Refund High School

November 12, 2018, Filed Under: Bat Camcorder, SFX 2018, student experience

GELing It All Together

Hello! A lot of stuff has happened since my last post, but let me try to catch you up on what I’ve been working on for the past couple of weeks…

When my team was working out how the “skin” for our BatCam would be produced, we found issues with what we had originally planned regarding the transfer of textures, transparency, etc. So when Karen suggested the use of something called “Crystal Gel,” I was skeptical and honestly, did not think it would really be of any use.

Boy, was I wrong.

If you don’t already know what Crystal Gel is, it is a water-based coating for scenic pieces and props and is often used in scenic design and theatre.

Let me be clear. That is NOT what I used it for.

When first acquiring this material, I really just wanted to see what it could do, so I got out some wax paper and outdated 3D prints and smeared it on to see what would happen.

Crystal Gel is spread out onto wax paper.

It doesn’t look like much at first glance, but by taking the Gel off of the wax paper and holding it up to the light, it provides a frost like, almost transparent quality.

This gave me an idea. Would the Crystal Gel be able to pick up the leather texture as well as it did the creases in the wax paper? And if it did, would we be able to use this material to create a transparent-like skin which my team had talked about earlier in the semester?

The layer of Crystal Gel from the wax paper is held up to the light to showcase its transparency.

In order to test my theory, I layered (from bottom to top) leather, vaseline (to keep the crystal gel from sticking to the leather), the crystal gel, and a prototype 3D printed wing and set it out to dry overnight…

Leather, Vaseline, Crystal Gel, and a 3D printed wing are layered to test the effectiveness of the crystal gel as a wing

And I don’t think I could have gotten a better result. On the table, it looks plain, but when held up to the light, the texture of the leather can be seen imprinted on the gel. Not only did the Crystal Gel adhere to the wing, but by drying on top of the leather, it was able to pick up its texture with great detail.

Crystal gel that dried on top of the leather is held up to the light to showcase its texture.

The Crystal Gel adhered to the wing and acts as a skin on the detached Camcorder wing.

We quickly decided, that this was exactly the kind of look we wanted to go with for the wing, and with some dry brushing and painting, we would be able to get the transparent, skin like texture.

Because the Crystal Gel worked way better than I thought it would, we ultimately decided to use it for the skin of the entire body. We decided to pigment the Crystal Gel in order to get the color we wanted and quickly learned that a little goes a loooooong way.

It took a few tries to get a color we were comfortable with, but once we got one we liked, we laid out the leather (with vaseline) and smoothed out the Crystal Gel so as not to get any streak marks. We let the Gel dry like this, later peeling it off of the leather and fitting it to each individual part of the painted body.

The pigmented Crystal Gel is stuck onto the 3D printed body using a solution for 3D prints.

We used a 3D print coating from Smooth On in order to attach the Crystal Gel “skin.” This way, we could be sure that the “skin” wouldn’t budge when our actors are holding it!

However, this product has more uses than as a coating for scenic pieces or props, and being used as “skin” for Bat Camcorders…

One of the characters in our story Refund High School, has a signature barrett that she always wears and after modeling one in Vectorworks and 3D printing it, we decided it would be great if it weren’t so rigid since it had to bend around a clip and go in our actress’s hair. Since we had just gotten the Crystal Gel in, we decided to try it and see what happens.

First, we made a silicone mold of the 3D printed barrette out of our homemade silicone using 100% silicone caulk and blue dawn soap. Once the mold was done drying, we filled it up with the gel and let it be for 48 hours.

*Side note* Something we learned early on dealing with the Crystal Gel, is that the drying time completely depends on how thick you layer it and how much of it is exposed to air. The more Gel directly exposed to air, the faster it will dry and less likely to still be a goopy mess when you come back to it!

After a 2 day drying period, we ended up with a barrette face that we were able to glue to an alligator clip. This allows the barrette to be moved and bent without worrying about it breaking.

I know I just talked a lot about this material and what it can do, but it goes to show how a material you’ve never used before can quickly become one of your most valuable assets. Crystal Gel was able to solve a lot of the issues we were facing and it made my life ten times easier in dealing with our BatCam’s “skin.” Thank you Karen for suggesting this product!

October 28, 2018, Filed Under: Bat Camcorder, SFX 2018

A Story About Iterative Design- Tracking Progress using Version Control and Rapid Prototyping

Hello, my name is Ashley and I am on the Bat-Cam team! It’s almost been a month since the start of an adventure of creating an Integrated Underworld Camcorder. That’s right, a bat cam character from an online webtoon called Refund High School. A combination of bat features and camcorder features were developed together in concept to literally bring technology (the camcorder) to life (the bat). The process of designing and building such a concept has been approached iteratively. Using Autodesk Fusion 360’s CAD version control and rapid prototyping, the process of producing new prototypes and trying new design concepts every week has brought us to a weekly rhythm of continuous improvement.

Camcorder Body Generations: 1-5, PC: Taylor Travis

Autodesk Fusion 360 CAD model of camcorder body and wing screen. Autodesk also offers version control that automatically creates saving points throughout the design process. PC: Ashley Perez

The benefits of using iterative design and rapid prototyping is the availability to make mistakes and learn through them in each iteration of the design. Using longevity prints from the Longhorn Maker Studio and Autodesk Fusion 360 CAD modeling to produce weekly results that are tangible and physically available for inspection makes the next design concept easier and easier to visualize. We are currently on generation 6 of our design.

Prototype of the OLED connected to the Adafruit Trinket before implementation

Alongside 3D modeling and fabrication, a large component of this project has been hardware integration into the camcorder body. Using Adafruit’s Teensy 3.1, an OLED, micro servo, solenoid, and tactile push buttons as part of the camcorder system called for small changes in design once the components came in. These changes included scaling the design to a larger form to allow for space for all components and adjustments to internal structure. The process of integrating these hardware components into the system also involved an iterative approach that was much quicker to run through than the process of 3D printing the camcorder body due to wait time of 3D printing. As mentioned in a previous post, the technology used to integrate animatronic features were taken from tutorials found online and modified for our purposes for this project. Running our system iterations through the Arduino IDE, we have developed a control for an on/off button and ‘zooming’ function using a joystick that makes our project interactive. The button hardware and internal mounting system are still currently under development and will be implemented soon.

A large part of our design process in such an expedited design cycle has been hashing ideas into a priority list each team meeting to decide what changes are to be made in the following iteration and which ones to push back into later ones. This helps quicken the iteration process down to weekly results and although there are always issues that arise, the changes needed to be made are accounted for in the next iteration. More to come soon.

October 22, 2018, Filed Under: Bat Camcorder, SFX 2018, student experience

Happy Accidents and Second- Hand Camcorders

Hello! My name is Natalie and I am part of the Bat-Camcorder team, where we are currently in the process of making an automated camcorder for Live Performance where the camcorder will be able to “blink”, move its “eye”, have sound effects, and have a spring release screen. All by the push of a button!

What I have lovingly dubbed the “BatCam” has already undergone a number of changes since our first week, with the biggest change being the design of the body itself. We have 3D printed a few different forms of the body with the first two iterations turning out drastically different. We also very quickly realized that one of the biggest challenges of this project is going to be the small size of BatCam’s body and the ability to get all of the components needed for it to operate to fit inside. As Taylor mentioned in her previous post, the functions we will include in our project are …

An Eye Shutter – Used to indicate and open up when the Camcorder is turned on.
A Digital Eye – Used to indicate blinking and possible pupil dilation.
The Wing Release – To open up the wing whenever the camcorder is in use.
The “WHAANG!” Noise – The sound the camcorder gives whenever it is turned on.
The Looks – A thin silicone skin that will be created for our camcorder to give it a more organic feeling as well as purple undertones to connect it back to the world of Refund High School.

Our first two 3D prints compared to our thrift store camera find!

Part of our issue with the size of our BatCam was actually partially resolved by a happy accident! When the 3D printer skipped a layer in printing, it caused a full separation near the back end of the body of our BatCam, and because of this, we realized that the access door we had originally planned for on the side of the camcorder would be too small to allow for proper access to its interior. But, if we made the access door out of the back end AND side of the BatCam, it would not only be much easier to slide on and off, but allow that extra room in order to access the interior of the camcorder comfortably. This way, if a component needs to be replaced, the electronic components stay easily accessible. And it just goes to show that all mistakes aren’t bad and can actually show you a better way of accomplishing your goal!

3D print, filling, PLA — The interior structure of the body of our BatCam

In addition, by using a Camcorder we found at a Second-hand store, we were able to delve into its mechanics and learn about how it was put together (spoiler alert: a LOT of tiny screws). Even though the camcorder we found was already broken and meant for film, we were still able to take it apart and find parts we could possibly salvage and use in our own Camcorder. We are hoping to integrate its speaker and one of the switches from it into our own creation which will cut down on cost and put an old camcorder to use! It is always super helpful to see how a real camcorder is put together so that we can learn from it and adapt it to our own needs.

Camcorder, disassembly — The process of taking apart a camcorder.

Having that initial 3D print on the very first week of prototyping helped us to see and understand a lot of flaws in our original design. A lot of them having to do with the logistics of how it will be put together and stay modular. With each new version, we are able to learn something new about its design and whether a component is in the wrong place, wrong size, etc. and we are able to discuss the needed design changes. As we get our materials in the mail and integrate them into the design, more versions are sure come and we are getting closer and closer to our final product!