We finally got our own ADSL line in Folkestone - to be on and offline on site and off site.

Posted May 27, 2008 10:00 by Kathrin Böhm

" And then press the big red button."
After every mapping we literally press the big red button, for each individual mapping to be
downloaded and added to the ever growing map.

Posted May 27, 2008 09:50 by Kathrin Böhm

I picked up one of the final collector signs from Public Works today, and brought it home along with some strange looks I got as I carried it past the the hordes outside of various pubs. The final part in place and it's all working well, save for the circuit being wired anti-clockwise, though that's easily solved.

Posted May 23, 2008 22:04 by Dorian Moore

It's neater than it looks, honest guv.

After a long block soldering, unsolder, re-soldering, I've finally managed to get all of the data collector box together, and this is what it looks like before it's boxed up. I've soldered the extra components and controllers onto an Arduino 'ProtoShield'. I made a few silly mistakes, but they were easily fixed.

The protoshield means I can easily replace the various components if there is a failure, especially as the cables are all attached via screw down terminal blocks. The code for the Arduino board is pretty much complete, but I want to do some thorough testing before I finally load it onto the microcontroller without the Arduino Bootloader.

Posted May 22, 2008 19:54 by Dorian Moore

Martin and Leonie GPS-ing outside Debenhams

The background against which most of the data will be mapped centres around the 24 artist commissions that make up the Folkestone Triennial. The networks in which they operate, the places they occupy and the topics they raise. This meant we need all GPS data from all the sites ....
We managed 24 sites in 4 hours rushing through Folkestone in Martin's little Ford Ka.
A great way to see the city and get a sneak preview of the show.

Posted May 22, 2008 13:38 by Andreas Lang

Volkswagen support

The day for the big photo shoot arrived! Equipped with lots of props we went down to meet Thierry who was frantically rushing across town documenting all the artworks. Luckily for us his next appointment got delayed which gave us a good 3 hours to photograph a number of scenarios and details. The story we are trying to communicate and get people to engage with is still fairly complicated and it was the first time we had the equipment in place to get a feeling for how it will be to handle it and navigate the situation on site. There will be a lot of signs and icons but hopefully it will be engaging enough. It was really helpful to take Thierry through the different aspects and get him to take descriptive pictures of the process.

You can see more of Thierry's work on www.thierrybal.com

Posted May 22, 2008 12:42 by Andreas Lang

Mark and Ian at MDM

Posted May 19, 2008 23:46 by Andreas Lang

A small milestone, seeing the start/stop buttons work in context as I do final tests to the prototype

Posted May 19, 2008 19:50 by Dorian Moore

Folkestonomy Float from the front

Fake Tudor Cabin in Yellow

1st meeting in the cabin with Leonie and Mark

Its always an exciting moment when - after all this time - you drive to the manufacturer to see the finished piece. In this case the first impression is definitely YELLOW. Finishes have gone on and its has changed completely.

Leonie, Mark and I hung some signs which we picked up from the printer in the morning and everything starts to come alive. Really looking forward to Wednesday when the Folkestonomy float gets delivered for the photo shoot on location in Folkestone.

We also had our first meeting in the cabin which is really nice and spacious. We need to sort out tea and biscuits.

Posted May 19, 2008 19:49 by Andreas Lang

This is the final circuit in all it's glory, on a breadboard. With the box being started behind it.

I've made the final prototype for the data collector, complete with stat-stop switches and a status indicator LED. It's much much simpler than I expected when I started this project, and that can only be a good thing in my book. Now to get soldering and get it all into the box, which I picked up from Public Works today.

Whilst I was at Public Works earlier Andreas showed me some of the signs, and I also picked up the final box for the data collector, and started fitting it out.

Posted May 19, 2008 19:40 by Dorian Moore

Francois marking up the signs for drilling

Francois spent the weekend fixing sockets to the blank signs. 562 sockets in total to store the add on signs. Finally the ideas become visible and soon we can start to test how the mapping language will work as a physical object.

Posted May 18, 2008 20:29 by Andreas Lang

The first signs went to the printer mostly based on the original street signs. Dorian found the Department for Transport web-site with the detailed specifications of all signs used on Britains streets. Very useful!

Posted May 16, 2008 11:41 by Andreas Lang

It's much the same as the last one, only better soldered.

Having waited for the Tirna Electronics to mount the one-wire controller chips from Maxim I've inserted their chip into the circuit and was more confident that it's my dodgy code that's the problem reading the one-wire network, so I got back into the code and now have it working, a set of code for searching and manipulating a 1-Wire network via IC2 and a DS2482-100 One Wire Controller... the next step is to swap in a DS2482-800 and try and read multiple inputs.

Posted May 13, 2008 19:32 by Dorian Moore

Lots of Parts - or toys as my partner calls them

Wow, loads of stuff just arrived for me for building the controllers: Here's what came from where:

A couple more Arduino Boards and some spare ATMega processor chips from Tinker.it

I've got a programmer for the ATMega processors from ebay seller Sure Electronics in china: £15+shipping vs £100 in the UK. I hope it works...

The Maxim One-Wire controller ships have been soldered onto mounting boards [incredibly quickly] by Tirna Electronics

There is some more RAM for the MacBook from Offtek

A nice box mounting USB connector from Maplin

And the start stop switches which Andreas sourced from I don't know where.

Posted May 8, 2008 19:12 by Dorian Moore