Unterkaerntner Nachrichten Artikel:

Die Maturanten der HTL Wolfsberg, Bernhard Heine und Markus Dohr, haben sich in ihrer Diplomarbeit mit dem Thema Stroboskop-Phänomene auseinandergesetzt und ein Lichtblitzgerät gebaut, mit dem man Tropfen „einfrieren“ kann. Dieser so genannte „Piddler“ ist seit einiger Zeit in North Carolina (USA) im Hickory Museum oft Art zu bestaunen.

Bernhard Heine und Markus Dohr haben es sich zur Aufgabe gemacht, einen so genannten „Piddler“ zu bauen, wobei der eine den elektrotechnischen Teil übernahm und der andere für die Software verantwortlich war.

Die Diplomarbeit der beiden begleiteten die HTL-Professoren DI Dr. Helmut Hebenstreit und Dipl.-Päd. Ing. Harald Weilguni. Heine und Dohr erhielten aber auch Unterstützung aus Übersee: DI Daniel Pressl war mit den beiden Maturanten ständig in E-Mail-Kontakt und gab ihnen wertvolle Tipps, die zum Gelingen des Projektes beitrugen.

Noch bevor die in Englisch verfasste Diplomarbeit von Bernhard Heine und Markus Dohr fertiggeschrieben war, hatte ihre Maturaarbeit bereits einen interessanten Verwendungszweck: Daniel Pressl machte es nämlich möglich, dass die HTL-Schüler den von ihnen entwickelten „Piddler“ im Hickory Museum of Art ausstellen dürfen. Mit ihrem Stroboskop (Lichtblitzgerät) und den anderen Hard- und Softwareteilen im Gepäck flogen die beiden im heurigen Frühjahr über Einladung von DI Pressl nach Boston, wo sie am MIT-Campus ihren „Piddler“ zusammenbauten. Diesen brachten sie anschließend in einer zwölfstündigen Jeep-Fahrt ins Hickory Museum of Art (North Carolina).

Die Wolfsberger HTL-Schüler waren dort bei der offiziellen Eröffnung der Hochgeschwindigkeitsfotografie-Ausstellung anwesend und stellten gemeinsam mit DI Pressl ihr Stroboskop-Objekt vor, mit dem ein Wasserstrahl durch Lichtblitze optisch in Tropfen zerlegt werden kann. Der „Piddler“ ist im Hickory-Museum ebenso ein vielbeachtetes Ausstellungsstück, wie Hochgeschwindigkeitsfotos, die DI Daniel Pressl zur Verfügung gestellt hat. Zehn Tage lang waren Bernhard Heine und Markus Dohr in den USA, ehe sie wieder in ihre Heimat zurückkehrten und fleißig für die Matura lernten, die sie mittlerweile erfolgreich hinter sich gebracht haben.

Unterkaerntner Nachrichten

In the next weeks my students and I will show you, how to build your own Multi-Flash. Here, a great example of a multi-flash photograph (Harold E. Edgerton):

Tennis Player

The famous "Piddler" also relies on a built-in strobe!

STROBE KIT – Intro

Components:

· Printer board

· 3 potentiometers

· 1 LCD

· 1 switch

· 1 taster

· 1 power connector

All these things are located in a black case. Furthermore you need at least one LED-panel and of course a power supply.

LCD: displays the time between the flashes.

1: Potentiometer, which allows you to change the display brightness.

2: Potentiometer, which allows you to change the length of each flash (duty cycle).

3: Potentiometer, which allows you to change the time between the flashes.

LED PANELS

Each LED-Panel consists of ten LEDs. You can connect a maximum of four LED-Panels.

More to come in the following weeks!

The Strobe-Kit project is a collaboration between 2fast4u (iPressl) and the HTL Wolfsberg.

What a day it was, yesterday!

The opening of the High-Speed Photography exhibition in North Carolina certainly was an event!

(Photo Courtesy of Martin Waugh).

Many of the big names in this art were visiting the opening:

Martin Waugh, who was an exhibitor at 2fast4u in April 2007, but who I never met in person and finally got to meet yesterday (Photo Courtesy of Ted Kinsman).

Roy Dunn (Photo Courtesy of Martin Waugh),
who seems to be the world’s best photographer of Hummingbirds in flight.

Loren Winters (Photo Courtesy of Ted Kinsman), who again showed some of his students most amazing works and discoveries!

Bob Edgerton, who brought many of his family members to the opening and gave a marvelous talk again about the life and work of his father.

Gus Kayafas, who I also never met in person before and who told most amazing stories about his work as the printer of Harold Edgerton.

Bob Edgerton and Ted Kinsman (Photo Courtesy of Ted Kinsman).

Andrew Davidhazy could unfortunately not come in person, but his prints were quite astonishing to look at!

Here some more pictures of our Piddler and the opening:

Our Piddler from the back! We are working on a How to Build your OWN Strobotac section on our website right now.

The proud team! (from left to right: Bernhard Heine, Daniel Pressl, Markus Dohr)

Bob preparing his talk in the planetarium of the Science Center, where we would all present two to five of our photographs and give a panel discussion for the audience.

The High-Speed Photography Exhibition in Hickory, NC made this photograph possible! Thank you!

We are off to North Carolina to present the piddler to the Hickory Museum of Art for the opening of their High-Speed Photography exhibition (details will follow).

We are so proud!

The Team (from left to right: Bernhard Heine, DI Daniel Pressl and Markus Dohr).

Links:

2fast4u
HTL Wolfsberg
Piddler

WHAT’S BEHIND THE BALLOON BOX PROJECT??

Enter the CUBE

The person has to stand on the marked point on the floor and switches off the light with his foot. After a few seconds, a lamp inside shows, that the balloon can be punctured now. The person has to puncture the balloon within 4 seconds. When the „info-light“ is on, the shutter of the camera opens, when the „info-light“ is off, the shutter closes.

The person now punctures the balloon, which sound sets of the sound-trigger, sending a signal to the flash, which illuminates the scene for a split-second!

After the shutter is closed, the lights in the balloon box goes on and the taken photograph appears on the computer screen, on the outside of the balloon box. This photograph will be saved immediately to the data-base. Now, the user can decide to take another high-speed photograph or email or print the picture for him/her to keep!

Gerhard Seifried, Mayor of Wolfsberg in Austria

Criteria to be fulfilled

• Picture has to be taken
  
  
  • the noise releases the flash
  • the picture will be saved in the data base

• finish software
  
  
  • restricted surroundings
  • people cannot work outside the software

Desired criteria

• light quality
• picture quality
• all taken pictures will be shown as a screen saver

Conveniences

PCIMCA Card

Visual Studio C# 2003

Windows XP SP2

Internet Explorer

Internet Connection

Balloon Box Computer:

We have to write all the software for the project and here is a little base plan of the functionalities:

Person goes to the computer terminal.

He/She sees the starting screen.

Presses on the Button and arrives at the log-in menu.

The person enters their data:

First name, surname , e-mail address are entered

After pressing the Submit-button, a video is playing.

It will explain the person the handling inside the box.

“Stay on the red dot on the ground…”

“… if the blue light switch on, please puncture the balloon…”

“Smile in the camera and say “cheese”…”

After the explanation the person goes into the box and takes the photo. Now the pictures is taken (see Enter the CUBE*).

The person walks out of the box and back to the terminal.

On the screen the person can see the picture.

Now the person can choose:

print the picture

send it to me per e-mail

take picture once again

At the end, the person returns to the start screen.

About the makers of the Balloon-Box

Advisor Professor Helmut Hebenstreit

Team 2fast4u HTL
v.li.n.re.: Co-Advisor DI Daniel Pressl, Bernhard Heine und Markus Dohr (Projekt Piddler), Andreas Maier und Stefan Leopold (Projekt Balloon-Box)

Snow Pictures made by Microscope

Finally I find time to report: It was good to visit the HTL Wolfsberg again, in January, during my last stay in Austria. I gave a presentation about my current work with my company iPressl and about my PhD research at MIT:

I spoke about my Social Networking Site for Austria: www.redwired.org

the project MIT-Austria,

2fast4u, which I collaborated on with the HTL and am now co-advising two thesis papers of four HTL students:

Left to Right: Daniel Pressl, Bernhard Heine (Piddler), Markus Dohr (Piddler), Andreas Maier and Leopold Stefan

My kids project in collaboration with KIMEKI: CINEATRIX.

The NASA Spaceelevator Project:

my US Army project called Super Insulation,

and my PhD thesis work on Electromagnetic Welding.

Furthermore, my two colleagues Andreas Maier and Bernhard Heine, who visited me at MIT, last year in the fall, gave a talk about their trip and findings working with me on some new high speed photography images:

One of our beautiful COKE! drop pictures:

Our talks were very successful and I always enjoy the technical and friendly atmosphere at the HTL Wolfsberg.

Left to Right: Helmut Hebenstreit (advisor of the thesis papers), Daniel Pressl, Johann Persoglia (Head of the HTl Wolfsberg), Bernhard Heine and Andreas Maier

Hello ,
If you want to know something about the adapters of the project “Piddler” (HTL- Wolfsberg)
look at the following lines…

Hi, 
my name is Bernhard and I am 19 years old.
I come from Wolfsberg, its a small town in Austria.
At the moment i attend the HTL-Wolfsberg. 
Hobbies: playing computer, going out, cycling, drawing … 

———————————————————

Hello,
my name is Markus Dohr and I am 18 years old.
I live in a small village near Wolfsberg. I have been attending
the  HTL (main focus: engineering) since 2003, too.
Hobbies: playing soccer, skiing, ….

Hopefully you are interested in our work - we are trying to post our progresses regularly.

nice greetings,
Markus and Bernhard

Diese Videos wurden am MIT, in Zusammenarbeit mit der HTL Wolfsberg aufgenommen:

More infos to 2fast4u at http://www.redwired.org/2fast4u !!!!

Im Moment, findet auch eine weitere Zusammenarbeit zwischen mir und vier HTL Schuelern statt: Andreas Maier, Bernhard Heine, Markus Dohr und Stefan Leopold arbeiten fleissig an ihren Diplomarbeiten, die von mir mitbetreut werden. Es wird sich dabei um zwei Objekte handeln die ihren Platz im Lavanttalhaus in Wolfsberg finden werden:

Die Ballon Box und der Piddler (siehe post vom 26.12.2007)!

Greetings,
2fast4u team

hello everyone!

First of all: Maybe the word Piddler puts up the question, what is that?
If you want to know look at the following page

Here is a short list, which contains the tasks of the school- project “Piddler” :
(adapters: Dohr Markus, Heine Bernhard)

1. The main task is to build a stroboscope. This will be realized by programming a microcontroller (with C),
which actuates LEDs.
Besides the frequency should be displayed on an LCD.
The flash power and the frequency will be varied with a potentiometer.

2. Another important task is the ciruit design. According to point 1 we are trying to
work with a 24V power-supply (and an additional power-supply for the necessary pumps).
This means that there are no special safety measures to consider.

3. Construction: for the frame we are using defined tread elements from the company Bosch.

4. Two pumps are designated, which are in charge of the watercircuit.

All this should happen in the following weeks. We have planned to finish the work at the project in the first week of March.

Deadlines:
Programming: 15th of January
circuit design: 30th of January
Construction: 15th of February
Assembly: till March

best wishes,
Markus Dohr
Bernhard Heine (more info about us)