Jordan Colburn

Robotic Egg Hunt

Posted on December 8, 2011 | Leave a comment

Usually I only post about music technology, but a subject that is always fun to talk about is Robotics. My Autonomous Robotics class (ECE 564) is one of the more fun classes I’ve taken in college. The whole class builds up to a final robotic competition where each team builds a robot to compete head to head against another robot.

The competition for this semester was a robotic egg hunt. Robots got 1 point for bringing a pastel colored egg back to their base and -3 for a brown egg in their base. You can see our robot (designed by myself, Michael DeVeau and Mostafa Farag) running a test to bring back pastel eggs below.

For more details about the robot design, construction and more videos, please keep reading after the break.

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Posted in Hardware

Server Change

Posted on December 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

Changing servers for what will hopefully be the last time for a while. I’m migrating away from a home hosted server using Turnkey Linux because our internet service is a little bit spotty at the moment. This new server will provide more uptime and a more permanent home for this site. There will be a few glitches with some missing media and theme issues and posts while I switch servers and update things, but it should be sorted out in a few days. Thanks for reading.

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Posted in Site Announcements

Great DIY Speaker Stands for $30

Posted on October 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

So you’ve just bought your first pair of studio monitors. You’re obviously excited, but if you’re like most people, you probably forgot the small detail of monitor stands. You options are to either improvise and sacrifice optimal placement (kind of ruining the reason you got the monitors in the first place) or go out and spend nearly $100 bucks on a low quality mass produced stand. I’m here to show you there’s another option. You can build your own great looking and high quality speaker stands for around $30. Details after the break.

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Posted in DIY Music Projects, How-To

“Ultralight” Pure Data Based Launchpad Performance Tool

Posted on September 7, 2011 | Leave a comment

So I’m always kicking around new ideas for loop based tools for solo electronic music performance. My latest idea involves a very simple interface, the Novation Launchpad tentatively called “Ultralight”. I plan to incorporate audio looping, a step sequencer for electronic drums, a beat slicer for both the audio and drums, as well as a few simple synths and audio effects who’s routing can be flexibly controlled using the launchpad. Right now, most of my work has focused on understanding how to read and write from the launchpad (simple in a language like C, but harder in the graphical dataflow environment of PD). I’ve got an overall view with a few “modes” and have started to program some basic read/write light abstactions, as well as a few simple step sequencer and storage building blocks. Please see a few demos below if you’re interested.

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Posted in DIY Music Projects, Looping, Software

Running Sound for an Outdoor Festival: Lessons Learned

Posted on September 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

Running live sound for an outdoor festival presents a unique set of challenges compared to many more typical situations. Last weekend, I had the great opportunity to setup and run the sound system for the Fiesta Latina stage at the very fun WorldFest event in Louisville. WorldFest was a three day event and the Latin stage featured around 8 acts per day ranging from solo guitarists, mariachi bands, jazz fusion, and very large and energetic salsa groups.