April 26, 2011

More on our Red Bull Creation entry

From Scott:

So there are a couple things happening with our project and it has kinda morphed a bit from its original concept. We had originally put together our design to be a modern twist on shadow theater, thus reinventing the MacPlus as the housing and shadow theater. We also added one more in building this as we reinvented a CRT monitor.

But now it is not only that it is its own party in a box. The screen is our main main win, to create the shadows we had to build our own screen. So to crate something to cast the a shadow and create a proper image we reinvented the concept of the CRT monitor. We built our own image/graphics driver with the aurduino, created a custom screen and filter projector sled that uses an LCD. This is then cast on a laminated screen. The sound is made from several recycled portable speakers and integrates the original speaker that was in the mac to add that classic sound touch and feel.

The idea is that the unit loops a series of scenes that recreate a feeling of watching a shadow puppet theater show via 8bit. And since building it it has become a really cool mobile 8bit party machine, the retro looking screen really makes it look like it should be in a 70's future space movie.

Were really excited by what we built and after the contest judging is complete were going to stop building on what we made. Its just too much fun!

Future mods that didn't get added due to time:
- Aurduino to andrioid interface for the music jukebox control
- upgrading the screen projector to RGB
- External audio / video input jacks