Installation Project documentation!

Here is a blog post detailing the process of making this installation:

The original concept here was to build an environment for meditation, and I was enamored with the idea of a box for quite some time. I spent a lot of hours in my basement prototyping joints that I didn't end up using, but it was definitely a valuable experience in terms of refining a process! This is a glue up I did of the joinery that I will use eventually to make the box:

After some friendly prodding from Eric, Takumi, Kevin, co. I was convinced that a box is NOT an interactive art installation, and that I should build the interactive, functional part of it first. So, I worked with my test rig from last project (the old trusty guitar amp) and found a few sheets of metal that I really liked the sound of, and that I could glue a magnet to in a place of actuation. From there, building a reliable and simple mounting solution was the next step. I tried a few ideas, but the sturdiest and best sounding was simply a 2x4 with the end recessed for the magnet. Here's a prototype in action:

One of the stupid little bugs of this project was not having the right size of screws! But I fixed this with a whole saw. It also keeps the screw out of the way for when I finally but these in a larger structure.

The next (daunting) step was finally conquering the amplifier question. One of the problems I had with the last project was dealing with the complicated "mute" and "standby" pins on the LM1876. It also had a pretty fussy power supply window of operation. For this project, I opted for the simpler, one channel LM1875. I was able to assemble the circuit below, which is basically just running the signal through the amplifier with a few filters. I also have capacitors used to bias the power supply into true -12v, 0v, 12v submission. This is done with a large and small cap (1000uF and 0.1uF) in between -V/+V and GND,  respectively. 

Once this was done, I made nicer versions of the mounts and reduced the noise with some rubber stoppers. The final systems came out really nicely, with the perfect alignment between magnets and a good amount of structural integrity. Also, some sanding and nice stain. Polycrilic is to come!

Not pictured here is the journey of creation I took with the meditation object (aka pokey pyramid). This was a super important part of the interaction so I dedicated a lot of time and thought into how it should feel and look. I ended up cutting a design on the band saw out of sheet metal, bending it into shape, and texturing it with weld material. Then I sandblasted it, used gun blue to get a darker finish and waxed it to seal the metal from oxidization.