Brick Journeys - Destination Board

The destination board is an interactive map that visitors can use to learn about world wide destinations and the journeys to them. It can be customised to suit local locations.

Interactive journey

  • When approaching the area, the visitor will see a large world map (2m wide, 1m high) made of LEGO. To one side will be a (vertical orientation) TV monitor.

  • In front of the map will be a LEGO built podium, with a LEGO build button board on top. There are 6 buttons to press.

  • Pressing one of the buttons, the visitor will see a destination highlighed on the LEGO World map (via projection mapping). Accompianing content will play on the TV monitor nearby.

  • After a set period of time, the video will time out and another button can be pressed.


Venue requirements

  • A solid wall to mount the LEGO mosaic onto.

  • A projector capable of covering a 2m x 1m area - bright enough to be seen in ambient conditions

  • A TV Monitor (50” or above) that can be mounted vertically to the side of the world map


Supplied

  • Button board and stand (both LEGO)

  • Controller hub

  • 2 x playback devices, one each for the projector and monitor

  • Required cabling

Installation

The items need to be connected as shown to the right. Labels in GREEN denote an item that is supplied. Labels in RED denote an item the venue is required to supply.

Connection should be plug and play - the items are all pre-configured to work out of the box. However, should this not occur, please see technical details below.

  1. Hang the LEGO mosaic on the wall, and the TV Monitor

  2. Setup and focus the projector to cover the area of the LEGO mosaic. Note that the playback devices can do some basic image correct. So as long as the entire area is covered, the image can be accurately adjusted later.

  3. Mount each Mini MAD device behind the relevant screen or projector. Connect to TV / Projector via supplied HDMI Cable

  4. Connect each Mini MAD device to one POE Injector. Each ‘tail’ of the POE injector can only fit in one socket on the Mini MAD device.

  5. Connect the POE Injector to the hub using the CAT5 cable supplied

  6. Connect the buttob board to the hub using the CAT5 cable supplied.

  7. Power On.


Setup

  1. To start setup, press the ‘test’ button on the button board. This will send a setup signal to each Mini MAD device which should be displayed on the relevant screen.

  2. Check that the projector is covering the area of the LEGO mosaic map and that the TV Monitor is showing the right content. Adjust as necessary

  3. The projection area for the map should be altered to make sure it is covering the entire map EXACTLY. Detailed instructions for this are available here. In brief;

    1. Press RED to activate projection control

    2. Use arow keys to move top left corner into place. You will see the red projected outline of the content move, as you move the corner point

    3. Press BLUE to select next corner

    4. Use arrow keys to move top right corner into place.

    5. Press BLUE to select next corner

    6. Use arrow keys to move bottom right corner into place.

    7. Press BLUE to select next corner

    8. Use arrow keys to move bottom left corner into place.

    9. Press RED to save

  4.  Press ‘Test’ again on the button board to leave setup mode

  5. Close and secure the button board.

  6. Test the setup by pressing one of the button board buttons.

    Technical Details

    The interactive installation is actually quite simple. It functions as follows;

    • The hub is simply a non managed ethernet network hub with Power Over Ethernet (POE) functionality

    • The button board contains a micro controller, preconfigured with fixed details such as IP address etc.
      This is powered by POE
      Pressing a button sends an OSC (Open Sound Control) message to one of the Mini Mad devices. Once a button is pressed, it will ignore all other inputs for the length of the interactive display.

    • OSC Commands play one of the pre-defined medias by index. This is achieved by sending the command /media_index/[0-4] to port 1111

    • POE injectors provide power for both Mini MAD devices, which are custom Raspberry PIs’s
      The Mini Mad devices will automatically syncronise over the network to both play the matching file on each device when sent the correct OSC message
      All content is LOCAL to the playback device. ie, only the start signal is sent over the network .

    Default details are as follows;

    Button board - 192.168.100.4/ 255.255.255.0

    Mini Mad (TV) - 192.168.100.2 / 255.255.255.0

    Mini Mad (Projector) - 192.168.100.3 / 255.255.255.0

    Setup Options

    The activity is flexible and can be setup in a number of different ways. Some examples are shown below;

    1. All items in projection podium. Where it’s not possible to fly the projector, a podium can be built to house the projector and button board together. The button board can be removed from the supploed podium.
      In this instance, you will need to run a CAT5 cable to the location of the TV to remotely display that content.

    2. Extended cable runs. The hub should support anything upto the standard maximum length of an ethernet cable (100 meters)

    3. Incorporate into venue network. This is certainly possible, though it is REQUIRED that that configuration is returned to the default (below) at the end of the hire period). OSC messages are sent over TCP/IP port 1111

    4. WiFi. You may use Wifi and power the Mini Mad devices via micro usb adapters (supplied), however experience suggests that a hard wired connection is much less likely to suffer interferance from mobile phones etc.

    5. OSC / DMX etc integration. Multiple Mini MAD devices can be syncronised, and it is possible to configure an additional (not supplied) Mini MAD device to control lights via artnet or a USB->DMX dongle. In this way, pressing something on one of the button boards could trigger a change in light colour, moving lights, smoke machines, spark effects etc etc etc. If you would like to do this - please contact us!

Diagnostics

If you need to diagnose a problem, the following will be helpful;

Button Box

  • To access the Button box console, first power it off (disconnect the ethernet cable).

  • Then, hold down the hidden button on the side of the button box whilst powering on. You can now access the console at http://192.168.100.4 (NOT HTTPS)

  • The manual can be found here.

Mini Mad’s

  • You can turn on a diagnostic console by powering the Mini MAD off (disconnect the Ethernet cable), then attach a USB keyboard. Now, power on again. Press ‘D"‘ to see diagnostics. THIS WILL NOT WORK if you attach a keyboard after powering on.

  • For finer control, use TouchOSC (https://hexler.net/touchosc) . You can load a pre-defined layout here. To help with debugging, turn on the Log (View/Toggle Log) and you can see the commands being sent.

  • The manual can be found here.

Warren Elsmore

Warren Elsmore is a freelance artist and author, who creates unique, one-off, LEGO models for individuals and corporate companies. Based in Edinburgh in the UK he works worldwide. Warren has been a LEGO fan since the age of 4 and has been building commercial models since 2009, alongside producing over a dozen books.

www.warrenelsmore.com
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