DIY: Air Quality Balloons
I found this post not too long ago and have been wanting to make one of these ever since. What’s making these balloons glow is the pollutants in the air around them, with colours ranging from green (signifying excellent air quality) to red (poor air quality).
LED Shadow Clock
Justin, this reminds me of something you might have done with your LED/Arduino knowledge.
Quick Update: LEDs Survived, Postcards are Being Distributed!
Just a quick update…the LEDs in the freezer are still going strong, more than two days later, which is good news for any potential LED-embedded ice or snow project. The glow was way more exciting than this photo makes it appear, as I had assumed the battery wouldn’t have lasted this long at all. Finally had [...]
The LED Sign is Finished!!!
It’s taken a number of weeks, but we finished wiring the LED sign at tonight’s Office Hours! It was a pretty incredible moment to plug in the sign, turn off the lights, and realize that we made this come together. I’m really, really, really happy with how it turned out!!! There are still a few [...]
LED Graveyard
I went through our LED sign today and removed all the LEDs that had died in our earlier efforts to learn electricity. So now we’re ready to replace these and finish up the sign! 12 out of nearly 200 LEDs isn’t too bad.
Moving Along with Flagging Tape and LEDs
Broken City Lab Office Hours on Tuesday were hugely productive. We completely finished getting all the resistors on the LED sign, measured out all the letters with flagging tape for the EC Row Project, organized some logistics for the planning stages of a couple other upcoming projects, and figured out the title for our upcoming [...]
We Learned Electricity!
We’re in week 3 of this LED sign project, and we now know how to finish it up. We had previously soldered all the anodes on the LEDs, but we were a bit confused about the connections of the cathodes and resistors. As we had been working off of a MAKE video, which breezed over [...]
Continuing Work on the LED Sign
Michelle and I finished soldering the anodes on the LED sign yesterday morning. Next is soldering all the resistors to the cathodes—this is a hilariously longer process than I think any of us anticipated, but it’s good. I’m really looking forward to seeing it lit up! Also, thank you to whoever passed on the big [...]
Fence Text + LED Soldering
Broken City Lab Office Hours last night were hugely productive due, in no small part, to the many amazing people around the table last night. We completed a test with the flagging tape at Lebel (as you can see above) for the EC Row project and continued working on the LED sign. There’s lots of [...]
![We made a lot of progress tonight, not only getting a considerable way through the first coat of red paint, but also testing a variety of techniques for applying the retroreflective glass beads! We also got to spend some time talking through how we’ll be temporarily installing the letters in a variety of spaces. We [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG_4441-150x150.jpg "Red Paint & Testing Glass Beads")
![Over the past few weeks, we’ve been testing out methods for transferring photocopies onto fabric using acrylic medium for the banner and bunting that will be installed on the exterior of Hamilton Artist’s Inc. Rosina picked up this 1000ml tub of acrylic medium for The Store at SoVA‘s Store. We had some leftover scrap material to [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/MG_0645-150x150.jpg "Two Tales of a City: Acrylic Medium Transfers on Fabric")
![From what I understand, Google Maps updates once a year or so (I’d guess even less than that). So, I think now would be a good time to start on a project like this, as according to these maps, Caesar’s Windsor is still under construction. That parking garage on the corner of Park and Pelissier [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/parkinggarage-web-textroof-150x150.jpg "Annotating Windsor")
![I went out to the site for our proposed community garden to take some photos yesterday. It’s looking fairly likely that this will be the site for our community garden starting this summer. This park is located at Russell and Mill near the Sandwich windmill. We’re still working out all the details, but everything has [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/img_4065-150x150.jpg "Community Garden Site")
![We’re participating in an upcoming exhibition entitled, Public Realm, at Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts in Toronto. For the exhibition we’re going to be doing some outdoor projection around the gallery, and we want to have your input! We want to know what you think about the public realm, and about public and private space, and [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/IMG_6746-2-150x150.jpg "Public Realm Questionnaire")
![Alive & Well, our 350 ft long message painted on the city-owned parking lot for the 2011 AGW Biennial and recently captured by Google Maps, is in the process of being torn up to make way for an Aquatic Centre. We’ll be actively looking for a new parking lot, field, or rooftop to do another [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IMG_7252-bw-150x150.jpg "Deinstallation of Alive & Well")
![We had another great Friday night meeting, even though Josh was sick, and even though we underestimated two things. First, we struggled again thinking through this second residency/conference idea, and the letters took way longer than anticipated to papier mâché. At any rate, with the autumn weather firmly setting in, it’s looking like we’ll be [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/IMG_3581-150x150.jpg "Getting Closer Every Week: Big Letters and New Titles")
![We’ve spent the last couple of weeks settling into our new headquarters, working on applications and ideas for the fall and winter. We’ve also cleared our consultancy out of the downtown space, seeing as Visual Fringe is over and it was high on the to-do list. Having a dedicated space has been incredible so far, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/IMG_4539-150x150.jpg "The Last Couple Weeks at BCL HQ")
![Danielle and I will be heading to Montreal to speak at this year’s Canadian Association of Cultural Studies Biannual Conference at McGill University. We’re presenting in the Cultural Production panel under the theme of Social Practice and Public Space. Our presentation entitled, “Social Practice: New Models for Collaborative Cultural Production,” will frame the city of Windsor [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/montreal-150x150.jpg "Canadian Association of Cultural Studies Conference, McGill University")
![The Eco-House was bumpin’ Friday night! Amongst a slew of other undergoing projects, Michelle, Rosina, Josh and I we’re all hard at work, trying to get everything organized for our upcoming event and final installment of Save The City that’s taking place this Friday at the Art Gallery of Windsor! Rosina and I tackled the Save The City [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/IMG_4835web-150x150.jpg "Getting things done!")
![Wednesday was a big day in the SRSI spaces. Lea Bucknell held her Garden Party in 424 unveiling the portraits and stories that she made of Windsor residents, ProClick Factory arrives from Toronto, Thom Provost and Josh Babcock work on some hand-drawn diagrams. Robin Fitzsimons has been training hard every day in the window spaces [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_0906-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 20: Garden Party!!!")
![As Michelle mentioned last week, we’re doing a projection inside of The Magic Stick as part of the We Like Music Festival in Detroit this Saturday, September 18. The organizers of We Like Music invited us to do something — so, we figured we would come up with a great big list of things we [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/welikemusic-520-150x150.jpg "We Like Music, We Love Detroit")
![Day 1 of the Storefront Residencies for Social Innovation: we get the keys and begin massive clean up. Vinyl is being cut, walls will be painted, carpets are vacuumed, windows are washed, but still things to do. However, great things are ahead. Josh and Michelle at the very start of the day, before the cleaning [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/IMG_9785-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 1: Cleaning up the Storefronts")
![Michelle and I headed up to Hamilton to continue the research portion of Two Tales Of A City. The three and a half hour car ride gave us plenty of time to develop a working plan of exactly what we wanted to accomplish for the next two days in Hamilton, Ontario. To get a [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/IMG_5855-150x150.jpg "Two Tales Of A City: Hamilton History Hunters")
![Based on a conversation at our last meeting on Thursday morning, I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to start on some new projects in January focused back on Windsor. Seeing at this mason jar was at the core of our conversation, it seemed like a good idea to post it on here, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/masonJar-150x150.jpg "A Visual Reference for a New Year Project")
![We’re in the middle of reviewing the submissions for Homework: Infrastructures & Collaboration in Social Practices! Using the mail-merge function built into Word, we’re taking the csv file that our form builder wordpress plugin generated from all the Homework submissions and putting them into a readable document. It’s 212 pages long. We’re working through this [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Screen-shot-2011-05-30-at-8.51.26-AM-150x150.png "Reviewing 212 Pages of Homework Submissions")
![SRSI participants hit the street today in the blistering heat to interact with passersby. Lee Rodney’s Border Bookmobile gets re-routed, Emily Colombo serves up some lunch and fixes a few bikes. The Department of Unusual Certainties is working hard planning their Speed Dating for Store Owners event on Thursday, July 8 7pm inside of 406 [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/DSC_0663-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 26 & 27: Hot Days Outside")
![Yesterday morning on Pelissier was very loud and hectic. When I arrived there was about 3 feet of sidewalk space in front of 406. It was another eventful day as we were joined by The Swap Shop . I did some catching up with Jefferson, Julie and Andrea as well. Big machines looked like dinosaurs [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_08461-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 5: Clothes, Trucks, Lightbulbs and Flowers.")
![Danielle and I went over to Detroit yesterday to meet with Aaron Timlin (from the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit) at the LadyBug Gallery to discuss some potential collaborative projects over the summer. After getting a quick tour of the gallery and some of the other studios and workspaces in the building (which we unfortunately didn’t get [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/img_2819-150x150.jpg "Visiting Detroit")
![Monday night we spent a couple hours working over some new ideas with some new friends. Mostly, these ideas have been in the “meaning to do that” category, mostly opening up new collaborations in which new projects will unfold. Two main project frameworks came out of our brainstorm session—a floating sculpture project with the Green [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_5402-150x150.jpg "New Project Mondays: Week 1")