in the studio

In addition to all the work with the garden, I've been spending a lot of time in the studio getting things ready for upcoming shows in San Jose and Vancouver. There's lots to do. With the final drop off of crate contents to be prepared for shipping to San Jose, I shifted from work on wind coil sound flow to the preparation of devices for the Shadow Machine in Vancouver.





I finally wired up this hacked mobility scooter so it can be controlled by remote control. This forms the base of a 'wandering' workbench which will be used during the performance. So far it works well but now it's time to sort out all the wiring and mechanics for the final version.



It's easy for me to be distracted by an interesting challenge. We learned how to crack the combination for the safe that was left here by the previous tenants. With Tim Hunkin's lecture about the fine art of safe cracking in the back of my mind, we carefully worked out the 6 numbers to the combinations and the opening procedures for the two exterior door locks. What made it relatively easy was the fact that the door was already open and we could look inside the tumbler enclosure to see what was happening with the mechanism. I found a 3D animation of how tumbler based combination locks work too.