Other Works

2013 CSIS Global Data Chandelier

A data-driven Chandelier for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, DC. With SosoLimited and Hypersonic. Click here for more details.

2006 Cirque du Soleil Ring

Cirque du Soleil opened a bar called the Revolution Lounge, in the Mirage, Las Vegas, to accompany their new 'Love' Beatles themed show. The 'ultralounge' concept includes many new technologies, to enhance customer experience.

One of these involves several interactive tables located throughout the bar/lounge. Each tabletop is a frosted glass display that uses infrared sensing to sense fingers and glasses. When customers drag their fingers on the table, the table allows them to literally finger paint with light, as their paths are projected onto the table from underneath. When the customer puts their glass on the table, the drawing they've made gets sucked into the bottom of their glass, and becomes a contained heart that then can float around the table on its own.

When one of the two hosts comes to the table, they wear a special ring containing hidden infrared emitting circuitry. Any time they put their hands on the table, the table can differentiate them from a normal customer through this infrared signal. They can then review all the drawings that have been made, and by grabbing one on the table, they can pull it off and throw it onto a large display in the center of the bar, for everyone to see.

Small Design Firm was hired to create the interactive tables, who then hired me to design and create the infrared emitting ring. Each ring contains a hidden flexible circuit and switches enabling the infrared emitter.

2006 Robot Motor Controller

Any robot needs a method to control its motors. Applying power to motors makes them spin, but to make them actually go to a set position and stop, they need a feedback system to run properly and stably.

I revised previous work done by Matt Hancher of the Robotic Life group, in making these motor boards. Each two-level board contains all the necessary circuitry to interface a robot directly to a computer for full animation control. This includes: A 100kHz sensing system, sensing position, motor current, and differential encoders on all 8 channels. A 1 kHz feedback control system, implementing a PD controller with real-time variable gain and position estimation. An 8-channel H-bridge amplification system to drive motors up to 24V, at roughly 1A continuous power draw.

2005 Wood Inlay

A gift made for a wedding between Chinese and Polish descendants, using the word for Love in each language.

Made by myself and Eric Gunther, the wedding gift celebrates two 'opposites' combining in a fresh way, creating something that neither individual component could create on its own, just like marriage.

In this piece, Bubinga wood and a soft light maple are combined in two reversed wood inlays. Both inlay the word love, one in Chinese, and one in Polish.

2005 Applause

A project by Hayes Raffle, David Merrill, Josh Lifton, and Jeff Lieberman about groupthink.

““Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger.”
-Nazi Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering, at the Nuremburg Trials”

Applause is an interactive group video installation that addresses issues of politics and control in our daily lives. Visitors walk into a mini movie theater and approach three microphones facing three vertically stretched freeze-frame videos. Small signs instruct the visitors to applaud to begin the show. Claps into the microphones progress the corresponding movies, and archival film footage plays. Boys throw each other in the air, run around a campground and laugh together. Groups of children gather in anticipation of an exciting event.

At once, the film footage rolls on its own, cuts to full frame, and the boys turn to look at a smiling Hitler. The footage is from Leni Riefenstahl's classis documentary "Triumph of the Will," and the video progresses to military marches and an emphatic speech by Hitler espousing the Nazi cause. The video fades to black and concludes with several written quotes, including the above statement. We have tricked people into applauding - and facilitating the portrayal of - something they probably don't support. The installation is intended to make people reflect on our lack of control over our political leaders' decisions and to think about how trickery can be used to a designer's advantage. In both action and inaction (as they audience may only be observers), we may be considered to be complicit in group decisions.

Sponsored in part by the MIT Office of the Arts.

2004 Robotic Ball Balancing Beam

A classic feedback control project.

Normally a ball will not naturally balance on a flat beam unless it is perfectly balanced; it is an unstable system. A feedback control system must be designed in order to stabilize the system, especially if you want to move the ball to specific positions along the beam.

In this case, an inner and outer loop control system were developed - a potentiometer to feedback the angle of the beam, and a linear resistance sensor to measure the ball's position along the beam. Combining the two with a lead compensator, the ball is not only stabilized but can be commanded to arbitrary positions and patterns along the beam. Click here to download a theoretical and experimental analysis of the beam.

2004 Voice Coil Array

An array of 12 densely-packed rotary voice coil actuators.

Originally designed for a precision machine design class to weave fibers of human tissue to form custom-shaped heart valve replacements, this has become more of an art piece, able to move in very rapid sequences. The current model fits 4 actuators per inch linearly, with a redesign capable of twice this density.

Hard stops on either side limit the available travel, but with the weight of the coils above the bearing, when the voice coil is driven in either direction and then power is removed, the coil will stably remain in its end position, against the stop. This was useful for its intended purpose in the loom. Thus, even with reasonable noise and disturbance forces present, the system will remain immune to error. Pulses are driven through the dual half bridge system at roughly 300mA per coil. The prototype sent pulses for a duration of roughly 25ms, which was enough of an impulse to change the voice coil configuration and allow it to settle.

2004 Broken Table

Broken Table is based on the interest to try to capture and freeze a normally explosive event. The entire table is cracked, yet stays in place, stably.

Tempered glass is under extreme internal stress - If any part of the glass is brought to its breaking point, the entire surface will shatter into tiny pieces. A nail is hammered into the side of a sheet of tempered glass, which breaks into roughly 100,000 pieces in about 1 millisecond. Normally these pieces would fly in all directions, but here they are contained with other 1/8" thick pieces of glass (and tape around the edges). Overall, the table is 3/8" thick, with an aluminum lining to hide and contain the edges, and a simple aluminum frame.

2003 Double Laser Trigger

A high speed laser trigger flashes a strobe light with 15 microsecond accuracy. In terms of a bullet traveling about 1000ft/sec, or near the speed of sound, this equates to roughly a 5mm accuracy in triggering.

Typical audio triggers fire when the sonic wave from the bullet hits them - however, since bullets change in speed almost 20% from one shot to the next, a normal time delay causes inaccuracies of bullet position by several inches. This trigger uses two lasers: the bullet passes by each [separated by 256mm] in sequence, derives the bullet velocity, and in this way can determine how long of a delay to wait in order to position the bullet in a photo with high accuracy, using the familiar x=vt.

Built as a final project for Strobe Lab, taught by Professor Jim Bales at MIT, 2oo3.

2003 Sketch

SKETCH is a machine made to make art with other simpler tools.

It is a 2-axis stage with a third axis solenoid control, for simple on/off movement in drawing. It can therefore draw pictures but not do specific depth work like a 3-d milling machine.

At its limits, it will paint about 300,000 points in about 30 hours of painting.

Inspired by the work of Bruce Shapiro.

2003 Kerf Table

This kinetic table was built as a wedding gift for Brian and Sarah's wedding in February 2oo3.

One drive motor located underneath one corner drives four followers, all translating a main plate in a circular motion, without rotation. 26 concentric rings are cut with minimal spacing between them. The translation is such that at first only the outer plate moves, until it contacts the next inner one - soon thereafter that contacts the next inner, and so forth until the innermost ring is barely moved, at which time the translation has shifted direction to the next quadrant.

The word 'kerf' denotes the cutting width of any tool - in this case, the laser cutter used to cut concentric rings has a default cutting width of about 0.01" - the looseness of the resulting cut parts in the tool was the inspiration (mutation) for this little experiment.