I just thought I’d pass this one on to you. Cooking for people that like to know more about cooking than just add this, bake that. It’s like a web site that Alton Brown would love. Go check it out to see what I mean.
Category: Mad Science
Beauty and Magnets – The Art of David Durlach
A number of years ago I video taped an amazing demonstration of iron filing manipulation choreographed to pop music at a local science museum. I was fascinated by the undulating tree like figures and the dry liquid waves that played across the surface of the tank. I posted the clips I had of the display on to YouTube so others could share in my wonderment. Turns out that this is not a one off display but the work of an artist named David Durlach. One of the comments on the clip pointed to an article on this amazing artist. I had thought the devices were an analog spectrum display but the happens that they are under elaborate computer control. This is an excerpt from the article on Discovermagazine:
This five-minute display is the result of hundreds of hours of programming, not to mention the computer language Durlach had to create to specify the details of choreography. In this language, Durlach not only shifts dust through the three spatial dimensions, he also plays with time, changing the rate at which it appears to flow, moving it forward and backward, to achieve especially fluid motion. One of the interesting things is that you can make time go forward and backward like a sine wave, he says. It’s as if you took the reels of a movie, and instead of rotating them continuously forward you moved them back and forth, woonk-woonk, woonk-woonk. That’s a very cool effect. Durlach goes on to enumerate the different ways you can play with time, and the effects they generate.
Beauty and Magnets
(Thank you Bill Beaty for this lead)
Gravity Transport System
This is a fascinating look at just what would happen if you, theoreticly mind you, drilled a hole right through the Earth and jumped in. Can you say see you on the other side of the planet in about an hour? Oh yeah, there’s the issue of actually drilling the hold, evacuating the massive amount of air that would be in the tunnel and all those other niggly technical bits but just thinking of the concept is flat out fun.
Amazing LEGO Motor FAQ
If your LEGO construction skills have progressed past the point of building stuff out of the instruction booklets then you have undoubtedly had the desire to play with the versatile LEGO motors. The LEGO motors are amazingly handy, I can’t say enough good things about that really. The biggest question is what one to use? As they are a bit pricey (hey, these are LEGOs after all) picking and choosing the style might save you some valuable cash. I personally like the 8735 motors myself, but that’s because I have a few from my old Mindstorm kit.
The list give you important info like motor RPM, stall current, torque, and even efficiency. Just the stuff you need to maximize your project. I guess it goes without saying that you can use these motors for non-LEGO applications as well. Just let your creative mind go wild.
Lego 9V Technic Motors compared characteristics
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8735 Technic motor from Amazon.com
Revised LEGO Mindstorms NXT from Amazon.com
DIY – Glowing Crystal Lamp From a Light Bulb
I’m touched, it’s like seeing your child graduate. I have inspired others to follow and improve upon my works. After seeing my photo of the "neo-Victorian New Age Flemming like valve" on Flickr, Donald decided to hollow out a light bulb and build one of his own. Hats off for using a UV LED to excite the dye out of a highlighter marker! He also incorporated a Basic Stamp microcontroller in it so it has some nice flickering when it’s started. Watch the video to see what I mean.
DIY Video Camera – The VanceCam VC25P
I like the idea of building something that fits your needs as opposed to going out and buying it. Building your own video camera is a little exteem but hey, I like that even more.
This is a one-of-a-kind "film-look" digital camcorder custom-built specifically to shoot the independent feature film, Cold Day in Hell. The camera module is based on a Hitachi HV-C20A/E, 1/2" format, 3 CCD industrial PAL camera with 700 lines of resolution.
I love the fact that they used a mechanical shutter in the camera. I bet the camera operator even got to yell ‘speed!’ when there were doing a take.