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SWARM

Kinetic art: autonomous spherical robots exhibiting complex motion


Recent Posts

  • Burning Man Update
  • Coachella 2008
  • Yuri’s Night Rocked
  • What is SWARM?
  • Is it Live or Blender?

Blogroll

  • Kineticworld
  • Lady Ada’s Rants
  • Suicide Bots
  • SWARM Homepage
  • SWARM wiki
  • The Flaming Lotus Girls
  • The Rotor Show on blip.tv
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Archives

  • May 2008 (2)
  • April 2008 (2)
  • March 2008 (3)
  • January 2008 (1)
  • November 2007 (4)
  • October 2007 (3)
  • September 2007 (3)
  • August 2007 (4)
  • July 2007 (4)
  • June 2007 (7)
  • May 2007 (13)
  • April 2007 (4)
  • March 2007 (3)

Resistance is futile…

November 9th, 2007 by Jonathan

Come join the SWARMies. No really, it’s just a mailing list to keep you up-to-date with SWARM performances and parties.
Sign up here: http://orbswarm.com/swarmies.php

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SWARM at the FLG Fundraiser

November 9th, 2007 by Jonathan

A little too early to confirm, but there are rumors of a serendipitous SWARM at the Flaming Lotus Girls fundraiser. Should be a great time for a good cause, so see you there!
Flaming Lotus Girls fundraiser

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SWARM VIDA 10.0 Video

October 21st, 2007 by Lee

We created and submitted a video for the VIDA 10.0 international competition.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

VIDA 10.0 is an international competition created to reward excellence in artistic creativity in the fields of Artificial Life and related disciplines, such as robotics and Artiftcial Intelligence.We are looking for artistic projects that address the interaction between “synthetic” and “organic” life”.

In previous years prizes have been awarded to artistic projects using autonomous robots, avatars, recursive chaotic algorithms, knowbots, cellular automata, computer viruses, virtual ecologies that evolve with user participation, and works that highlight the social side of Artificial Life.

The video is available on Youtube as well. http://youtube.com/watch?v=pZpcGwWfRBE

A high quality version can be downloaded here (mpeg4, 1kbps, 74megabytes)

A (0.5 gb) DVD quality version of this video is also available for the asking.

Posted in Progress | 1 Comment

A few pictures from Decompression

October 16th, 2007 by Jonathan

I linked them back to the Flickr pages from whence they came… go there to see more

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SWARM “Ignites” at the DNA Lounge

October 16th, 2007 by Jonathan

So we’re all set to give a short presentation at Ignite SF on Tuesday 10/16 at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco. It looks like it will be something like Dorkbot on meth: presenters are limited to 5 minute talks and 15 seconds per slide. As you might expect of something organized by O’Reilly, a lot of the cool kids will be there. Come and join them, oh and us too!

Details here.

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We’re all set for Decompression

September 24th, 2007 by Jonathan

A lot of folks managed to miss SWARM out on the playa. (We understand — it’s not like there wasn’t anything else to distract you.) If that’s the case, or even if it wasn’t, here’s a chance to get up close and personal with our spheres at their first public appearance in the Bay Area.

We’ll be at the 8th annual SF Decompression HEAT THE STREET FaIRE. Some of our intrepid pedalheads will be riding the Mothership all the way from Hunter’s Point and back so respect! to them.

We don’t have our exact placement yet, but we’ll let you know as soon as we do. Come out and decompress!

Details: Sunday, October 7, 2007
Noon SHARP till 12 am
Public Entrance: 19th & Minnesota
(On Indiana Street between Mariposa and 22nd, SF)
$10 donation in Black Rock Couture/Costume; $20 in streetwear
All ages outdoors; kids under 12 are free!

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SWARM on current.tv

September 24th, 2007 by Jonathan

The fine folks from current.tv spent a lot of time with us, both before the desert and on the playa. They took some great footage — watch a 3-minute version here:

http://www.current.tv/pods/tvfreeburningman/PD07162

They did a spectacular job of capturing what it felt like on the playa and we thank them!

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Valley Wag loves us!

September 9th, 2007 by Michael

 ”One of the neatest things I have seen in the self-expressive miasma that is Burning Man, the countercultural arts festival here in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, has been The Orb Swarm, a group of spherical robots designed to roll around the playa and interact with participants with lights, motion and sound.”

http://valleywag.com/tech/burning-man/the-orb-swarm-rules-the-night-295729.php

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Coverage on KGO 7 News

August 20th, 2007 by Michael

Here’s the text blurb from a short video piece that ran in the local news last night-

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=drive_to_discover&id=5584601

View a local archive.

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Path Smoother

August 9th, 2007 by Lee

pastedgraphic.pngi’ve made progress on the path smoother.  it takes a path made from a few points and converts it into a smoothed path (using cubic curves) and waypoints along that smoothed path with times and velocities associated with the waypoints.  the waypoints are all the same distance from each other in time.  the roundedness of the curves is adjustable as itpastedgraphic1.png the acceleration profile.  in some cases the path comes up a little short - due to inaccuracies in guessing when to start slowing down.  in any case good enough for now.  my test images are kinda fun so i thought i’d pass those along.

-trebor

a good one.

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