[Noisebridge-discuss] Need clever LAST-MINUTE hack to generate fog/steam puffs on demand

[Aaron Muszalski]

Okay Noisebridgers -

Feeling all flush from the accolades rightfully laden upon ye by
Elinor Mills' excellent CNET article? http://tr.im/GelB

Than it's once again time to prove your mettle! Your lightning genius,
your engineering prowess!

Here's the task:

As many of you know, David Fine, Jonathan Moore and myself are
creating a sculpture to be exhibited at Roboexotica - a festival of
cocktail robots - in Vienna this week. The sculpture (working title
"The Miraculous Robo-Christ Stigmatatron") takes the form of a 4'x8'
crucifix upon which is hung a lifesize anthropomorphic robot - the
Robo-Christ - who, due to a clever plumbing trick, will be able to
MIRACULOUSLY convert water into wine.

This project has taken on an increasingly collaborative nature, with
many Noisebridgers lending their time and skills to bring it into
existence. So much so that it's really become more of a Noisebridge
artwork than any single person. (And we'll be crediting NB and all of
the contributors in Vienna.)

HERE'S WHAT WE NEED NOW

A CIRCUIT / DEVICE THAT CAN GENERATE  STEAM, FOG or SMOKE either when
TRIGGERED MANUALLY (or automatically when water is poured into the
sculpture) and a STEADY or PULSING LIGHT, to simulate/suggest the
action of a FURNACE / BOILER.

Why?

Last night a design for the robot's pelvis emerged that resembled an
old-fashioned furnace grate. The current plan is to place a red or
orange gel behind this grating, and light it from within so as to
suggest embers or a faint fiery glow.

Currently nothing special happens when the water-into-wine conversion
occurs, being that it's a simple displacement trick, achieved with
plumbing.

We realized that it would be AWESOME if, when "working" to convert the
water into wine, our furnace light glowed brighter, or pulsed a bit,
and some steam emerged from an output pipe or from the robot's joints.

BUT HERE'S THE CATCH: I fly to Vienna tomorrow evening. So any such
circuit would need to be completed tonight. Or at the latest, tomorrow
morning.

Obviously this is not a mission-critical feature. But it is MISSION AWESOME.

My first idea was to just obtain a small fog machine (I know at least
two people who own them) wedge it inside our huge wooden crucifix, and
then just wire a longer cord to its momentary switch (some models have
such things to generate small bursts of fog).  But even this simple
idea will take some non-zero amount of time to execute, and I am
already WAY behind schedule. That is why

WE'RE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO BRING THE CIRCUIT HACKING AWESOME!

Email me if you want to kick some robot-art ASS in Vienna in the name
of Noisebridge.


- Slim




ps. We're also still looking for any assistance in finishing the robot
sculpture itself. This evening (Monday) we will be finishing off final
construction and detailing, and moving on to painting. Email me, or
just come by. (Follow me on twitter http://www.twitter.com/sfslim for
updates on when we'll be there.)