{"id":20957,"date":"2019-03-18T13:49:20","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T05:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"\/blog\/?p=20957"},"modified":"2019-03-18T13:49:22","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T05:49:22","slug":"the-maker-pro-you-should-know-meet-stanley-from-malaysia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seeedstudio.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/18\/the-maker-pro-you-should-know-meet-stanley-from-malaysia\/","title":{"rendered":"The Maker Pro You Should Know – Meet Stanley from Malaysia!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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For those of you who have been to Maker Faire Shenzhen or the Penang Mini Maker Faire in 2016, you may have met Stanley Seow, an Internet of Things consultant by profession, embedded hardware designer, electronics maker and a mentor at Hackathons. But if you haven\u2019t, fret not, because we here at Seeed Fusion had the honor of catching up with him!<\/p>\n

Most of Stanley\u2019s work revolves around designing hardware solutions (PCBs) for IoT solutions and programming the brains of large interactive art installations. Throughout his journey as a maker, Stanley has been utilizing one of Seeed\u2019s most popular services, the Seeed Fusion PCB service<\/u><\/a>, a one-stop manufacturing service for fabricating PCBs. Like many Seeed Fusion services, you can get complete quotes up front in seconds and monitor your order online. Over the years, Stanley has completed a slew of projects that are nothing short of amazing.<\/p>\n

We thought we’d take the time to share some of the best with you:<\/p>\n\n\n

1. The Bolt, for iLight Festival @ Marina Bay, Singapore<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Bolt with the Marina Bay Sands in the background<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Who says art and science have to be mutually exclusive? By specializing in incorporating electronics into art, Stanley has proven to us time and again that it is possible to marry technology and art, creating many extravagant and flashy projects. Of all the projects that he has ever completed, the Bolt was his best and toughest project yet. Engaged by Malaysian artist-architect Jun Ong, Stanley has helped bring the Bolt to life for the 2016 iLight Marina Bay Festival event in Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Stanley demonstrates that we don\u2019t necessarily need to have Thor\u2019s hammer to summon lightning bolts from our fingertips<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

When a button on the massive art installation is pressed, sequences of lightning bolts are simulated, creating a beautiful web of lights against the night sky. Standing at a height of 3m and a width of 6m in an octagon shape, the Bolt stole the show every night during the event, emerging as one of the most popular structures for the whole month of March in 2016!<\/p>\n

Cool, isn\u2019t it? But behind its blinky exterior lies months of hard work. After understanding the requirements of the art installation from the artists, Stanley began exploring ways to power the LED strips. After weeks of searching, he finally settled on using the Inter-Integrated Circuit (l2C) protocol. To control the lighting sequences on the LED strips that line the structure, all the coding was centralized on an l2C master Arduino which is used to command 8 passive I2C slaves. The idea was to use the delay() to turn the LED strips on and off.<\/p>\n

Before constructing the actual structure, architecture students from Taylors helped to build a small scale prototype of the Bolt out of lollipop sticks and lots of hot glue.<\/p>\n\n\n

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8 l2C slaves hooked up to the model structure<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Next, to drive around 80 pieces of 1m LED Strips, about 80 MOSFETs were used. Once that was done, Stanley migrated the design onto custom designed PCBs, as he found soldering 12 LED strips to 8 l2C slaves on a perfboard much too tedious.<\/p>\n

Using the popular Autodesk Eagle PCB design software, Stanley created the schematics diagram and board layout for the 12 MOSFETs driven by 12 pins of the Arduino Nano. Usually, Stanley would take weeks to correct errors from his design before sending them to production. Unfortunately, the project was on a tight schedule and he sent it for manufacturing after only 3 revisions within 2 days. With time running out, he decided to engage his usual partner in PCB manufacturing for quick turnaround and quality service.<\/p>\n

 <\/i><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI had a lot of special requirements and the Fusion team, especially Carmen and Ivy, were very accommodating to meet my requirements. Sometimes, when I make some mistakes on the PCB, the Fusion team will also feedback to me on my mistakes instead of just making PCBs with errors. I find that they are a very customer focused team.\u201d<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/i><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that attracted me to Seeed Fusion was because they did not charge \u201cextra fees\u201d for solder mask of other colors that are not green, and I\u2019ve never made any green solder mask. The Gerber viewer was also very helpful as it allows me to preview my design before I submit them.\u201d<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n

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    Breadboard set-up<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>
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    Homemade prototype PCBs<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n

    After fixing many circuit errors on the PCB, he finally hooked it up to the prototype for testing, and the model looked exactly like how it would at night with the LEDs turned on.<\/p>\n

    Stanley wasn\u2019t lying when he told us that the Bolt was his most complex project. He and his team essentially did the project twice, once on the model and another time on the actual art installation.<\/p>\n\n\n

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    The Bolt at APW Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

    After the Bolt\u2019s short one-month stay at the iLight Festival, it returned back home to Malaysia in APW Bangsar where it currently stands today. Although the buttons have been removed and the lightning sequences now run automatically, new sequences have since been added to the Bolt. So, if you happen to drop by Kuala Lumpur, do consider dropping by this entertainment hub to see this beauty!<\/p>\n\n\n

    2. The Quantum Laser @ The ArtScience Museum, S<\/strong>ingapore<\/strong><\/g><\/h2>\n\n\n

    Aside from the Bolt, The Quantum Laser is another art installation that Stanley has made. Joining hands with artist Jun Ong once again, Stanley designed and built this laser art installation for \u201cRichard Feynman\u2019s Curious Life exhibition\u201d as one of the three art pieces for the ArtScience Museum in Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n

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    The Quantum Laser and the Centerpiece<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

    Why the name \u201cquantum\u201d laser? That is because the working principle of this art installation lies in quantum physics. The moving mirror pieces have to be positioned accurately in order to reflect the laser to multiple paths.<\/p>\n

    The art installation consists of a centerpiece with servos. 3 lasers are positioned at different angles from each other, controlled by three relays to produce different paths. Another two relays are used to turn a smoke machine on and off so the smoke is dispensed at regular intervals. Stanley also connected the entire setup to the Internet via VPN, so that he can remotely change any Arduino codes in the future.<\/p>\n

    See the Quantum Laser in action here:<\/p>\n\n\n

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