24 hours til DAWN!

A day closer to DAWN. Another quick update.
The official Multimba poster has been released!!!



Moving on to more complex matters. On setting up Multimba in the exhibition space today, it 'dawned' (had to be done) on me that the threshold level set,(between 100 and 200) was not dependable. After further testing I realised that most of the sensors rise to the maximum level of 1023 when pressed. This results in a very dependable response when a sensor is pressed, plus it removes the multiple hits problem. Only downside is that sufficient force must be given, a force lacking in the soft leather bags of our mallets. Nevertheless this is only a prototype. I'm currently tweaking the electronics so that each sensor frequency value can reach the maximum.

Other than that, the exhibition layout is good and graphics look great on projector screens.

2 days til DAWN!

The countdown is on to the DAWN exhibition. Here's an update on progress. Final prototype is complete, bar some fine tuning of electronics. After fastening hinges and applying logo vinyl, here's some pics of Multimba. After many days and nights of preparing the circuitry, many key points were notes. Firstly, the original wires should never have been removed from the sensors. Instead of spending hours on end soldering and resoldering, it would have been much more worthwhile to have just extended the wires. Forgive me, I'm an electronics virgin. Secondly, I have should have kept those breadboards that come with the Arduinos in the bag. Way too small and figity. Finally got myself some decent ones. Also, on the night of previous blog I thought I had cracked the undesired hits problem. I had one arduino working perfectly without any leakage(excuze my made-up terminology). No matter how much I tried this could not be replicated throughout. Explored many avenues of manipulating the Arduino code but to no avail. Finally decided not to use resistors. Set a threshold between 100 and 200. This plays a sound only when a player uses sufficient force(like any instrument) and fingers crossed my debounce time will prevent multiple hits. Still needs a bit of fine tuning. Some sensors seem to be misbehaving. Probably part due to the fact that the sensors used are so cheap and low quality. Something to think about for next project. Here's a short video of the underbelly of this fantastic prototype.

Evaluation sessions will take place at the DAWN exhibition.