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Learning Electricity

trying to figure out how much resistance 200 10mm LEDs might need

Spent last night around the table with my brother, the high school physics teacher, trying to figure out how one might calculate the resistors and type of battery that would be needed in a circuit powering 200 LEDs.

I know there are some calculators online, as Mike had suggested earlier, but because I really don’t know the first thing about electricity, I think I was probably confusing the problem… as well, our Internet connection was down, so we were googless. However, as you can see above, we eventually came out with the right number.

Then I found this formula earlier tonight… 
(SupplyVoltage – LEDForwardVoltage)/ NominalLEDCurrent = ResitorValue

Then I ordered a whole bunch of 270 ohm resistors and a 9v wallwart from Jameco to hopefully get these LED projects moving forward.

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Guelph Rainwater Research

Rainwater Harvesting Diagram

This concept may not be overly fitting for Windsor’s current financial hardship in terms of unit costs, but rainwater harvesting units could prove to be very cost-effective in the long-run.

Research has and is being done at the University of Guelph to produce a successful rainwater harvesting system. The system was designed by two engineering graduate students in collaboration with a local supplier of rainwater harvesting technology.

According to University of Guelph, the harvesting process goes like this: “Rainwater that lands on the home’s fiberglass roof will be collected in roof gutters and downspouts and diverted to a filtration device before it is carried to a 6,500 litre underground cistern. The stored water will be pressurized and piped into the home to supply water to three toilets, the washing machine, and the dishwasher. The collected rainwater will also supply water to an underground irrigation system. This would account for over 50% of water consumption in a typical home.”

I was unable to find photos of the U of Guelph version of this project, but did find some diagrams which visually explain the process quite well.

[Article]

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Moss Wall

Olafur Eliasson's Moss Wall, living arctic moss installed in a gallery

I’d been meaning to scan this for a while, Olafur Eliasson‘s Moss Wall, which consists of living arctic moss. While we’ve posted about pictorial or textual uses of moss before, I like that this work was done in 1994 and exists as just a large span of green. So, in thinking about our past interest in relocating moss, and my anticipation that we’ll want to think about this more when spring comes around, I wanted to get this posted as a reference for later.

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Interview on CJAM

interview with Tom on Not In My Back Yard on CJAM 91.5fm

[audio:CJAM-Interview-Dec9-2008.mp3]

I was interviewed yesterday about Broken City Lab on CJAM 91.5fm’s Not In My Back Yard, hosted by Adam Fox and Tom Lucier. I didn’t get a chance to post this before the interview actually happened, but thankfully CJAM offers MP3 archives on their site.

You can hear the excerpt of the show with Tom’s and my conversation above. If you want to hear the entirety of the show, which I can highly recommend, you can download the episode from this week. NIMBY airs every Tuesday at noon on 91.5fm in Windsor.

Also, check out Tom’s blog, where he posted the interview, and bonus footage of a couple videos of the interview and some of the extra conversation we had.

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Ghost Shoes

Ghost Shoes

I found this little gem while aimlessly seaching instructables for a good recipe for General Tao’s tofu.

“Shoefiti” is a necessary element of any urban space. They are of particular interest to me due to the various myths and truths surrounding them, be it an informal murder memorial, a drug users annotation, or the hijinks of a common ruffian. When we seem them, we attach our preconcieved purpose (in my experience, this purpose was birthed out of schoolyard lore) as we walk by allowing that ephmeral space to feel differently than the space that came before it and after.

Creating an ethereal version, speaks to the magic surrounding this urban act.

[via]

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Office Hours

office hours

Once again, you are cordially invited to our Broken City Lab office hours on Tuesday, December 9th, at 7pm, LeBel, room 125. Feel free to drop by to contribute, engage, ask questions, and fix this city. We’ll be discussing upcoming projects, ongoing research, and playing with LEDs.

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Better Uses for an LCD Screen

using the big screen TV in lebel for screening video art

We’ve been doing this for the last week or so on a fairly irregular basis (mostly because I never seem to get into the school before noon). Pictured above is Danielle’s 9/11 video. This TV was originally installed (as legend has it) to screen advertising from Xerox, as they had offered free photocopying to the student population. Since then, the photocopier is out of toner and the TV itself hasn’t been turned on since the very beginning of the summer. Thinking it was a considerable waste to have it there and not showing anything (like student’s artwork for example), we had used this TV previously for playing Tetris.

Since then we’ve had a DVD player occasionally playing some of our own video works, but we’re certainly looking for more material to screen—let us know if you have anything!

Continue reading “Better Uses for an LCD Screen”

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Austin Green Art

Green Bench

The recent season change reminds me of how much our temperature drops during the winter and how much our city changes aesthetically.  On that note, I was wondering how other “green art”-type groups deal with their surroundings.

I found a group call Austin Green Art from Austin, Texas which seems to focus on using existing materials (disposed or excessively produced) to make useful structures and raise awareness of environmental issues.  While this group is about as different from Broken City Lab – they seem to market to children quite a bit and require constant donations for operation – as it is similiar, it’s nice to see participation from a wide range of age groups in their documentation.

I found this “Green Bench” to be a great example of a project that could encorporate ideas such as: static visual art display (in the plastic cover), shelter, sustaining plant life, and potential solar energy production.  I’d like to see benches like this line a few of Windsor’s streets.