wind-up birds, a network of mechanical woodpeckers
wind-up birds is a work exploring location of sound and movement of sound in space, using a network of mechanical woodpeckers. Each woodpecker consists of a woodblock, a mechanical knocker and a custom made circuit with a atmega168 running arduino code, and a xbee radio module. The woodpeckers run on batteries and much care has been put into making it as energy efficient as possible. As of now they are made to work for a month in the forest. A coordinator module is controlling the other modules, waking them from sleep and then wirelessly triggering a short sequence of pecking before all the woodpeckers go back to sleep again.
See http://flickr.com/photos/hcgilje/sets/72157606588267198/ for images from the construction process.
The wind-up birds first settled in a forest close to Lillehammer end of august this year, as part of a polish-norwegian land-art exhibition UT-21. Later they flew to Oslo Airport and finally (for now) ended up in Morocco to enjoy a mild winter.
Software/Hardware:
self-designed circuit board with a atmega168 chip and xbee znet 2.5 radio module. Roar Sletteland made the circuitboard-layout in eagle-cad and also did the etching. the atmega chip runs arduino code at 8mhz 3.3 volts, programmed using the avrHID programmer from xxxxx
Artist name:
hc gilje
more info:
http://hcgilje.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/wind-up-birds/
http://hcgilje.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/the-wind-up-birds-continued/
Image:
