Hey people! I’ve decided to start a new feature called “In English, please”. It’s where I attempt to translate scientific articles into layman’s terms… because despite all of the jargon, some of it is pretty interesting, even to you non-audiophiles out there.
Hey y’all!
Do you like my faux Arizona accent?
I’m officially open for business! I registered my DBA (Doing Business As) and can now rock the Positronic Bliss name! If you need recording, mixing, mastering, or restoration services… hit me up at BlytheRocks [at] gmail.com.
I hope everyone is well, has indulged in my recent posts of musical posts, and is enjoying spring weather!!
Keep up with you soon, much love,
Blythe
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One of my favorite songs…. ever.
A beautiful serenade of love between the sexes…. unconventional, but full of love and hope: “We have arrived too late to play the bleeding heart show….”
Hold on, Hold on
Hold on, ladies and gents… I’m still here! There is a more in depth post coming soon. However, this is what Miss Blythe has been listening to for the past.. oh? Five months. Enjoy.
Sally Ride
Today the first idol of my life passed away from pancreatic cancer. I remember checking out books at the public library when I was a kid… and I was only allowed five at a time. (What do you mean only five? Egypt? The Titanic? Equestrian Studies? Marine Biology? Astronomy? Mayans? Native Americans? How the hell am I supposed to choose between all of the things in the world to learn?!)
After I got over the initial shock of how little I was allowed to read in a short burst, my habit fell into checking out many large books with pictures of people floating in the middle of rooms. These rooms were inside space shuttles, but in the mind of a kid, they were a tangible place that I could visit someday.
In first grade, I was given an assignment: Be someone in history, dress up as them and tell your story. I knew exactly who I wanted to be… it was the only girl of the pictures of people in space: Sally Ride.
Thus the search began in thrift stores… searching for a denim jumpsuit that would emulate the casual uniforms worn by NASA astronauts (which was a superior material, but living in Arizona at the time, denim was tangible and similar in color). In the end, the outfit consisted of an iron-on American flag, and Sharpie with the name ‘Ride’ on the left side.
As a 7 year old, I gave a very simple speech on how Sally was the first American woman in space, and a brief biography of how she was from California and got a degree from Stanford in physics. My denim outfit looked pretty damn sharp.
As I went through my life and grew more interested in engineering and astronomy on the side, I would get a warm feeling in my heart when I heard about Sally Ride trying to deliver science, engineering, tech, and math to young women through Sally Ride Science. She certainly brought it to me.
I am now a woman with a degree in audio engineering, and astronomy is my second passion. I would love to be an astronaut… but if that time has passed, I would love to influence women to explore career paths in math, science, and engineering.
Sally showed me that I can do anything, and I want to do my part to carry on her legacy.
Thank you Sally, for being an inspiration to me from an early age. You gave me strength in knowing that all of the damn physics equations I had to do weren’t just making up symbols. More importantly, that women can do everything a guy can do, no matter what.
RIP Sally Kristen Ride. Your partner Tam was not a force to be reckoned with either.
Ladies, the world/universe is full of opportunity.
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Graduation and Purple Electrical Tape
Wow, I’ve been awful about posting for a few months. To be fair though, it’s because I was finishing up my degree, and I was successful! I have been enjoying my time off… mostly catching up on sleep, and getting started on DSP topics that I thoroughly enjoy studying. I’ve starting delving into this bad boy, and I can’t wait to learn more about automated speech recognition!
So what happened with the robot and the laser harp? They were both completed successfully!! The visual documentation is as follows:
Robot
Ready to do some minor solder work and wiring
Attaching the main leads to the motor box, while trying to not to break the connectors off of the motor (hence the reinforcement of purple electrical tape).
With the frame attached….
Ready to cut off a thousand plastic gears….
And I got to excited to take pictures in between, but she’s done!!!
And last but not least… the laser harp!
This was what Wednesday nights looked like for three months….
The galvanometer with the power supply… there’s that helpful purple electrical tape again!
Making adjustments to the laser….
Action shot after finally getting the laser to split into eight even beams to form an octave….
The case, and the finished product underneath!
In case you missed it in the last post, you can see the laser harp in action here. The video wasn’t working during our presentation to the school, but other than some minor note adjustments, this is how it worked. The harp is now available for students to check out and play in the Cogswell Polytechnical College AV lab.
So what’s next? I’m looking to delve into audio DSP, and speech recognition technology. I’ll post as things come up, and I can’t wait to move forward in my career!
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Laser Harp
So after months (and months and months) of planning and working on this project, we have a functioning prototype.
Along with some friends, we have managed to recreate Stephen Hobley’s laser harp. What you are seeing below is a laser that is being split into eight beams by a galvanometer. When a beam is interrupted, a Wiimote is sending that data to MIDI Ox (a program that you can download from Stephen’s site), which interprets it as MIDI data and links it to its own piano sound bank.
We are still working on a few things, but for all intensive purposes, it’s functional:
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