I learned that someone will close the application called "Disco Dance Floor Application" when attempting to get their song played for the 80th time.

I wonder what that does when you're told it is a computer controlled disco dance floor application.

Things I learned last night

1. I can talk trash and challenge people to a dance off and with my suit / floor, no one is willing to accept the fact that they'll get served.
2. polycarbonate scuffs very easily.
3. Rain sucks
4. Beer is good
5. My brother Mike takes 7 pictures in a row of himself all doing the same stupid thing then expects me not to make fun of him for it.
6. getting people to dance is harder than I thought
7. my brother is as dumb as I suspected after he asked two girls if they were lesbians.
8. Colleges other than DePaul have finals on saturday

things that went well

• Software worked like a charm (it actually did crash once during the night but no one other than myself noticed, friends kept messing with the animations to see the Goomba from Mario again so I think that may have set something in motion)
• There was enough to drink / eat
• I got to challenge people to dance offs and win by default
• the substructure didn't get crushed
• liquid didn't get in to short out anything
• my friends mosh pitted around 3am
• music was suprisingly good given it wasn't what I normally listen to (thanks Adam for whipping that up for me)
• People were in awe of the floor to the point where they just wanted to look at it. BAD, we dance in this house hold

things that did not go so well

• the software did crash
• i didn't get to make irish car bomb milkshakes
• it rained all day / night
• few people I thought were coming didn't but I blame the weather, cause it sucked
• I somehow picked the weekend also where a quarter of my friends either had finals, were moving, or went on vacation.
• I was too busy to take a lot more pics
• My camera doesn't do well in low light

Totally Disco

Bow down before my amazing electric blue suit and pink frilly dress shirt

Dave sporting the handlebar mustache being amazing

my brother attempting to look like he knows what is going on

No I won't have a dance off with you

70's finger point

Why aren't you dancing?

Thad manning the keg

sofa bad, dancing good

cellphones weren't allowed in the 70's, not invented yet

FINALLY!

that's right my minions, dance, DANCE!!!

I think I need to build one on my back porch since everyone loves smoking so much

sunglasses at 1am?

my boy sanchez

Mosh pit

Something tells me MIT/wash U didn't have one of these at their party.

Preparty animation

Diamond Animation

Color wheel animation

Noise animation

Fire Animation

Color effect animation

Matrix Animaion

Snake animation

Color wave Animation

Checkers Animation

Inner Animation

if someone can trump my party, i'll be damn impressed. Pics and movies will be posted on sunday, maybe monday

and this guy wanted in on the party (I'd seriously let him in just due to the afro)

I have 1 day to prep, today I think I fixed the software issues on the floor. Running an 'offline' version to see if it runs of v0.4.

I prepped the acrylic up to be mounted. Kinda cleaned up the apartment.

All the party supplies can be gotten in one massive grab.

What I really need to do is figure out how to mount my big ass disco ball. That SOB is heavier than I thought.

either one of these will be what people will walk into when they enter my apartment before hte party gets kickin

price of a tub of GE Clear Silcon II - $3.50 on mastercard
price of a keg of beer - $50.00 on mastercard
price of your consulting fee applying the Silcon - $60.00 on mastercard
price of not having your $4,000.00 disco dance floor's electronics ruin after your amazing party - priceless

Software fixes before party check list

1. fix bug in Random Animation (think it attempt to load a file that fails to load)
2. Do not reinit the boards on failure (prevents a flickering effect)

Party Checklist

Get 70's gear
2. Get Keg(s)
3. Get volka
4. Get other tasty alcohol
5. Get Mixer
6. Get ice
7. Get cups
8. Clean up Apartment

I want one of these, coolest hardware device ever

monome 40h

have to say, having the floor only on blue, looks damn cool

Well, with some help from Grant. I replaced the Proc and the EEPROM and then flashing wouldn't work. I did a power cycle on the AVR with the board attached and that seemed to pimp slap it back into line.

I'm almost DONE. just going to let the software run over night to see if it doesn't crash.

I thank Grant very much for the quick and prompt help once again and the offer which wasn't needed.

I really need to learn a lot more about hardware so I can do this on my own.

I'll have a video with everything running hopefully by tonight.

There are multiple bugs in the software that are slowly manifesting themselves I believe too. The mock floor just sucks now. I think that it actually shows the reverse order of the floor too. Now that I have a functional floor, I can actually test on a live item.

and for all those peeps that don't know already:
Party, 29th, my place, keg and mix drinks for the ladies.
70's attire is optional but perferred.

if you don't have a way of contacting me, something tells me you shouldn't be at my party. now for sleep and 1 day to whip out an uber complexe grid for work.

I noticed a smell like burning and realized why my board before freaked out. Only after I plugged in another board did I notice the power cord was rather hot.

Then to investigate the powercord, I noticed a blue spark and me saying fuck ... loudly.

So I hooked it up to the AVR to see if the board is dead.

SO I replaced the processor - no go
SO I replaced the EEPROM - no go

I emailed grant and this was my response

That sounds... excruciatingly bad. If power shorts to gnd like that, it's almost certain the AVR is fried. FT232BM probably is too. I had this happen once myself (drilled through the power cable; I'm a moron.) The good news is that the 7313s are probably fine. Replace the AVR, since it sounds like it won't flash anymore. If the USB device still enumerates, the FT232BM is probably fine; if not replace it too. Also, the small trace that connects ground to the ISP port blows like a fuse if something bad happens while the STK-500 is plugged in. If nothing was plugged in at the time, it'll be fine, but check it anyway. It runs horizontally underneath the ISP port. It'll be obvious if it blew.

You'll be getting a second e-mail from me in a second.

- Grant

The computer mounts the board but the AVR doesn't like it. This is bad. More so since I don't have a spare FT232BM. I think I'm fucked. I'm semi annoyed too cause I fried 250 dollars worth of hardware.

The leason I learned is I suck.

Fail back position is to switch the board closest to the radiator to the middle.

had to pull the board BOOOOOoooo. have yet to hook up the replacement.

I wired up the last board. Not sure how to handle the board that is acting up. Thinking via software, I may be able to bitch slap it back into working and let the error code slide.

Oddly enough, I think that maybe the board I tried the v3 firmware with intially and my DDF software didn't like it. I can always go back and redoflash tomorrow.

and with that ... sleep. (no I haven't gotten to do all 7 boards at once)

Thanks Dave for the help while I was on the life line with work for our production build.

Ok, it isn't totally the software, it is actually a board freaking out and causing the app to crash.

I figured out a way to solve this HOWEVER, I still need to pull the board and figure out why. This sucks in many, many ways. The solution causes a flicker. The board is the board right in the middle. I do have a spare board but it has an Red LED that won't fire on one of the pins for the life of it.

Once again, not the end of the world, but I have to fix that board.

ok, I got an email from Grant telling me about the issue possible FW conflict. I guess they had a few running 3.0 and rest with 2.0. In the mixed environment it failed from time to time. After pushing all to 3.0 my application worked.

I think I have a mix of 1.0 and 2.0.

I just scored a USB to Serial port adapter from a coworker so I'll be pushing 3.0 on all my boards tonight.

10 ml vodka
15 ml apricot schnapps
10 ml cinnamon schnapps
15 ml strawberry schnapps
10 ml peach schnapps

I do the beer so could the be
A> good?
B> upped to 5 gallon status? ( I do believe it can)
C> some type of fruit juice needed to mask it a bit more?

This was called fire in the disco but it had 2 weird ingrediants in it.

things left to do

move my sofa back
move my TV foward 4 feet so I can work on the last 2 boards.
add in the backing on the side tiles on modules 1 and 2
adjust wiring for boards 1 and 2
5. wire in boards 1 and 2
6. Do final tweaks on polycabonate
7. Do final lock in with the side panels
8. Fix the software to actually work with big floors <-- uber important (works with small 1 and 2's, but something happens with bigger floors)
9. Attempt to finish up super secret project before Wednesday in hopes it will be released before Saturday ... doubtful

I may have a comingled environment with v1 and v2 firmware.

I'm thinking doubtful but you never know. I need a USB to serial port adapter to verify this claim since I'm not about to drag my desktop out to my living room.

Brent Brown was having some issues programming his boards so I whipped up a quick screen shot on how using the STK500.

1.) Verify you can talk to the board
Do this by clicking the READ button on the Advanced screen

2.) fuse settings

3.) set your lock bits.
Pretty sure this was the defaults, can't remember however

4.) click program and then verfy to be sure it programmed properly.

A time for reflection

Buns of steel

Wiring before

Fully wired and placed

Test run

Good ol' IBM Thinkpad T42

The back of my head

A crash in progress

Fix that code now monkey, MAO DITTY MAO, failure isn't an option

Dave McNelis, from Various rumblings from a Dink, helping out wiring up a board

Ok, I made a late start due to last night's activities.

today so far I've

1. Fixed the wiring mistake on the last (or first) board
2. Finished up the side paneling on the back left side
3. semi tweaked in the polycarbonate so it doesn't have floating corners in the back.
4. laundry
5. cleaned back area up.

things left to do

1. move my sofa back
2. move my TV foward 4 feet so I can work on the last 2 boards.
3. add in the backing on the side tiles on modules 1 and 2
4. wire in boards 1 and 2
5. Do final tweaks on polycabonate
6. Do final lock in with the side panels
7. Fix the software to actually work with big floors <-- uber important (works with small 1 and 2's, but something happens with bigger floors)
8. Attempt to finish up super secret project before Wednesday in hopes it will be released before Saturday ... doubtful

So yeah, umm, something came up that caused me only to get 2 more boards rather than the 4 fully hooked up.

I have to slightly rewire 1 board and I discovered that my software does not like big floors very well ... this gives me 1 week to bust out a solution. Time for my mad nerdablities to come up with a wicked solution 2 hours before the party starts on saturday.

Tomorrow comes the hooking up of the final two boards, final tweaks on the floor, and start of a quick fix for the software. I already thought of a few ideas.

Went to the brew and view at the vic and saw date movie and Underworld evolution then headed over to Toons to DESTROY everyone that dare challenged me in shuffleboard. seriously, all I have to say is bring it. last two games were shut-outs. unstoppable.

I was going to do some work yestarday but a few beers out turned into an all out thing and then some poker then some sleeping ...

Nothing like having dinner 12 ounces at a time.

3 boards fully hooked up now. That puts me at 42.8 % done with that. Took me an hour to wire the actual board up. Had to create 3 small extender cords for this one too.

I have one side plank that doesn't want to seem to stay down and I'm fearful it is on a wire. Damn trial and error approach.

I do have one that sits very nice however. I even had to do a U style cut to create a tunnel for a wire to run under.

I'm not sure but I think Dave said he'd be down for helping out tomorrow. If not, I know he said Saturday. So yeah, I'll have the floor done this Saturday I'm betting come hell or hangover.

That gives me 1 week of tweaking and redoing the application. Really want playlist support but 1 week doesn't seem like enough time. Plus in that week I can start work on my super secret (no, not v2 of the app) thing which hopefully will be out by the party if I can bust it out in time. On paper, it is huge already; need to start putting the petal to the keyboard on it.

Yeah, I had some canada dry. And I blame it for my progress. Which was foiling and adjusting the wires in 2 modules. Tomorrow I figure I should be able to knock out the hooking up the actual PSU for that along with wiring in the two modules.

Now if my geometry teacher taught me correctly, that would give me a square shape. More so, that will give me a phatty 4/7ths the way done for final assembly. (that is past the 50% marker people)

What works for knee pain? Advil sucks.

omg, that is a crap load of wires.

I have 2 modules DONE! Much thanks to Dave McNelis over at Various rumblings from a Dink, for helping out with the wiring and LED adjustments.

And now, 3 videos.

fire

inner 5 disco animation

Snake on a plane disco animation

End of the month is when I think I can pull off a party.

HOWEVER, just by myself, I don't think I'll be able to do it. As my progress this weekend showed.

Any takers? I have beer and pizza and lots of tin foil to make take-out food animals.

I have 1 4x4 foiled and aligned. However, I only have 40 lights actually wired up.

I'm slacking and getting a bit worried about making my end of the month party deadline. Plus my knees are seriously killing me from being on them all day. (yes, you make insert your jokes here, here and here at my expense for saying I've been on my knees all day)

all foiled up and blue kool-aid like

Adjusting wiring to get more slack back at the module along with aligning the LEDs

let the foil wars being

One of 448 tiles properly setup. I'm going to need to do wire adjustments I think before I actually go all out and start wiring it up.

I had to pull the board ... decided I'm going to QA the boards again and thinking about running a RGB animation file non stop to verify the LED / wiring works. This will let me solve problems as they appear.

I do have a LED in my hand that looks correct that I'm using to QA yet is firing Red and Green while in Green. This bothers me. And me being smart decided to start with the section of floor that is under my TV.

I'm not really happy about this right now. Mr beer will help.

Update

And with that I'm going drinking

wired up 1/4th a module. Stupid me wired in one with a broken wire to test.

However, I do have fire. And I still need to properly adjust the wires.

Update one day later, you tube is still 'processing' the video.

I do actually have a version working with direct sound but you know what, I'm really not happy with it.

I think the entire framework has gotten a bit out of hand since it orginally was only suppose to be a diagnostical application.

I've been reviewing the code (another project I'll talk about soon as it is done) and I'm not terribly happy with it. There are tons of stuff I want to do.

The first thing I'm going to do is redesign the UI for better playlist support. Next is the ability for web services. I'm not really sure if I can do what I think I want to do but then again, I can just run the application AS a web service and have the UI do web calls.

Now you ask, why is that cool? I can have hidden computer with the service installed and control the floor from a pocket PC, my room, from work. List goes on and on. Plus it will let me do a personal Ajax webpage.

Due to web service calls, there would be a slight delay on getting back data for like the floor visual but come on. How freaking cool would that be?

The next major thing I want to do is rehaul how I do the buffer. Right now I have an array and i must admit, it is a pain to calculate properly what pixel lines up with what. If I have a 3D array, x = rows, y = columns, and z being color (3 deep), that would rule. Make doing a lot of stuff easier for dev in the future too. Then on the back end, all i need to is a single function to transform that 3D into a 1D array. Simple is good.

Another idea ... think webcam.

After I do the wires, going to run to Home Depot.

lets recap

wired up another module. Reinforced one of the edging. I'm not totally sure how I'm going to pull off power. I may have a PSU on each side I'm thinking. Now how do I protect them from liquid beverages and overheating at the same time? They need ventilation.

I'm thinking having them only half exposed against the wall. This gives them some air yet the wall protects them to a degree.

I also moved one of two couches back into place.

My knees can't handle all this abuse right now. I'm thinking tomorrow I'm going to have to get some advil from or something since I still need to wire in the USB / power cords, tight up / tweak the LED light placements, install foil on the floor, actually wire the boards up to the LEDs, repair 3 wires, and run the last 64 wires ... in no particular order.

The proper order should be

1. run the last 64 wires
2. Make the last raised floor
3. Create area for PSU's
4. run power cords
5. run the usb cords
6. wire up two modules
7. run test
8. tweak (maybe repeat)
9. wire up rest
10. add in foil

What I'm thinking is I'll get the foil mid day from Jewel (and advil). Be a nice break. Like beer.

When your boss asks, "Clint, you want some beers?". Why yes, yes I do like beer and yes, I will drink some.

Coolest boss ever at SpringCM, content Management on demand. Providing a paperless solution to a business's need when they want it.

Thanks Dave for the brews. And SpringCM will destroy MSDS in softball ... TWO TIMES.

Yeah, I don't do ice skating but if a little kid can be on their knees for hours, why can't I without negative repercussions?

10 / 14 = 5 / 7 = 71.4% wired up. 2 more modules left.

I have 3 broke wires that need some spot repair. Tomorrow I should be fully wired up then comes wiring in the actual boards.

Then comes final tweaks and fixing loose ends.

Then comes real world testing.

Dave McNelis and his lovely wife helping out

The wire racing beings

Power juice

Dave asking me how the hell Dan puts up with 2 couches blocking our kitchen.

Here is my progress for tonight. Moving stuff out of the way took a bit longer than I thought. Hopefully my roommate won't kill me and I can get some reinforcements tomorrow. I did screw up one sipp already that needs to be replaced. Seriously, my roommate Dan, if I was in his shoes, I would have killed me. But we do have internet again. So the lesson I learned was

But here is super happy fun time uber amazing picture hour.

In chicago, we have couches in our hallways.

I love you yet I hate you when I have to undo your wiring (unhooked the cable, a speaker wire, and an ethernet cord)

Ahhh, isn't he cute in his little wooden womb.

WIRES! UNDERGROUND!

I'm only 3/14th's done with the wiring

My god, it is done! ... kinda

Labeling is your friend

beers rules. i *heart* beer. too bad beers do not equal progress on the floor.

10ish hours of straight work. Still need to lay down more but I need help to be able to lift up my TV rack. But I opted for the more important getting my ghetto couch out of the way of the bathroom.

almost done laying down the grid and poly!

But here is the massive problem now. My skinny, white, irish ass can barely squeeze past that mess.

Either I grabbed an extra pile to route of my 3 footers or somethings is really out of wack. I've run out of 3 footers without the routing. I have 15ish extra but that still will only get me so far.

damn it and me being a retard

During my manitory Union lunch break, I've decided to make a video.

I've raised the floor 4 feet by 8 feet. Just enough to fit my awesome couch on.

I have not run wires yet. I need to raise the floor first due to time constraints.

Today I'm up at a BLISTERING 9:30 and already started after I had my eggo waffles.

The 2nd pic should show you actually how much I routed off the 2x4 to help get it flush against the wall. I did this since I didn't really want too much of a "floating" area by the walls. That is just me though. Plus it was an excuse to use my router and piss off my neighbors at 2pm yesterday.

I got the 2x4's that will line my wall routed to about 3/8" deep to accommodate the wood trim. I also marked out the plywood 2 foot by 2 foot pieces to be ready for drilling and screwing for the routed pieces.

Since a friend stopped on by that I haven't seen in a bit, I had to stop progress and actually put up the wood on the floor so it wouldn't get hurt nor hurt someone (namely me). Plus it was blocking my roommate's door �? again. My bad, Dan.

This lack of progress is my fault since I kinda fell back asleep and didn't get out of bed until about 1pm.

Routing the wood also took way longer than I planned. Even though I have the most powerful router I could have bought at the time, still took 3 routes to achieve the depth I ended up with on the 2x4's.

I'm still hoping I'll have the entire floor laid tomorrow.

About the concert:
Eagles of Death Metal ruled. As any band with that name would. So did the strokes. Strokes had a very cool visual on their massive LED thingies. I do believe I'm going to borrow it and create a phatty animated gif out of it. They played a lot of their old stuff much to my enjoyment.

From LED information Yo'z

Chris asks

First of all, VERY COOL PROJECT�?.love the blog!!!!

Just a few questions about the LEDs�?

1) How long did ledtronics take to fulfill the order
2) Do you still think these LEDs aren't bright enough?

3) Which other LEDs would you recommend for brightness?

Why yes, this is a cool project that thank god is coming to an end ... for now ... so my wallet can recoup ... and I can get my groove on and not be a "square"

But to your questions, I believe it took about a month for the LEDs to come in.
As for brightness, I'm not really sure if they will be 100% bright enough. I did a calculated risk and it may cost me about 700 dollars. If they aren't, oops. When testing, they left sun spots in my eyes.

If I had to redo this, I'd create a custom board that would actually have like 4ish LEDs on it in the corners and "spray" upward. But that is me and I this solution a bit more scalable. It will cost a bunch more money to implement since you need custom boards and 64 custom boards per module.

One primary issue with the LEDs is the Angle of viewability VS power consumption VS mcd (brightness).

You need your LEDs to be below a certain power range along with a big ass angle with a high brightness level. One will normally cause an inverse effect on another.

I also wanted to not have an extremely high cost. You can view this as your 4th constraint. I found the Green LEDs suprisingly (I was expecting blue) to be the most expensive.

As I stated, mine cost $1.08 a pop when I ordered 700 of them.

LED researching I spent a LONG time on. At the time, this is what I came up with.

Do I know of another place, not really, a lot of people said Ebay, I'm warry of that due to quality and constistancy. Also if I need more for some reason, can I get the exact same model or is it going to be a "SUPER BRIGHT RED" without knowing the model / brand / specs. I found going through LEDtronics gives me more control over quality.

I'm done foiling. Now to play with my new lego set.

I got 88 L style brackets, that is enough for 22 joints. That should make the floor nice and strong I do believe. I can go back and buy them out again too.

Thanks Dave for informing me you needed to go to home depot. You rule very much so.

Now on to actual floor laying out and building the sites and drilling / installing the brackets.

SO close yet so far. But oddly enough, I'm right where I figured I'd be today. Even with an hour of lego playing time. I got myself the 8421 Mobile Crane.

Disco Lemonade

1 1/2 oz vodka
1/2 oz Blue Curacao liqueur
6 oz lemonade

just applying the tape, god is there a lot of tape. 900 feet worth.

I'd say I got about half done here. Can't progress further until this gets done otherwise I'd have to rip out parts to apply it. Seems stupid to do that.

I did some foil taping last night on the boards. The tape is actually sharp I found out after cutting my hands in 3 times in about 30 seconds.

I'm adding this reflective tape on the board to boost the brightness and evenness of the color when lit.

I do know that one person could build, one could cut the tape to length, and one other could apply the tape all at the same time. Some hot assembly line action? anyone? anyone at all?

With that, time for me to hit up my job as a code monkey over at SpringCM, content management on demand.

This is nothing other than the 1/4 inch thick wood. I weigh tad more than 150 pounds and I'm jumping I'd say a good solid foot to two feet off the ground.

The polycarbonate is 3/8 inch thick.

I haven't gotten it to full strength either. It is still going to be reinforced with corner braces every couple nodes.

routed the wood for the channels for the wiring. Think I may have killed a few peices in the process due to kick back. Bastards.

I needed those.

Plus I think using a router between 8 PM and 9 PM, good way to piss off your neighbors. I only used it for like 15 minutes too, I hauled ass. Bloody wankers.

That is my roommate's door behind that. Plus see the post below.

Dave McNelis hooked me up with a ride to Home Depot. I now have about 97% of the wood I need to accomplish this. How we managed to put in that much wood into his Ford Focus is beyond me.

I have everything I need for the side structural for the most part. I did find two major issues however with my plan. My living room is 11.5 feet wide ... I have 2 couches and TV (big TV). I was planning on pushing them against the walls but I'll still have some decent overlap. Now I think I'll move a sofa into our kitchen (yeah, I may be 24 but I only have the needed furniture for living, a big ass TV and a comfy sofa).

I also realized one of my doors in my living room opens outward. This causes a decent issue that I don't know how to solve. I'm thinking I'll have a 4ish foot section that can just be lifted straight out so when I do need to, I can get in the room.

I'm busy Tuesday and Friday. Friday night I'm hitting up the Strokes concert over at the Aragon ballroom. That should be a lot of fun. Time to wear my " how to rock " shirt from threadless. Seriously, half my clothing is from that company.

But if I get a groove going and some peons maybe, I'm hoping I'll have everything ready by Friday. Also foil tape from Home Depot ... WOW is that stuff expensive. I'm thinking maybe aluminum foil and some glue. This is something that can be systematically added in I believe. I really want to just get the floor going. I think I'm going to have to move out everything from the living room and do it in one major push.

I preordered my Lego Mindstorm NXT system even though they didn't want me to be part of the beta team. Lucky my love for lego let me get over this heart breaking realization they don't like me as much. NO PONY FOR YOU LEGO, you only get a go-kart.

I'll probly whip up a .Net thing for this too like I did way way way way way back with the orginal lego mindstorm ( I have no clue where this application is, but if you do a google for clint rutkas lego , you'll see references to this application).

I also splurged and got myself the new crane.

Yes, I'm a kid. I'm proud of this fact.

* the title is from Slashdot from April Fools Day