Intermediate and Advanced level workshop!

Servo motor control with PD and MAX Master Class with Thomas Ouellet Fredericks (of Plan B) Wednesday November 20, 7-10 pm

Learn the technical how-to's of FLOCK [in], the upcoming installation at InterAccess by Plan B (Marc Fournel and Thomas Oullet Fredericks. Hurry! Registration is limited.

Servo motors are excellent for art installations as they can be positioned and controlled with great accuracy. (They are also often used in radio controlled objects, toys, and of course, robots). They are relatively inexpensive, responsive, strong and can be accurately positioned in an 180 degree arc. They work best with specialized boards like the SSC II (http://www.seetron.com/ssc.htm) or SSC-32 (http://www.lynxmotion.com/Product.aspx?productID=395&CategoryID=52) but the Arduino or a wiring boards can also be used.

Pure Data or MAX/MSP environments are used to control the boards through the serial communication protocol, a very important technical aspect to master when working with microcontrollers.

Many aspects of this workshop can be applied to the control of different types of motors as the serial communication protocol is also often used for the control of DC or stepper motor boards.

Participants learn:

• The servo motor protocol ( a specialized form of Pulse Width Modulation).
• Electric connections of servo motors.
• Demonstrations of the SSC II, SSC-32 and Arduino boards as servo motor

actuators.

• The serial protocol in Pure Data and Max/Msp.
• Applications of servo motors.

IMPORTANT: Requirements -- Participants must have the following background before taking this workshop:

• Knowledge of Pure Data (http://at.or.at/hans/pd/installers.html) or Max/Msp.
• Either a SSC II, SSC-32, Arduino or Wiring board.
• If you are using the SSC II or SSC-32 servo motor boards, you will need a

serial connection on your computer (new macs will need a USB->Serial adapter).

• Servo motors.

Thomas Ouellet Fredericks is an independent artist, a part-time university teacher and a consultant. After completing a Master's degree in communications at Université du Québec à Montréal in 2003, he specialized in the creation of interactive installations, whose user interfaces are modeled on behavioural and psychological contemporary research. Fredericks' work often uses biological elements, or their simulation, and poses a definite emphasis on the sense of touch. For the last year he has been investigating the emergence of complex reactions from densities of simple agents propagated in the physical space, resulting in the latest collaborative piece, Flock. He is a proud member and active participant of the open source and Creative Commons movements. Fredericks' work has been shown nationally and internationally. He lives and works in Montreal. More information about Fredericks can be found at http://ciam.dyndns.org/~vitamin/danslchamp/mrtof http://ciam.dyndns.org/~vitamin/danslchamp/mrtof .

Some examples of artwork made using servo motors:

http://www.smoothware.com/danny/woodenmirror.html http://www.artbots.org/2005/participants/WavePuppet/ http://www.ekac.org/robotichronology.html http://regexp.bjoern.org/archives/000159.html

Interactivity for artists: the Most Awesomest PureData Workshop... ever. Instructors: David McCallum and Dafydd Hughes November 25, December 2, and December 9, 2006, 12-5 pm

Want to make software for your art that behaves the way you want it to? Are you frustrated by the limitations of existing software and keen to create tools to suit your own artistic purposes? Then PureData is for you. PureData (pd) is an audio- and video-based graphical-programming language, similar in use to the well-known program Max/MSP, but free and open source.

PureData allows artists to create small "patches," or programs, that take information from the real world, such as live-camera feeds, audio, video, motion sensors and other sources, and analyze this data to create any desired output - such as video or audio playback and effects and more. Graphical programming is most commonly used in immersive and interactive installations as well as live video mixing/VJ events.

Participants learn the basics of audio programming, including sample recording, playback, manipulation and synthesis, and video programming using the "GEM video environment," including video mixing, manipulation and simple 3D rendering. Instructors tailor workshop content to suit the needs of participants as much as possible.

David McCallum is the Associate Editor at Musicworks Magazine, a musician and sound artist. His work has focused on improvised music, DIY electronics, and locative media. Groups and projects have included the Warbike, a mobile sonification of WiFi networks; Interaccess's I/O Media and the Live Electroacoustic Research Kitchen improv groups; and You Say Potatoe, I Say Potato: a study in the sonic properties of genetically modified potatoes. Visit http://sintheta.org

Dafydd Hughes is an artist and music educator based in Toronto. He is an instructor in Music Technologies and Ear Training at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, and is active as a performer, composer and arranger throughout Canada. Dafydd's formal training includes studies at Mohawk College and the University of Toronto, where he earned a degree in jazz performance with a minor in composition in 1999. Since graduation, he has worked extensively as a freelance performer, composer and arranger in Toronto's jazz, popular and improvised music scenes. Through involvement with new media organizations such as Toronto's InterAccess, Dafydd has devoted considerable research to the relationship between technology and art, concentrating on computer music and audio. He has developed several computer-based musical systems using programming environments such as PureData, Csound and Python. He has taught workshops in PureData and synthesis for several organizations, including InterAccess.