Tag: Artistic

DIY Your Own Pinhole Blender

DIY Pinhole blender how-to (step 6) by bricolage.108This is a great tutorial on how you can build your own multi shutter pinhole camera using old film canisters and a metal can. Very inventive I must say. The images taken with this sort of camera blends together different scenes in a very organic (see examples) way that many people can only achieve these days using a graphics program like Photoshop. Does anyone still remember the bad old days when trial and error was the only way to do such photographic manipulation?

Bricolage: weblog errante… Arquivo: Março de 2007

If you want to buy one, check out the ‘original’ pinhole blender at pinholeblender.com

Alice: Free, Easy, Interactive 3D Graphics for Kids

AliceI was reading my eWeek today and say this cool article talking about a way to teach programming to kids. The idea is that you have this rich visual 3D world that you program the objects in it to move and interact. I took a look at it and discovered just that, it talks about methods, objects, and other tenants of modern programming . Man, I wished I would have had this when I was a kid. It would have made learning BASIC a lot simpler.
Once the students get comfortable with the interface they will be producing animated movies in no time at all. They can draw from a library rich in 3D models like dragons, faeries, spaceships, buildings. There is also a way to import models from 3D Studio Max using a third party utility. There is also a collaboration with the popular game ‘The Sims‘  to add a much more fluid look and feel to the character animations. I hope that when this happens Alice will stay free to anyone that wants to download it. My kids are both fans of the Sims and I know that this would at least give them a clue as to what computer programming is like. Even if you don’t have kids but would like to know more of how all this software stuff works you should download it and give it a try. It’s written in Java so it will work on both PC and Mac.

Alice: Free, Easy, Interactive 3D Graphics for the WWW

Mr. Hell’s Science


This is one show that I had somehow missed. The "Aaagh! It’s the Mr. Hell Show"(wiki) was shown on BBC2 back in 2001. I took a look for it on Amazon but turned up nothing, I did however see that you can buy it on Anime-On-Line. In this exciting episode Mr. Hell talks all about the virtues of science and how it’s made burning the neighboring village down all that much easier. Go science!
(Thanks to brother Steve for sharing this with all of us)

Plant life of Mars a la Disney Style

I remember this film when it was shown on ‘The Wonderful World of Disney’ and a fantastic speculative book on space exploration that had stills from this on it. Man, I loved that book! I remember the plant that used a clear membrane to focus the sun light into a killing beam of death that it used to zap passing critters. I tell you, it that don’t set a child’s mind spinning with ideas I don’t know what will.
The entire clip can be bought on the DVD set "Walt Disney Treasures – Tomorrowland: Disney in Space and Beyond"
[via Boing Boing]
Plan Life On Mars (1957 Disney Animation)

An AVR-based Analog Plotbot with an E-Paper Display

This is just perfect! Using a Magna Doodle as an output device for a computer is just brilliant.

What do you get when you mix a 1970’s style analog chart recorder, an 8-bit microcontroller, and a Fisher-Price Doodle Pro? A truly 21st century toy: An analog PlotBot with e-paper display technology!
Our machine is based around a vintage analog X-Y data recorder. Its original purpose in life was to perform basic laboratory data collection, plotting two voltages against each other, and was one of the primary tools for that purpose right up until computers took over that job in the 1980’s. Because they were once so common and are now generally obsolete, it’s quite easy to get one of your own. There are usually several under $50 on eBay at any given time, and that’s where we got ours. …
The other major modification that we’ve made is that we’ve replaced the pen and paper with what seems like out of reach technology: an inexpensive and readily available e-paper display: the panel from a Doodle Pro. …
The Doodle Pro is a descendent of the Magna Doodle, a classic children’s toy dating to 1974. (I’m not sure what makes this a “Pro” anything, however.) It uses a simple magnetophoretic display, where ferromagnetic particles are suspended with near-neutral buoyancy in an opaque, viscous white liquid. Using a magnetic stylus, you can attract the black particles to the top surface, or with a magnetic “eraser” on the bottom side, pull the particles away, leaving only the white liquid visible.

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories – An AVR-based Analog Plotbot with an E-Paper Display

Warning Sign/Label Generator

No Kaiju ParkingHow many times have you said "Wow, I could use a warning sign right about now!"? If you’re like me it’s an almost daily event. Well despair no more blog readers, the ‘Net has the answer to your problems once again.
Simply click on a link below and choose your sign background, logo, and witty safety minded phrase and just as Bob’s your uncle you have a nice little graphic that you can print out and get into all sorts of trouble with. Go have a blast but don’t blame me if some people can’t take a joke and over react.

Warning Sign Generator
Warning Label Generator