Knitting machine has arrived and is in great working order!

Now I've got to make a trip to the Hobby Lobby and pick up some vessels for my dye.  Also get the motors working with the crank.

knitting machine ordered

I've ordered my knitting machine.  It's a plastic mattel one from 1974.  This sounds terrible, but generally, the older ones are a bit more durable, plus it was only 15 dollars, including shipping, so you can't beat that.  Especially when my other options were closer to 500.

It should be here sometime this week.  I still need to order the stepper motors and go explore home depot/hobby lobby for the setup.

final project schedule

Here is a tentative schedule for my final project

Checkpoints:

April 2nd - have knitting machine ordered and hopefully delivered, along with other parts (motors, etc)

April 9th -  have motor turning the knitting machine and knitting succesfully

April 16th -  have motors that move dye pots set up and working, connected to buttons
 
April 23rd - have everything done!!!

concept for final project

final project

Okay, so knitting machines (even non computerized ones) are a-okay for this project.  I did some googling, and ebay turned up with a few around 100 bucks.  I might be able to find a non-functioning (i.e. motor or computer parts are broken) one for less if I'm lucky.  Either way this cost isn't TOO prohibitive for me.  I also found this video of another wind powered one.





This shows how it works much better than the other one.  I still need to think of exactly how it will be powered, but I do know that I want it interactive.  Perhaps I'll just have it powered by the number of people who walk by (every person is a row) or something like that.  I need to brainstorm really bad for this, but my other class has kind of taken over my life :(.

Motors!

For this project we have to have use two motors.  Last week I was really inspired (I guess inspired sounds a little hokey, maybe amused?  Intrigued?  Interested?) by Laura's project (the evil hallway).  I thought it sounded like a lot of fun to go down, actually.  So, for this project I'm taking the idea of an environment that doesn't like you and translating it to a blonde's worst enemy.  Stairs.  Specifically, stairs that trip you as you're going up.  Finally!!  Everyone will understand what it's like to be me!!

*Ahem*

So yea, there will be a motor connected to each step in a staircase that slides it up and down randomly.  In addition, there will be a motor attached to the handrail that moves it and makes it wiggle.

Final project ideas

For my final project I want to create a knitting machine that knits as a person does something.  This is a wind powered knitting machine, which I think is kind of beautiful, but unfortunately it doesn't use any computers, so something like that would be a no go for this class.

There  have also been people who have "hacked" knitting machines to knit 8-bit patterns and pictures.  I don't find that all too interesting and do not own a knitting machine anyway so there wouldn't be much point in trying to do that.

A third thing that people have done is have knitting machines that work based on the mechanical process of something else, such as a clock or rocking chair.  The clock is interesting, but the idea has both been done before and who wants to wait a year for a scarf?  The rocking chair, like the wind powered machine doesn't involve computers so it too is a no go.

I think I need to find something to say about time and the passage of it if I want to think of something to make involving a knitting machine.