Everybody who is even the slightest bit related to CreaTe has met Alfred once in their lives. Alfred is the technical guy from the SmartXP and an employee from the university. He is the man who can give you everything you need for your studies. From 3D printers to screwdrivers, everything a CreaTe student could ever wish for. That is why we, Proto.Ink, decided to interview Alfred and make it a recurring part of Proto.Ink. Now you do not ever have to miss out on Alfred’s adventures and secrets again!
In this edition of the Alfred report some hidden secrets of the SmartXP will be revealed. In Zi A138 there’s a lot of (expensive!) stuff that CreaTe students can use. However a part of that collection is quite unknown by the general public. Even though it is free to use for student projects. In the deep and hidden depths of Alfred’s office there’s a lot to discover. So let’s explore!
The first thing we will look at is ‘The Soundlazer’ And it is used for a very specific hearing range. It is a bunch of small speakers bundled together that send out a signal at a frequency of 40kHz. A human can’t hear that tone. However when the signal hits air molecules it is able for humans to hear the sound! You can point the sound at a specific person and only he or she will hear it. This super awesome gadget can be used in your projects, but comes with a warning. When using this device make sure you know what you’re doing. If used in the wrong way it can cause some serious hearing damage. Alfred spoke from experience. He had a beep in his ear for three days straight when he held the speakers too close to his ears. Does this sound interesting to you? It is available in the Smartxp. However, if you would like to purchase one yourself, it is only around 350 dollars.
The next thing we will look at is a so-called D-ventix. Which is a little bit more expensive than the Soundlazer. With a little bit more we mean around 100 times as much. The price of a D-ventix starts at 25.000. Now you are probably wondering what such an expensive machine is capable of doing. Magic? Worldpeace? None of that. The D-ventix is a device that is used to mix and ‘blend’ video footage together. ‘Well you could use Adobe Premiere to do that!’, we hear you say. But the D-ventix is used for real-time, live footage, such as a news broadcast. The device has been used once in all its five years that it has been in the Zilverling. Sadly enough this beautiful piece of technology has since then mainly been used as decorative lights in one of the closets in the SmartXP.
Finally we come to the light installation that recently made a comeback by being used during the successful lightsaber workshop on 02/12/2015. What a lot of people do not realize though, is that those lights have been here for five years already! All that time it could have been used for various projects, but almost nobody did. In one of the first years of Creative Technology the lights were used to light up a christmas tree. Sadly enough, that was one of the first and one the last uses of the lights.
Moral of the story: there’s a lot of awesome (unused) stuff hidden in the SmartXp, and if you want to use any of the stuff mentioned just ask Alfred and he’ll help you!