Category: DIY

Random Pixel Lights

Super nice art hack here:

“Random Screen” is a mechanical thermodynamic display which does not rely on any electricity. Each of the 12 by 12 cm pixels is an individual entity. A tea candle lights and controls each pixel. The rising heat of the candle turns a modified beer can which turns the pixel on and off. Each pixel has its own frequency. The more bright a candle shines the faster is the rotation of the can. Each pixel is built as a separate module. Random Screen keeps growing.

 

Looks like it would be a fun project to work on for next Christmas. Put two tea lights in each cell one with a red gel and the other a green one and you might get some no-power pseudo random Christmas goodness.

[via we make money not art] 

Random Screen

Powermoon – Portable Light

I’ve seen these in movies and videos before, you get a nice high brightness (moderately) low heat light like an HMI and stick it in a big white balloon. Fill with helium and strike the light. Bam! Instant moonlight. Not only is it good for making moonlight but it’s great for making soft lighting over a large area where a crane or the smaller China Balls arn’t practical. Plus they look real cool.

[via we make money not art] 

Noelle IUT [Powermoon – portable Leuchten]

LEGO NXT

 

 

LEGO has announced the next generation of the Mindstorm robotics line of learning toys. The NXT will have more input and output ports (3 in and 4 out), a cleaner design (no bumps, just holes – I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not), and a simpler programming language. Where the old Mindstorms used an optical IR tower to communicate with a PC for programming , the new ones will use a USB 2 interface. The new kits also come with sonar sensors and servo motors with built in rotational sensors and Bluetooth radio. There is no word if any of the parts will be compatible with the old Mindstorm kits but it will be programmable from both PC and Mac platforms. From what was in the Wired article it looks as if the NXT OS may be open to hackers that will want to make their own firmware revisions but that yet to be confirmed. LEGO has had a tough year and I’m quite glad that they have not scrapped the robotics product line in favor of saving money.

[via Wired, Gizmodo, NXT Blog, and Robot Magazine] 

LEGO NXT

The Most Complex Pinhole Camera

6 X 9 format pin hole camera 

I was looking around for pinhole cameras and came up with this. It’s got to be the most complex pinhole camera I have ever seen… I stand in awe of this creation… The translation might not be perfect, but you should still be able to understand all of it.

6 X 9 format pin hole cameras