On Tue, 4 May 1999 Scott Fink wrote :
>  I am putting together a short talk about Zany applications and hoped
>  that you folks could help me out.  If YOU have used a PIC in any
>  highly cool, or weird application, and I would be allowed to talk
>  about in public (i.e. no NDA) and would like your 15 minutes of fame,
>  please let me know all about your app! ..........


My Wacky, Zany PIC application is the control and timing mechanism for
Arthur Ganson's sculpture "Machine with Wishbone", currently being
exhibited at the MIT museum (Arthur is an artist-in-residence at MIT). You
can see it at :

 <http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/org/m/museum/exhibits/ganson.html>

About this piece, David Simms writes in the Smithsonian Magazine : "Kids
love 'Machine with Wishbone' because it's funny, odd and ingenious. Many
adults, on the other hand, see pathos and tragedy as the enslaved little
bone drags the clanking contraption behind it. Rube Goldberg meets
Jean-Paul Sartre."

Some details : The device uses a PIC 16C57 that reads 2 optical switches, 2
reed switches, 2 test switches, and then controls 2 solenoids, 3 motors, a
single digit mode display, and a beeper.  The control circuit's purpose is
to pace the wishbone man along its track, to sequence the turntables on
either end, and to shut the device off if a preset time for any part of the
sequence has been exceeded.  The piece was originally designed with relay
and time-delay logic, but Arthur needed something more reliable when he
installed it in the permanent exhibit at the MIT museum.  This incarnation
has been it, so far.  Two of these have been built.

I hope that you find it as amusing as I did when I was working on it.

Walter Lenk          Cambridge, MA        617-547-7781