaper that way Also, there is an LED driver chip Which handles all the pulse width modulation for the LEDs I didn't want to you know, I didn't want to do any elaborate soldering with this thing I don't didn't want to work out circuits circuits and things like that I had so many things on my plate already with the printing which I'm coming to you next That I just wanted to keep it as simple as possible. So, yeah two things LED chip Arduino and third is sound generator chip for each of them, which is also just basically an Arduino But it's a more it's a cheaper version. It's it's actually an airfruit pro trinket Which uses the 80 mega chip which uses a compatible 80 mega chip which is on the Arduino which Let's me use the same sound libraries because the sound is generated on the fly Is that clear or am I just talking gibberish right now? Okay? That's okay, right cool Anyway, it's it's really simple as so there it's just imagine a dark room You have a torch as you have a flashlight and there is sound coming out of these plans Just a little tones like each of the the power pots basically has one tone and When they all kind of sing in unison there, they're gonna form chords and and So I started out just Being crazy and I'm I started modeling plants in blender Which is something I quite enjoy because I don't you don't have to think about it very much because plants are They have some really aesthetic shapes and most of the structure that that's that underlines them are is mathematics, so You just have to type in the right numbers press R and some degree that Pops up in nature every once in a while, and then you have a plant so I'm going time-wise, okay, so Yeah, that's that's the the succulent sphere, which is actually just a Two-thirds sphere, which is going to be underground because they're ground plants. They're all gonna emit light and sound That's that's the mushroom sphere Which is my favorite for some reason because I really like these cute little things growing out and they're all gonna have different size So this is what this one is like a little sphere that has these huge mushrooms pick up popping out, which is kind of interesting There is one of the more elaborate things which is the carnivorous plants and these are I Mean they they kind of have to fit together with each other But I'm also aware that like if I combine two things one that is static and one that is Mechanic and moving there's gonna be some differences even like when you do when you manufacture them because Yeah, you have to design them differently when they move obviously So I'm gonna have five five of these little like how you call them these five little strands of lands and they have This Dug at the top that opens and closes anyway So if you shine a light at them, they're gonna close and inside there's LEDs And it's gonna appear as if the light has been captured by the plant. It's gonna like swallow them like Right and that's that's my design for flowers Which are also just I mean on an interaction level It's pretty basic if if you shine a light at them, they're gonna open and There's gonna be an LED in the top and they're gonna glow or whatever Really simple stuff by I just I was really interested in Like what happens if I put all these things in a room and what happens if people interact with these I Have no idea so I just have like 10 minutes left. Okay, I'm gonna Are you interested in the blend file? I'm just gonna open this blend file, baby I'm gonna try to see if this microphone works as well. It does beautifully. So All right, you've probably seen the presentation about 3d printing yesterday So I don't have to do any more of the basic stuff all know Constraints of it. I thought I knew it worked actually Hello Yes, does that work? Okay. I'm just gonna talk real. I hope you guys on the internet hear me Anyway, so I thought I knew oh Yeah, let's let's dim the lights. I can also switch that theme here I thought I knew everything about 3d printing. I mean the basics are just you have to design a non-manifold mesh That has no openings and then you're set basically you can print anything, right? right, so Well Well as long as it kind of adheres to physics I mean Things are not too small that it doesn't break And also the the goal I had was to print this only with things that are like glorified blue guns You know, they just were some kind of plastic on Thing and then so yeah This was actually one of the first things I which was design this plant that kind of I was trying to think of the mechanism the mechanism behind this and this is just really a basic setup There's a driver that drives in the middle. I thought okay. Let's have these these little pulleys here and somehow using a bound tube or something I'm gonna have a server underneath plant that that pulls that string and Here I'm gonna have some kind of rubber thing that pulls them back So I only have push pull action, which is something really simple, right? Well first But back then I thought well, let's just try this okay First thing I did when I this is how it came back from printing You can see I was kind of scratching my head here, and I thought okay. Well It's gonna be less exciting than I thought So yeah, I really had to think about like make don't make things too small don't design ridiculous kind of like too many joints here there just way too many joints here and That's never gonna work. It's all gonna break and But I went back to the drawing bar board and I actually thought okay now I have to make everything flat Because I mean printing on a flat bed is really simple. Yes, it works beautifully You don't have to do anything and you didn't have to do any support. So just make everything flat, right? but then where's the like You basically you just the design looks like paper craft and you can just do the same using I don't know laser cutting or Machining or something like that This looks like that And again, I want I really want to have Simple as possible. So I just want to have one server It's really easy to drive that so On one morning thought of this little thing think about it. It's actually very simply one thing that turns and these little Here It opens it just opens actually made the first one I made Eight pedals I ended up just making five because that was easier to print and kind of I liked it. So yeah, and to test this I just like scribbled something on paper and then Like I showed it to my girlfriend that no, that's not possible it's it's it's no that's not gonna work and she built it and they go and then we found a kind of works and Next I built this in blender. This is really also just simple this one is the driver for the rotation of these pedals here and But I'm that I can just control all that there's no Simulation or something because it's really a simple simple mechanism and then these little pulleys. They're just They're just tracked to some something really simple and Going to 3d printing. I only had to I only had to pull some some of the parts together like this platform That which houses the server has to be one thing and then I'm good to go So what am I printing on currently? I Have the big fortune of Being at a media arts school. So we have some printers But it was it kind of really bothered me that I didn't have access to them all the time because with this kind of stuff You really you really want to tinker every day You want to see if something works and then just immediately send it slices slice it send it to the printer and Have it pop up in front of you. So me and a couple of friends actually bought this printer up there in the upper left corner It's called. It's not really common. It's called a Hadron or bot. It's supposedly it's a Printer bot design design which builds on maker slide, which are these awesome aluminum profiles that and in the middle There's this this Mark 7 make about extruder there So all this thing like all this stuff was really built on Technology that was available and that is open source by the way And then we also have the ultimaker to and to make about a rich to ultimaker original and one Actually, we have three maker bots and those things break all the time. So I only ended up using this one Yeah, I was only I only ended up using the replicator Generation 5 which had filament dams all the time I'm not sure. I didn't operate it. It was the guy who kind of maintained this whole room but mainly only like most of that stuff was just printed on the art bot and Yeah, I just basically it was really I mean once I figured out all the things I needed and I figured out the constraints It was kind of just really easy going. I could just sit there in the morning bring some coffee and make a mushroom and and Well, that kind of sounds weird, you know Anyway and the only problems you have is trying to you know when it comes off the platform and it printed right I mean this stuff takes forever to print on an FDM printer If you don't want to print really ugly and most of the prints are done at 0.1 millimeter resolution. It's not a crazy resolution. It's really it's it's kind of average and the prints that came out of it were pretty okay So I really wanted to keep keep keep the cost down of this I didn't want to you know order all that stuff and shapeways and pay like a million bucks for it I'm sorry. I'm just really poor. I can't afford that so and I also like the kind of the kind of Environmental aspect of this because I mean it's all PLA which is which is sort of fired by a sort of biodegradable So yeah, just I Basically went crazy once I knew all the constraints and just did things like I have this this fern here Which kind of have you ever played with array modifiers like array modifiers and empty objects? Like yeah, you have an array. That's that's using the empty as the duplication source and I just thought okay Well, you know all know this thing like when you when you move the empty everything kind of goes like whoop And if you scale it down everything kind of goes like it's all and then if you rotate it it kind of makes these awesome spirals, right, right and Here that's just an array modifier and there's like a Nylon kite string. That's in the middle. It's a double strand just for Making it less bendable. It's still bendy kind of bends in itself But there's just two kite strings and if I pull one of these just curls up And it's all just an array modifier and if I can have Right if I can have four of these and I can have all the strings going into the center And I have a gear motor attached attached to the middle. That's pretty strong I mean like 12 kilograms should be enough probably to pull this thing Obviously, there is also going to be fern leaves that's sticking out here And that that should probably work I also found out it's pretty cool to print things on the flatbed. The printer we have is Has a heated bed. So it's really easy to peel these things off and if you peel them off While while they're cooling down they kind of show make this little leaf shape I mean this this little curvature here, which kind of is also really interesting if you combine it with the idea of the fern So I have to print more of these So this is currently what I have It's not I actually just put all of this on my floor Three four days ago, and I thought okay. Well, it's not It's probably not enough. So I probably have to print more. I have one more month left. So that should be okay But I kind of made an estimate and it's about 800 individual parts printed Which is kind of insane Anyway, so Yeah, these That's just a close-up of one of these parts. I actually I actually brought one of the plants here It's again on a mechanical level and also on a program level. It's incredibly Moronic, I mean I I didn't do anything really Just to have well just to see something that you've designed in gender and even on the most basic level it moves and you can you can just one day come up with something in your head and be able to outline that in thunder and then just print it out and Bring it into the real world. That's amazing. Isn't it? I mean, that's pretty awesome, right? And more so if you if you think about it, I mean all of this stuff that that I've used to make this and this is nothing Nothing compared to what other people do with this, but this is open source. This is the power of open source I mean open source is pretty awesome, right? It's all None of this would have been possible with all the projects that have contributed to all the people that have worked on getting 3d printing to work All these programs that make working with this kind of stuff a breeze Yeah, it's pretty amazing and Thank you Thanks to all of these people and thank you for watching my presentation. So Is it working? Yeah, we have to speak go to the next talk. There's no time for questions You can talk to him all the time Questions you could do on the corridors I see it I think this microphone is a bit louder. This one is a bit Wow You want to speak This is working, yes Where where can I see that Where To make it I I