About a month ago I was contracted by a design studio in London (rAndom International) to work on a very interesting project.

rAndom International was working on an experimental light installation called “Swarm Light” which were to be shown at the Art Basel design exhibition.

More images of the installation can be found here.

A short description of the hardware and my part of the project can be found here.

The ‘Swarm Light‘ is an experimental light installation with a real ‚collective consciousness’ that subtly reacts to the viewer’s audible presence. The installation is a contemporary example of how the arbitrary boundaries of fine and decorative art, design and utility are no longer of immediate aesthetic relevance. An apparently inanimate object, ‘Swarm‘ unites crucial aspects of rAndom international‘s continued experimentation with light, behavioural responses and interactive spatial environments.
The viewers‘ presence creates a soundscape that directly alters the behaviour of the entire environment surrounding ‘Swarm Light‘. Human presence brings a basic form of artificial intelligence to life. Sounds or movement captured as light and shadow create a type of participatory and performative synæsthesia that culminates in an instinctual perception of the space, rather than a cerebral judgement.

A while ago I bought a small CNC router. It’s based on a Widigitmaster Midi router table combined with a Dremel spindle, three 57STH51 stepper motors and a stepper controller card.

The router was bought assembled and ready to run but had not been used except for minimal testing so it was in excellent shape.

I’m going to add a few bells and whistles such as limit and zero switches. Currently all stepper motor wires are hanging loose so I need to find a solution for that. I think some kind of flexible plastic hose will do the job. An aluminum box for the power supply and stepper motor controller is also planned.

The main use for the router is to make prototype circuit boards and to cut holes in plastic and aluminum boxes.
I’m sure I will find a lot of other uses for the router as well…

One of the first things I did was to test routing copper boards. I made a breakout adapter for the three stepper motors. This adapter will sit inside the aluminum box with the power supply and stepper motor controller.

The result was not what I was hoping for. I guess the cube is too small to get the desired effect, it’s just a bunch of blinky lights as you can see in the video below…

I have some ideas about how to make it into a nice effect but that would require PWM modulation of the LEDs to be able to vary the intensity. I have implemented PWM for the cube but the current design (i.e. rat’s nest) of the board does not allow me to run the serial clock at the necessary frequency without distorting the signal. I have a solution for that too but I need to rewire the cube a bit for that to work…

I noticed that one of the LEDs in my cube is borken so I need to do some maintenance on it. Good thing it’s the top layer.

I also need to find a better camera to film my projects. The  compact camera I’m using now does not like multiplexed / pulse width modulated LEDs. The vertical stripes in the video are annoying…

It’s a bit empty at the moment but I will start adding some old projects soon and whenever I start a new one I’ll write about it here.