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by eggy
1178 days ago
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Just caught your "curtain puller" reference. I have designed a stage lift that travels at 4 ft/s from below stage after a sloat moves 6 ft/s out of its way to reveal 7 performers on stage after a poof of smoke. A sloat is the piece of the stage floor that needs to run down and under the stage to make an opening. I put some beefy metal flags that would only release the lift to go up after the sloat had cleared the opening. A mechanical interlock. No software needed. This was the late 90s and I was already suspicious of bits flipping as the software guys started taking over the electro-mechanical effects. Don't get me wrong. I have been programming since 1978, but I have also been a machinist, welder, underwater technical diver, rope technician, and I build my own CNC machine back in 2001 before you could buy a $300 3D printer or an X-Y-Z table for less than $20k. I have theoretical and practical experience, and red flags go up when somebody (usually a hobbyist or artist's tech) tells me they use Arduinos or RPis for their controls. I am not against it, but I know this carries some attendant concerns. Who is programming the logic? What other secondary watchdog/safety hardware (if any) is being used to ensure another layer of safety, etc... SPARK2014 the programming language and the dev tools include a verification toolset, automated proofs, and unit testing. Rust may eventually catch up ;) |
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I agree with the hardware safety interlocks, which I guess is why I don't think so much about the software - because I imagine it was programmed by a monkey (perhaps myself, late the previous night) and I don't trust it anyways. It's like a switch an untrained stagehand might hit which needs to be safe regardless.
(I've never made anything to be around a performance, but some of my things could certainly have hurt me or friends if we weren't careful.)
> SPARK2014 the programming language and the dev tools include a verification toolset
This is something that third-party FSM libraries often lack, decent controls and verification.
The cubesats are cool. Usually I can walk over and kick my creations when they need a reset, that's a whole 'nother level.