Ardent Mobile Cloud Platform

Cloudy skies over Burning Man Precompression this Saturday

Posted on June 17, 2015 by scanlime

It’s the start of summer, and thoughts turn to Burning Man and the high, dry desert of Nevada.

To kick off the season, American Steel is hosting Burning Man’s Precompression party this Saturday, 6/20.

Saturday 6:30pm – 2am
June 20, 2015

American Steel Studios
1960 Mandela Pkwy
Oakland, CA 94607

American Steel is our home, so we don’t have to travel far for this one! We’ll be hanging out all evening with the Cloud, illuminating the party from a bridge crane. Come find us. We’d love to show off the cloud and tell you about our new project, Straightedge: a 2.7 mile long straightedge that shows you the curvature of the Earth. You can find out more on our Kickstarter page.

Running with Rain

Posted on March 21, 2015 by scanlime

The Oakland Running Festival is upon us this weekend, an event that brings out thousands of runners in the sunny city many of us call home. AND it happens that the both the marathon and half-marathon routes go down Mandela Parkway in West Oakland right past American Steel Studios, where we store our lovable giant pixel cloud.

How will the runners feel? Will thousands of salt-encrusted bodies each feel relief at the exact moment it’s most needed? Whose morning will our surreally fluffy voxelated raincloud brighten? Could our promise of mechanical moisture compete with the natural allure of California sun? You can find out!

Sunday 7:30am – 2:00pm
March 22, 2015

American Steel Studios
1960 Mandela Pkwy
Oakland, CA 94607

SAM_5566

Video of AMCP at the CalAcademy NightLife LIVE

Posted on August 12, 2014 by scanlime

Thursday night’s NightLife LIVE event at the California Academy of Sciences was a huge success! We made it rain, entertained and delighted visitors, and aerialist Lyra Levin performed three times over the course of the evening.

You can see photos from the event on our Facebook album, and contribute your own:

Special thanks to Betty Bigas for curating the event with the Academy, and CODAME’s Adopt an Artist program for connecting Ardent with such a delightful opportunity.

Are you organizing an event that needs a cloud moisture strategy, high performances, or a scalable platform for cloud photography? Ardent Heavy Industries can help you. Let’s get in touch.

For more about the cloud, check out Ian’s recent talk about the cloud at CODAME.

Ian Speaks About the Ardent Mobile Cloud Platform at CODAME

Posted on August 5, 2014 by Ed Hunsinger

The Ardent Mobile Cloud Platform – Ian Baker from Micah Scott on Vimeo.

Ian Baker speaking about the Ardent Mobile Cloud Platform, at CODAME Art + Tech Rendezvous on Thursday June 26, 2014.

https://amcp.ardentheavyindustries.com/
https://github.com/ArdentHeavyIndustries

Apologies for the interference on the audio 🙁

This Thursday, August 7th, join the Ardent Mobile Cloud Platform at the Academy of Art Nightlight event presented by CODAME ART+TECH in support of the Adopt an Artist program.

AMCP at the California Academy of Science’s Nightlife

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Ed Hunsinger

The Ardent Mobile Cloud Platform hits the museum party circuit! Join the Ardent Mobile Cloud Platform at the Academy of Art Nightlight event presented by CODAME ART+TECH in support of the Adopt an Artist program.

Thursday evening, August 7th, from 6-10pm (21+ only).

This week is Nightlife LIVE: Illuminate, featuring musicians from Outside Lands and light art including an inflatable glowing forest and our very own Cloud.

Play conductor as you take control of the Cloud’s cutting-edge LED and sound effects, creating an orchestra of sunsets, lightning storms, and thunder with the touch of a button.

We’re excited to announce that aerialist Lyra Levin will give an exciting aerial performance suspended from the Cloud. Along with her aerial artistry, Lyra was one of the main engineers of the Cloud itself.

For more information, visit the Cal Academy’s event page or view the Facebook event invitation.

Thanks to our friends at CODAME for partnering with us to make this appearance happen, and to the California Academy of Sciences for hosting.

CODAME Presents: Behind the “Ardent Mobile Cloud Platform”

Posted on June 25, 2014 by Ed Hunsinger

This Thursday, June 26th, join us at CODAME and hear from Ian Baker about building the Ardent Mobile Cloud Platform. Several other Ardent Heavy Industries members will also be around after the talk to answer questions and share stories of sending people high into the sky at Burning Man.

Want to chat about LEDs specifically? Micah Elizabeth Scott, the mastermind behind much of the Cloud’s LED technology will also be there talking about her new piece, Ecstatic Epiphany.

Tickets are donation based with a suggest $10-20 range. You can get them at the Eventbrite page.

Aerial Performances on the Cloud

Posted on January 19, 2014 by amcp

While the Cloud was at Burning Man, several people performed aerials on it. Above is a photo by Audrey Penven of Mike Estee performing. And here is a video of Audrey doing a trapeze routine, filmed by Ed Hunsinger:

We took the Cloud out to the , where lots of perfomers got their turn suspending from the cloud. Here is a photo Audrey took of one performer:

More photos can be seen

Cloud Photos and Backer Rewards Update

Posted on September 15, 2013 by amcp

We’re back from Burning Man, and we’re happy to report that the Ardent Mobile Cloud Platform was a raging success. It rained, it misted, it suspended aerialists, and it brought much joy and mirth to the inhabitants of Black Rock City.

In the weeks to come, we will begin sending out backer rewards. We will also be launching the AMCP website, which will include the “Thank You” page, photo galleries and videos of the Cloud, and information for booking the Cloud at future events. For now, here are some pics!

Here it is misting on the DPW Parade. Photo by Neil Girling:

And here it is glowing beautifully in the night. Photo by Audrey Penven:

And here’s a shot of one of the 8-bit flowers, courtesy of Heather Hunsinger:

And finally, here is a rad old-timey pinhole portrait of (most of the) AMCP crew. It was taken by Jason from Media Mecca. On behalf of the entire crew, THANK YOU AGAIN!

It looks like a cloud!

Posted on August 13, 2013 by amcp

This weekend, we hit a major milestone: we successfully put together the voxel cloud. Hundreds of squares and over a thousand zip ties went into the assembly of this object. And we owe it all to you! Thank you, dear backers, for helping to make this happen. You are wonderful, and we love you.

On the electronics front, we have a rain controller! It hooks up to the Raspberry Pi GPIOs and controls up to three valves. The electronics team did a great job of soldering everything together. In other electronics/software news, a bunch of the LED controllers are also done, and Micah wrote a “shader” for the cloud, which lets us do some nice cloud and lightning effects with our 2560 LEDs with a nice, smooth frame rate. Ed and Samson teamed up to give us a touchscreen UI for controlling both light and sound effects.

To be continued as the Cloud continues coming together!

Kickstarter Concluded! Cloud Construction Continues!

Posted on July 30, 2013 by amcp

Yesterday, our Kickstarter triumphantly concluded, and we all rejoiced. Not only did we meet our goal, but we exceeded it goal by a significant amount! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. (Also, our friends the Charcade totally hit their goal, so thanks to all you Cloud backers who helped them out as well).

Cloud construction is proceeding at a rapid pace! On the lighting front, a very heavy box of LEDs just arrived, straight from the factory. Micah has cut, tested, and packed 40 strips of 64 LEDs each. They are ready to install on the cloud! Additionally, J has finalized our order for the gridcloth, which we will use to diffuse the LEDS to give the cloud a soft glow. Expect pretty photos of cloud lighting soon!

Elizabeth has been working on a kick-ass playlist for the cloud. We have a working list of songs, heavily coated in cheese (it is Burning Man after all!), that pertain to rain and clouds. From November Rain by Guns and Roses to Cloud 9 by the Temptations, we’ve got you covered. We’re also amassing a list of songs in French and Spanish, such as La Pluie et la Beau Temps by Zazie and llueve by Ella es Tan Cargosa. We also have a dose of classical music relating to rain, and of course some video game music to go along with our 8-bit design aesthetic.

Voxel fabrication has been going strong all weekend long! Thank a bajillion to all the amazing Cloud engineers we’ve had on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday! We’ve run out of zipties several times, figured out the Way of the Three Sided Box, double handed the zipper guns, lined silver, and generally had a wonderful time.

We are now halfway finished with complete Cloud pieces! Here’s a status update from Lyra:

Laz0ring my pixels: 100% Finished!
Silver lining: 70%
CAD wrangling: 100%
Voxels created: 55%
Completed Cloud pieces: 50%

Finally, here is a photo by John showing part of the cloud frame attached to the rail. GO TEAM CLOUD!

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