Guy Marsden
Artwork Engineering

Jim Jenkins
February 2002
"Deux Carrottes Heureuses"
(Two Happy Carrots)

Exhibited at:
Museum Of Neon Art
Lost & Found: A Group Exhibit of Neon and Kinetic Art"
August 28, 2002-March 2, 2003

Jim Jenkin's kinetic art is often playful and wacky,  this one is
definitely one of the sillier ones.   When you press the red button
below the globe, the globe spins, and the carrots dance over it
to the sound of a whistled tune.  See a QuickTime movie(169K) of it in action!
(download the QuickTime player here)

Jim asked me to build him a sound chip playback device that would
play the whistled tune and also control the power to an AC gearmotor.
The power to the motor had to be timed quite accurately
so that the motor would shut off when the sound ends.

Jim sent me his recorded sound on an audio CD that he had made
of his recorded whistling, and I recorded it onto an ISD audio chip.

Timing a motor is a simple programming task using a cheap PIC
microcontroller chip.  PIC chips have a timing resolution of less
than 1/10000 second, and Jim only really needed 1/2 second accuracy.

I built a kit of parts that Jim could easily assemble into his mechanical
design.  The parts (below) consist of the power transformer
on the left, speaker and electronics in the center, and the
motor control relay on the right, with the red start button below it.

Jim built these parts into the metal box below the globe.

Here's a closer view of Jim's brilliant piece of mechanical engineering:

Click here to see a short Quicktime movie of the globe spinning
with carrots dancing over them.

Jim teaches art at Cal State Fullerton in California,
contact him at: jjenkins@fullerton.edu

See more of Jim's work on his web site at:
http://www.jimjenkins.net

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