Katy managed to pick up some IR LEDs from Maplin when she was home over the weekend for me. After successfully blowing up two of the few seven I had I succeeded in creating an ‘IR pen’ - i.e: an empty biro with an LED and a resistor soldered together inside.
Now I have a constant, non-flashing, IR source (but still without my second stepper motor) I can start building the second part of my project - the pan/tilt mount. Using the processing code I developed in my Zoom Phase (a hacked apart IDEO project, this one in fact) I made a make-shift pan rig. I mounted a HandyCam and the WiiMote to the top - professionally with sellotape - and recorded a Point of View video of how it looks. The result is somewhat jerky but it’s definite proof that the system can work (and in fact only needs a bit of dampening). Yay.
Below is a photograph of the setup (minus a WiiMote, well, it’s there but not attached as I’d dismantled it all to downlaod the video from the camera before I thought to photograph it - silly me).
I’m still not entirely sure how I’m going to build the entire pan/tilt unit nor am I sure if the motors will be strong enough. I may be spending a day in the Product Design studios tomorrow…
