Silver City, N.M.- The Department of Expressive Arts hosted the New Media Festival last Thursday and Friday here at Western New Mexico Univeristy. Everything Wearable Technology Workshop was one of the event that was held Friday night as Peter Bill, Assistant Professor New Media, invited Barry Moon and Jessica Rajko to the McCray workshop to demonstrate how to make a “Light Therman Blinky Thing”.
The use of this device is to make a noise from the speaker that is controlled from the LED lights.
“This Light Therman Blinky Thing is to just impress your friends and look really cool”, said Barry Moon who was the one who led the event.
This device does not take long if you have the right equipment and technology which Moon, who teaches digital graphic technologies at ASU, provided for the participants: Tinsey LC, iron, souder, photo resisters, LEDs, and a battery.
Before getting to work, Barry and Jessica gave the participants a wire and iron to help them practice with the solder. Solder is “a mixture of metals that is melted and used to join metal parts together.”
Once they mastered soldering, the project finally began.
Frist, you take the photo resisters and insert them into the tiny holes of the Tinsey LC. Then solder them together so it won’t fall out.
Second, take the LEDs (one green, the other red) and fit it into the Tinsey LC. Again solder them together.
Next you want to connect the speaker
And the battery
into the Tinsey LC.
When this was all done, we connect it to Barry’s laptop so he can program it to work.
In no time, the participants finished the device and had fun with the noises. They also enjoyed the fact that they were able to keep the device which they made from scratch.
The event turned out to be a great experience for the participants, especially for Marissa Castro and Victoria Contor who were in attendance. Both are taking art classes from Peter Bill and learned about the event through him.
Marissa said “She liked the event because of the process of making the device.”
While Victoria said “She liked the event because she able to make the device on her own.”
The New Media Festival finished its last event later that night in Parotti Building called the New Media Performance.
