Brief description of the organization
Captain Steel takes various works of fiction from your favourite TV shows, video games, and pop culture, and fabricates them into reality through the power of engineering! Captain Steel has a breadth of knowledge across the mechanical and electrical domains, often creating complex works of art that aren’t just pretty to look at, but also function. To highlight his capability, take his fully functional Daft Punk helmet with a full LED display, or a real Shaking Pokeball that Plays Sounds, or a Massive Rocket Sword! Videos can be viewed on YouTube.
Problem area
The main problem with this project is the spherical screen. Only one screen like this exists in the world, so custom drivers to convert traditional medial into a spherical screen will be fairly difficult to achieve. The mechanics/electrical are also a massive undertaking for this project, but I hope to head much of that aspect of the project on my own.
Main objectives
To successfully make a working scaled model of The Sphere that is located in Las Vegas. The top objectives include:
- Most importantly: software that can generate screen mappings for a spherical screen - starting with animations, but then converting traditional flat media (think TV shows, Youtube clips, etc.)
- Mechanical design that enables disassembly for transport
- Visible LED modules from a viewing distance of 6ft.
- Proper power distribution for the thousands of LEDs that will make up this project
- Electrical control system to properly support animations for all the pixels
Scope of work
This strictly depends on the talents made up by the team. I will fill the gaps with my expertise for whichever talents the team is missing.
- Conceptualize design, core components, core features
- Build a small prototype
- Develop the software to a scalable model from the small prototype
- Develop and assemble the large final product
- In depth testing, and debugging
Deliverables
- New protocols - driver and software for conversion from traditional media to a spherical format
- Final demonstration - device must be able to generate custom animations at the very least. Conversion of traditional media to the spherical screen is optional, but a great to have.
Team meeting frequency
Weekly
Skills and training required
- PCB Design (Altium or equivalent)
- Mechanical CAD Design (Solidworks or equivalent)
- Software dev (Arduino, C++, C#, C)
- Experience with screen protocols (HDMI, VGA, etc.)
Resources required
- Standard computers that can interface with embedded systems
- Circuitry and electronics workbench
- 3D Printers
- Machining in general
- Possibly: welding, laser cutting, waterjet
- Test facilities/tool bench
- Resources (LEDs, PVC piping, electronics, etc.)
- Space to set the project up and test (more so the final version, not the micro version)