*seagulls squwarking *
Good evening!
it's twenty past nine, on a June
evening, British Summertime, so ...
there's light in England, until about ten o'clock
and what we're doing today is very deliberately
waiting until this time of day, as we have to
for the sun to set
I'm at Aldrington, just to the west of Brighton
i haven't got a train here, i've driven here
i'll be driving home tonight in an about an hour's time
once we've done out thing that we're gonna do
but hoping to see a train pass through ...
and i say "we"
i'm going to go and meet my friend Seb, who should be down there, somewhere setting up
and the thing about Aldrington, and the reason why i've chosen this station
is that last week i put out a thing on Twitter, saying
does anybody know of any stations in this area because Seb lives in Brighton
that DON'T have DMI's ... dot matrix display indicators
and we got a few answers back
and we thought that Aldrington might not have any at all
but then we found out we realise
they do have them there's one over there
and there's one here, but the thing about Aldrington
is that they have these really long paths
takes about a minute to walk from the entrance, up ...
to the platform level
and that gave us the idea that this would be
the perfect location to do the thing that we want to do
* Electronic music plays *
and if you look, i'm on the westbound platform
and i i turn slowly around, the platforms you'll see are staggered
but the paths on either side come out to the street at the same point
so the walk, up to the eastbound platform
is even .. longer, to get to this slightly staggered
platform here, on the eastbound side
you can see in the distance there, there is the Dot Matrix for the eastbound platform, amusingly
it's outside of the fence almost outside the boundary of the station
and then it overhangs inside the station 'cause the platforms
are quite narrow, but that's ... quite a long walk
from, where the
platform, the station truly starts
down to where the entrance is
at the street, down that path over there
there's this great ... passageway, corridor
ah someone's done an NHS, thanks to NHS and i'm here
to meet the gentleman, who i can see is already, here
keeping his social distamce, is ...
Seb! fuill name? - Seb Lee Deslie
And we're gonna plus his youtube channel - You can just say Seb Lee if you like
Can i call you Seb the laser guy?
which is how i ... that's who you are in my contacts
- Worst superhero name ever, but sure
that's a great superhero name!
So here's the thing ... Seb, is
well he says, "laserist" i'm going to call him a digital, laser artist, he does
ridiculusly cool things with lasers, just last month, we're mentioning the NHS rainbow there
there's a video clip i can cut to, where Seb
in Brightonm projected the NHS logo what building was it on the side of?
- oh it was the Sussex heights So, the Sussex heights building
if you've seen that clip, it went a little bit viral on twitter * whsipers * that. was. Seb!
and for ages, he's got his onw youtube channel running and we've been talking
for like a year now? and we were like one day we should get round to doing a
a railway versus laser thing
and we were trying to come up with an idea
and we got the idea, it was obvious and then we were like, don't know why we didn't think of it sooner
and Seb, right now, is ...
creating
some train times, using his laser!
and so the reason why Aldrington became perfect
is because where you start here the entrance is the long ramp walk up to the platform
there's a sure there's a sign saying "welcome to Aldrington"
but there's no 'next train' information
so what we did is that we spoke to our friend Russell
at UK Departure Boards
he's the gentleman that lets you have your own Dot Matrix departure board at home
i'll put a link in the description to him
we've tapped into his feed, thanks Russel!
Seb has taken that feed and basically, well we'll ask him in a second
feeding it through his ... box of ... wizardy, laser wizardry!
and is now projecting, quite amazingly
down here, for anyone to see at this level
what the current time is, and when the next train is
so we've created our own Dot Matrix depature board
using * chuckle * lasers! and that ... is fantasic
So Seb!
keep it simple, for me
how are you making this work from the feed from UK Departure Boards?
ok so, keeping it simple
everything i do gets very complicated, so it's a bit confusing
so let's break it down, i've got laser code, i can draw
anything i want, with my laser code
shapes, patterns, whatever, in this case, i'm projecting some text
and there's a whole bunch of nerdy detail i can go into about this specific font
well, you'll do that on your video right?
Click up here! for, for Seb's video on that
Go on, yeah ... so
so i've got the code that figures out the path that the laser needs to make to draw that stuff
and then, actually for the first time ever i'm running my code on a Raspberyy PI
that'd down there, a tiny little computer that's running everything, and that's
tethered to my phone, and my code it's also calling, Russell's API
to get the data for the next train, specific to Aldrington
and then projecting it up there
but is it like a USB or a serial link, how are you actually
you know, what format is it, is it a text file or is is like
is it like a script that you've written
OK, so with laters, you need to specify, 'cause that's just one laster beam right
it's moving round so fast - is it literally saying like go up
up fitty, across twenty, down ninety
yeah, exactly, yeah
it needs, it can't, it can't jump too far
it needs to split up that line into little movement
'cause and it needs to slow down in the corners
otherwise it just cuts around the corners
so, yeah ... there's quite a lot of maths involved
so it comminutes to the laser through USB
this particular laster has got a built in controller
so i can just plug my raspberry PI directly into the laser
normally, i'd need a separate controller
but this is a bit of a special laser, the laser cube
battery powered, so it's perfect for here, running everything on batteries
my Raspberry PI is just running off a USB battery
the laser's got its own built in battery
don't know how long that's going to last by the way
because i realised it was switched on in my bag the whole time here
so we'll see!
i think it'll last about an hour, but, but we'll soon find out, i suppose
just because people will ask
this is a safe laster to use in a public environment, yes?
yes i've taken all the necessar precautions
i've got all the paperwork, sent you all the documentation Geoff
i trust you printed it all out
*TRAIN RUMBLES OVERHEAD *
hang on Seb, but this means that you''ve had to write
code to do the thing where it like scrolls up
and then scroll left, and do the little twirl - Yup
what i call the twirly line, when it refreshes - Yeah you had to write all that
in what code, what's your coding language?
errm, C++ - so you don't actually type characters
you draw every characeter, right?
yes, but i have the data for the characters as a bunch of graphical shapes - sort of, pre-set?
so you can feed in pre-sets?
yeah yes, and i wrote some code so that you can parse in characters, and it gives you out a bunch of shapes
* EXHALING BREATH NOISE *
*TRAIN SCREECH DEPARTING *
one final thing, there is a gentleman here this is a completel stroke of luck
i love this when we go to a random railway station and we meet the locals
not only have we met a local, we've met a man, the artist
this tunnel here, he's gonna tell us all about it and the NHS rainbow on the outside
because this gentleman is the aritst that painted it!
- I've been at it for probably like ...
ten fifteen years? and it's alwaus been street art
i think as a sort of a
what Banksy was doing, but i had a very different way of doing things
and tell us quickly you obviously added the NHS rainbow as a recent addition
- Well it had to be done, it was quite early on in the COVID situation
it had to be done really coverly at night
because obviously people were very sensitised about being close to each other back then
'cause we knew less about it
so i did a four o'clock in the morning job
and i had all the paints exactly set out in order
with the rollers and everything
and it took about twenty-two minutes, to do it *chuckles *
whereas this lot, i did last year, and it took
best part of about four evenings
is it random, or is there a pattern to this madness?
no no, it's completely ... i'm a painter as well
so it's got a paintery feel, but there's no, absolutely no, err, nothing like that
sir, it's a beautiful thing, i can't shake your hand
but i'll give you a thumbs up and we'll do like a virtual
handshake, and we'll do a, there we go ... that!
ah dude, goodnight! - all that kind of thing yeah
ah, Seb - this is the point where you point above your head - yeah
and look my laster, but two
plug your youtube channel, and speak up as well
Subscribt to Seb! - Go check out my youtube channel
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isn't it? - come join me
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