Pre-Firefly Adventure Club

Friday afternoon we decided to make a couple of the firefly kits together to ensure that we had the right tools including butane soldering irons and side cutters to complete each firefly set.  

 Vlad putting a kit together.  We were testing it out on the 'table' we decided we'd use on site - which is an upside down Rubbermaid bin with a piece of plywood on it.

 Vlad soldering on the dip carrier on to the PCB board.  If we can do this, so can anyone else!

Putting the kits together is pretty straight forward.  Start by soldering on the dip carrier, and then the LED lights and the resistor.  After getting those on we cut the excess from the PCB and then we solder on the copper wire that holds the battery in place.

 Each of the the finished kits we soldered together were placed within a mason jar with some wildflowers, which I 'borrowed' from an abandoned house next to my apartment building.

When you pop a firefly into one of these jars, suddenly you've recreated a summer of catching fireflies.

 We learned a lot of valuable lessons throughout this process.  Probably the best lesson we learned while getting ready on Friday afternoon.  We started sorting materials and we divided roughly 800 lithium ion cell batteries between 6 Tupperware containers.  This was a TERRIBLE idea, since five seconds later all of the batteries were boiling hot, and we quickly had to place each battery back in their package from Digi-Key.  Good times...we also learned that if something is packaged in a weird way from an electronics store, it is probably for a good reason (i.e. to avoid short circuiting all the batteries).  Lesson learned.

Total 'noob' mistake.  (We can hear you laughing at us from the Interwebs).  

All packed up and ready to head out.  We had electrical tape, LED lights and other back up materials ready to go.  We also have some pals bringing us a power supply, which is really going to help out the soldering station.  Radness!

See You Tonight!

We hope to see you guys out tonight to make LED fireflies!  Starting at 4th St. S.W. and 26th Ave. S.W. you will find a trail of mason jars that will take you to our location.  Then there will be 800 LEDs for you to help us put up, and we'll have electronic kits for those who want to give them a try too!

Follow these mason jars!

Find this sign!

Tonight is going to be magical!

Thursday Firefly Prep Work

We spend most of Thursday getting organized.  This included a visit to the Firefly Adventure Club site and a visit to do some monkey work at Solarbotics (programming chips, cutting wire etc - which was actually super fun!)

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The site we've scoped out is right next to Elbow River, and has some really beautiful natural pools.  

There are paths throughout the site, and they are actually quite inviting in the daytime.  But at night, I probably wouldn't venture in there on my own...  We're hoping the LED lights will encourage folks to enter into this space while exploring the LED firefly landscape.  

After talking to a couple of the organizers for the Choose Yer Own Festival we decided it would be great if we installed LED fireflies in one of the two under bridge areas.  This way we have one bridge arch for building and another bridge arch for a secret surprise, that will now be filled with LED fireflies (more details later).  

This is the staircase folks will have to come down to find the site.  Luckily, it's not too muddy down there.  

With our Digi-Key order of resistors and chips arriving, we headed down to Solarbotics.  Jeremie had completed the programming for the chips, and Vlad and I were going to help assemble the kits ourselves (to lower costs).   

Check out the PCBs!  So great!  And as we mentioned earlier, it even has the name of our three part project: Illuminated Landscapes.  We learned a lot about PCBs after working on this project.  

 Here are the components that went in each kit that we developed.  Three LED lights, in either green or amber.  A PCB board, a chip, a dip carrier (this way we can remove the chip and reprogram it for future projects), a resistor, and two pieces of copper wire.  We were so excited to see the final results, and we were even more excited to know that we had 50 kits that folks could solder together on site on Friday.

Vlad and I putting the kits together.  Surrounded by boxes.  We finished putting all the kits together and we went down to the site to test some of the LED lights in dark.  

 So this photo was taken with an iPhone, so nothing too impressive, but the site looks great with LED lights all over.  We found the easiest and most plant friendly installation method is using floral wire to wrap around branches and twigs.  We still have a lot more to organize, and we can't wait to watch this space come alive on Friday.   We really want people to feel at easy and to create a space for hanging out and making electronics...a true Do-It-Yourself -Under-A-Bridge community.  

Wednesday Night Wanderings

Our materials supply has been steadily increasing over the last few days in anticipation for our first event, coming up this Friday, August 12, as part of the Choose Yer Own festival.  We are very excited as of last night, when we did a trial run of the Fireflies project in the installation space; it looked awesome, even with only a few LEDs up!  Start spreading the news and come meet us anytime after 10 pm tomorrow at the intersection of 4th St. and 26th Ave. SW.  Show up with your friends to help us bring some magic to an overlooked city space!

Over the last few days, ideas and plans for our second round, entitled Play, have been crystallizing.  Without revealing too much, it is intended to bring out the kid in all of us through the simplest of interventions.  Needless to say, Claudia and I had a ton of fun with this one last night, even at a microscale of what we hope it will turn into.  So set aside the night of Wednesday, August 17, bring your imaginations, and get ready to kick it old school with a twist!  More details coming soon to a blog near you...

PCB Boards and Laser BBQs

Tuesday was a great day, and I wanted to share some of the happenings from this day.  I received the best early morning email from Solarbotic's Jeremie Boulianne.  Jeremie is an R&D specialist at Solarbotics and an opensource and electronics enthusiast.  He is helping design our circuits for the firefly project, and he send us a screen shoot of what the PCB board will look like.  So now on top of 800 LED lights for folks to install in the space, we will have 50 circuits that people can construct on site that will flash and fade just like fireflies.  And look!  They even added the name of our overall project to the PCB board:  Illuminated Landscapes.

Later in the evening I headed from work over to Solarbotics, who was hosting a BBQ for Protospace.  It had the best theme ever.  LASER BBQ.  Protospace provided delicious BBQ while the folks over at Solarbotics gave everyone access to their laser-cutter!  My friend Dana, who is also one of the Choose Yer Own Festival coordinators designed me the best necklace ever.  Based on a line from my favourite puppets here.  

Image: Faby Martin

Image: Faby Martin

Image: Faby Martin

Protospace hosted this BBQ to discuss their current plans to re-launch Calgary`s hack space scene.  The directors who presented (Ben Reed and Andrew Preece) are articulate, driven and ready for action; follow Protospace here.  I presented about our collaboration with Protospace and Solarbotics and Dana presented about Choose Yer Own.  The reception was great, and we even got a couple of folks to volunteer their soldering irons for Friday night.  

Dave Hrynkiw showing us a 3D printer in action.  

We hope to see some of the Solarbotics and Protospace folks out on Friday night.  It's going to be a blast.

Electronics and Electrical Storms

Friday, August 5th, was an amazingly productive day!  It started out early in the morning with a quick urban hike to our first installation site, as part of the Choose Yer Own festival.  We needed to get a sense of the extent of the space and how to best set ourselves up for Friday evening.  We decided on a strategy and narrowed down our installation zone to ensure a good density of lights.

Next, we made our way to CBC Calgary headquarters to meet with Chris dela Torre to do a radio interview on Illuminated Landscapes.  We met with Chris, who led us to the studio where we did our interview.  As it was our first experience in a radio studio, Claudia and I were naturally very excited - so excited, in fact, that we totally forgot to take some pictures of us looking professional with our mikes and headphones.  Chris was super easy to talk with, and the interview went really well.  It aired on CBC Radio One the next morning as part of the Daybreak Alberta series.  Hopefully some of you out there in internet land caught it!

After late breakfast and a nap, we went for a brief shopping excursion to gather materials to prototype some new ideas before making our way up north to an important appointment with some of our collaborators.  At Solarbotics headquarters, we met with Ben and Andrew, two Protospace directors, and Dave and Jeremie, from Solarbotics, to hash out a plan to make electronic kits.  Visitors to our installations who want a bit more challenge will be able to put together electronic circuits to allow LEDs to blink at different rates and in different combinations, more realistically mimicking the action of fireflies.  We’re very excited about working with Solarbotics to put these together and having the amazing Protospace peeps out at the installations helping the public assemble these!  And thanks to these four guys for teaching Claudia and I so much about electronics in such a short period of time!

circuits 

This is what collaboration looks like.

Getting excited over electronics!

As luck would have it, sometime during our meeting, the storm of the century rolled in and made it impossible for us to leave Solarbotics headquarters for a little while, so we took the opportunity to look around and check out all the goodies they have “in the back.”  Turns out they have everything any maker or tinkerer would ever want, including a small shop, a rad laser cutter, and several other gadgets, not to mention a well-stocked supply of parts.  It was great to be around people who are so passionate about what they do.

shop

rad laser cutter

Claudia standing in front of a very large machine.

Post-storm, Claudia and I went to go grab some well-deserved and long-awaited dinner, but not before batting through what felt like winter traffic.  Gotta love August in Calgary!

hail 

Just another August in Calgary...

Alas, at the end of the day, a rainbow appeared.  A sign of good things to come?  We think so.

How to Present an Idea

We presented our idea to the Calgary Awesome Foundation board of trustees and an audience at the Drop-In Centre.  We split up the 90 seconds between the two of us, and Vlad generated some great renderings.  Check it out!

I’m Claudia, and this is Vlad and we’ve noticed that a lot of great day-time city spaces are overlooked when darkness hits.   We want to invite the people of Calgary to light these spaces in welcoming but unexpected ways.  

For our first installation, we plan to illuminate an urban park by mimicking the presence of fireflies using LED lights. 

Our plan is to ask passers-by to install these simple LED fireflies so that anyone can take ownership in the making of this unforgettable magical space.

The first installation will take place in two weeks as part of the Choose Yer Own Festival, which is a four day festival of rad messes and the unexpected.  The second phase of light installations will occur throughout August in a variety of urban spaces.  Each individual installation will draw inspiration directly from its own site. 

This pie chart breaks down our material cost.  We will spend about $500 on several hundred blinking and non-blinking LED lights, which we will reuse.  $400 will be spent on button cell batteries and the final $100 will go to smaller purchases like floral wire, string, and electrical tape. 

Our project is simple in its execution - a battery and a light bulb.

 Because of this, it will benefit anyone who's ever wanted to stumble upon an adventure, regardless of age or technical ability. It is meant for both those who come with the intention of participating, as well as for those who just happen to stumble upon these illuminated public spaces.

Thank-you.

In the end our pitch was successful!  We've ordered and sourced a large part of our materials.  At our pitch night, we met one of the director's of Protospace, Calgary's hackerspace, Benjamin Reed.  He's connecting us with the folks over at Solarbotics today to see what other cool electronic parts we can source.  We're excited to collaborate with these folks for our August 12 LED blitz!  More finalized details in our next post.  Thanks for everyone's help thus far!