Author: André

Work in progress: Arduino powered Beer brewing machine

Well some of you already realized that every few months I am brewing beer by my own with my high school-mate Hannes. We’re changing our mixture every time because we want to test new sorts of beer and improve our own mixtures. While we were really surprised that even our first attempt was ‘drinkable’, our last one was even better.

Hannes used all his knowledge to build our own boiler which will be able to brew 30 L beer. While brewing beer it is important to stay at certain levels of temperature that we had to do manually in the past. In our boiler we attached temperature- & fluid-level sensors. Their data is being used by an Arduino to control the heating element which consumes up to 3.3k Watt (!) so we’re using a remote controlled electrical jack to control it.

Our prototype-interface has been implemented in Max/MSP which is used to send temperature & timing data to the Arduino, so that the brewing process can be run without an attached computer or any other interface. Sensor-data will be stored in a database for further analyses.

This project is still work in progress and we want to use our brewing machine (we call it ‘Reaktor’ …) in the end of September.
Below I attached one of my first Arduino-tests 😉

More infos soon & you can ask me for any further details 😉

Work in progress: Tian Dynamic Light Installation

This Autumn we will finish our dynamic light installation for Tian Restaurant, based in the heart of Vienna. Arduino-driven dynamic moving light-heads will decorate the chandelier and vvvv-powered visuals will add additional atmosphere on top of it.

Currently I am finishing the designs at Strukt of our vvvv-patches plus interface-interaction & design to control the installation via tablet.

More soon

Lifeball Welcome-Life Visuals

Büro Hirzberger asked Strukt for some eye-candy visuals at the opening party of this year’s Lifeball. The welcome party was located in the garage of Vienna’s Le Meridien. As an intern I could use my new developed skills to project abstract and gererative patterns stuff four screens and a 6×5 LED Lightbulb-matrix.

Mastered

Finally it’s done and I’ve finished my Master of Arts in Design.

I got good and positive feedback for “Articles”, but also some good critics that mentioned some interesting things I have to think about.

Now I can say that I want to continue working on my tool and I hope that one day it can be made public to anybody, and maybe not only based on the Android-plattform.

But finishing my Master Degree also means that I have to continue working on my project with a different priority: In the next couple of days I’m going to move to Vienna and start an internship at Strukt.com!

You will hear from me : )

Backup Routine

I guess you could find something like a working backup-routine for yourself. If not, do something and let you inspire by some of my ideas.

Maybe you do not care about backups. It’s so easy to transfer photos of your digital camera or cellphone on your computer. Not comparable to all that effort we had back in the days of analogue film. Maybe you think backing up that files is too complicated. If you think so, continue reading.

Or you care a little bit about your digital life and you use a memory stick or external hard drive to copy your files regularly on it. That’s the best you can do with little afford, at least if you do that regularly. You could install yourself a routine to stick to a regular plan to do so. Use the calendar or todo list on your mobile to be notified for the next backup. Backup your files every few days, every second week or every month, but do it regularly.

If you are a little bit more advanced you may use a software like Apple TimeMachine, Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost. Most of these solutions provide you incremental backups, so you can jump back in time to restore different versions of the same document.

Real backup-Pros also make use of an offshore-backup. A second backup is been stored in a different location, so that in case of a fire at home or in your office, you still got a copy of your important files somewhere else. I really have to push myself to do an offshore-backup, because it takes a lot of effort for a little effect.

Getting Things Done

I remember the time, it was in January or February 2008, when it came to my mind that I need a notebook. I started writing down a lot of notes, what I wanted to buy, what I wanted check out on the Internet and all actions I had to do for several projects.

But soon I realized that a regular notebook didn’t satisfy all my needs: I couldn’t develop an effective organizing-system, but the biggest disadvantage was the lack of a possibility to schedule actions and give them a due date.
I discovered Omni Focus and Things for Mac. Often I acquire new techniques by using new tools and that’s how I have discovered David Allen’s Getting Things Done. You don’t need to use these tools, you can just use any pen & paper or other system, but let’s have a look on GTD-basic rules:

  • -Whatever comes to your mind, write it down into a Inbox.
  • -If YOU don’t have to do it, trash it.
  • -Try to keep your Inbox empty, otherwise you stop believing in your system.
  • -Whenever the new task only needs 2 minutes to finish, do it now.
  • -If it’s not important, put it into the Someday-Inbox.
  • -Whenever you can split a thought or action into smaller actions, do it.
  • -If you can group several actions to a big one, organize it into projects.

In the first few days you’ll fill your Inbox with many new actions, but that’s not sad. It only helps you to free your brain for new activities and thoughts. Then, soon you start to organize all these actions and recognize, that a lot of them you don’t have to do, some you want to do someday, and some you can organize after each other.

The positive aspects of the GTD-technique are:

  • -You free your brain for other things, you do not always have to rethink of something. You’re able to forget it, because you have written it down.
  • -Because you scan through your organized GTD-sytem, you always have an overview of what has to be done, you feel like having much more control of your future activities.

I already showed this technique to some friends of mine. It wasn’t useful for all, but maybe you can tryout for yourself. Give it a try : )

Some links:

http://culturedcode.com/things/screencast.html – Also great for general understanding

http://www.davidco.com/