Pneumatic Solenoid Sound Pixel Machine with Sophi Kravitz Presented at FITC Toronto 2015 More info at www.fitc.ca OVERVIEW Sophi will tell the story of being handed 75 air solenoids and some other hardware totalling about $1000 for free. What else could there be to do, but buy a compressor and build an art piece? Sophi will take the audience through the concept of the piece and talk about designing and building a work of art using solenoids, balloons and music. She will also discuss some other recent projects, including one with Oculus Rift and possibly a snow machine. OBJECTIVE This presentation will demystify the big components used in props and large installations. FIVE THINGS AUDIENCE MEMBERS WILL LEARN About hardware. About conceptualizing art installations. Oculus Rift ideas for adding external stimuli. About being playful when designing for physical audiences. Differences between designing for screens and for physical audiences.

1. Pneumatic
Solenoid Sound
Pixel Machine
Electrical engineering,
Industrial robots,
Quit Your Day Job,
Do what You Love,
And now…
Balloon Art
@SophiKravitz /
mix-engineering.com

2. Solenoids require specialized hardware
The concept:
walls of round fleshy objects
inflating and deflating

3. ….inflating/ deflating in real-time.
Choosing a pleasing image of you.

4. the experience of the physical
requires the participant to be there in front of it

5. WHY?

6. Life is more fun
when you
do all of the things that you
love

7. equalitynowforrobotpethybrids.com

10. Awww….my first robot

11. Beaker washing robot

12. Laboratory Glassware Washer Robot

13. Poisonous Gas canister controller

14. Trimethylindium

15. When you work doing what
you love, only
work with people you like…
(-Mitch Altman)

16. Electric vehicles

17. ….and black clouds

18. To find time to make art,
all I had to do
was get fired

24. Harvard’s Soft Robotics Toolkit

25. Awesome collaborators
and art-enablers

27. A whole pile of other
stuff arrived too

28. What’s a solenoid?

29. Solenoid driver circuit

30. When you work doing what
you love, only
work with people you like…
(-Mitch Altman)

36. Stuff:
1 compressor
1 air tank
25 solenoids driving air in
25 solenoids driving air out
25 balloons
25 solenoid drivers
Art-enablers:
Mechanical partner building a shipping box: 8 hours
Begging for help on coding forum: 2 days
TO friend bringing a giant compressor here: Skyping so, so much
Friend delivering free solenoids /tubing: hugs

37. Hardware is hard
Parts can be pricey

38. Shipping art installations
is so stressful!

39. Gamma Ray Collector

40. Radiation Orchestra

41. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster at
the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant began on 11
March 2011 and resulted in a nuclear meltdown of
three of the plant's six nuclear reactors.

42. Are you texting
right now?

44. Meeting Minder

46. Virtual Reality : Wobble Wonder

47. Virtual Reality : Wobble Wonder

48. Adding a trigger into Unity is easy
void Start () { // init
OpenConnection(); // open serial port
// some more stuff
}

49. So basically if you see snow

50. @SophiKravitz /
mix-engineering.com
Do all of the things that you love
And do them only with people you like
…give 2 weeks notice if necessary