Product category: Design Services
News Release from: ML Electronics | Subject: Electronics design
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 30 July 2004

Art of design improves design of art

ML Electronics and urban artist Greyworld took on the challenge of creating The Source, an innovative electronic installation commissioned by the London Stock Exchange

When electronics expert MLE was approached by urban artist Greyworld to help it with the design of their moving sculpture 'The Source' commissioned by the London Stock Exchange, it found a challenge that would test it electronics design and manufacturing skills to the limit. Established as a world-class group of artists, Greyworld's primary objective is to create public art so that its visitors become actively part of the installation itself, the work not being complete without them.

Their work, unlike that of other artists, regularly embraces technology to create something that otherwise may not be possible.

A symbol of the London Stock Exchange's position at the centre of London's financial markets, The Source is a moving sculpture that combines an innovative application of technology and ground-breaking art to visually represent London's financial and capital markets in an electronic age.

The sculpture's constantly changing shape is intended to reflect the dynamic nature of the stock market.

As the exchange is now fully computerised and no longer has a trading floor, The Source's highly mobile and active nature also reflects this now hidden activity.

Every day The Source marks whether the markets have opened and closed up or down with an arrow and it can also create random shifting patterns, words, numbers and shapes all reflecting occurrences in the markets throughout the day.

The Source is made up of 729 spheres suspended across 162 cables that are 5.6km in length.

1400 blue LEDs ensure that each sphere is lit from within, and spanning six floors The Source is 10 metres taller than the Angel of the North.

MLE was initially contracted solely to manufacture The Source's 2000-plus printed circuit boards (PCBs).

However it wasn't long before MLE was involved on a much larger scale as technical difficulties with the original design presented themselves.

With over 10 years experience of electronics design and manufacture MLE was the obvious candidate to help overcome these difficulties.

The company was able to build on Greyworld's existing design to better facilitate the boards' manufacture.

'We actually redesigned the PCBs in the end to make them easier to produce', says Peter Dore, Operations Director, 'because we have a manufacturing facility here at MLE, we are better able to design electronics suited to manufacturing processes and this was crucial to the efficient running of the project'.

One of Greyworld's requirements was an economical design that could be mass replicated for each of The Source's spheres.

MLE created an alternative solution for this by using a power supply chip instead of a conventional motor driver.

In using this type of chip to carry out a motor drive function the cost of controlling each sphere's motor speed was more than halved.

The power lines along which the spheres travel up and down also needed to be lines of communication between the spheres and the central control.

To overcome this MLE pioneered a technique that interrupted the power supply as a means of communication.

Using their skills in embedded intelligence MLE enabled The Source control's ability to listen to the Greyworld system and interpret instructions and decisions.

This allowed it to create its endless formations from a DNA helix to a sunrise and meant that The Source could respond in real time to the fluctuations of the stock market.

MLE also had a very tight deadline to work to right from the start of their involvement; everything had to be ready in time for the Queen to officially open the new Stock Exchange building on 27th July 2004.

That allowed just 3 months to have everything up and running.

MLE rose to the challenge and managed to complete the project in record time, as Martyn Dowty, MLE's Engineering Manager comments: 'We managed to turn PCBs round from concept to working preproduction prototypes in 4 weeks and then produce and test 2000 finished units in another 4 weeks'.

'That kind of output is just phenomenal for a company of our size'.

The project pulled together a number of areas of expertise within MLE, the team offers expertise in a number of fields and a broad experience in a wide range of technologies, such as power supply, motor control and embedded intelligence, which were all used in this project.

It is not however MLE's outstanding ability in these technologies that distinguishes it from the competition but its ability to integrate them.

The MLE team can boast an enormous capability in developing integrated systems to perform very complex tasks, and The Source project is a perfect example of this.

200 million people around the world watched the opening of the London Stock Exchange's new building and subsequent unveiling of The Source.

The Source is televised to over 50 million people every day as various new reports come live from the stock exchange.

Reflecting on the project, Greyworld's Andrew Shoben could only praise MLE's involvement: 'MLE really saved our bacon, they really are good people who bring to the table their whole focus and a lot of expertise'.

'They have a great team and we were really impressed with their level of support'.

'You get the whole show with MLE and we would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone'.

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