Category Archives: Art

Help Bring PancakeBot to Bay Area Maker Faire

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Pancakebot

Miguel, the great guy behind PancakeBot, a CNC pancake printer made out of Lego, is running an Indiegogo campaign to help bring the whole family all the way from Norway to the Bay Area Maker Faire. We met Miguel at the New York Maker Faire last year, and got a chance to see PancakeBot in action.

Even if you can’t support the campaign, you should check out the video to see the machine in action, cheered on by enthusiastic young pancake aficionados. And come to Maker Faire in May, where we’ll hope to see Miguel and family with the awesome PancakeBot.

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Another wild Peggy 2 project: Heddatron Robot

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The folks at Chibots helped the Sideshow Theatre with building the robots for their 2011 production of Heddatron that was part of the Steppenwolf Garage Rep series. For the character Billy Bot, they used a Peggy 2 as a chest display panel which could be controlled remotely along with the rest of the robot actions and behaviors during the performance.

Don from Chibots wrote:

I got to assemble it (625 LEDs!), and made some modifications to the control circuitry to accommodate needs of the remote controls.  The robots were controlled via X-Bee Pro radio transceivers coupled to BahBot MCU boards. Of course, the solidly-designed Peggy 2 worked perfectly out of the box.

The production won a Jeff Award in the Artistic Specialization category for Outstanding Achievement in Robot Design and Engineering.

Billy Bot was even called on to help with a surprise wedding proposal after one of the shows, and you can see him in action briefly in the video above.

Awesome robot work, Chibots!

Photos courtesy the Sideshow Theatre Company.

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Resistor Color Code Tattoo

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resistor tat

Our good friend Jimmie P Rogers— of LoL Shield fame, amongst many of us who love Arduino and LEDs —has a brand new tattoo of the resistor color code: Black, Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Gray, White.  I’m pretty sure that Jimmy himself has known this color code since he was in diapers, but now he has an always-present chart that he can use as a visual aid while teaching electronics.  And at five inches across, it doubles as a ruler (albeit one that will grow less accurate with age).

So, that’s pretty neat.  But two things bring this above and beyond the “usual” coolness of a geek tattoo.  First, Jimmie designed it in Processing, and second, as an open source tattoo, you can download the source code on his web site.

And for those of us who may be a little less committed: Our own favorite mnemonic for the resistor color code is “Black Beetles Running On Your Garden Bring Very Good Weather.”

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Inside-out Eggbot

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Here’s something we never thought of: John Fisher is using an EiBotBoard (EBB), a Raspberry PI and a camera to create “inverse panorama views” of cylindrical objects. It’s a little bit like using an Eggbot as a scanner. His in-depth article covers everything from hardware set up to code.

Hat tip to EBB developer Brian Schmalz for pointing us to this one!

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Puzzle Kickstarter is a Puzzle

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Roy Leban of Puzzazz, a puzzle company, is running a Kickstarter campaign for a puzzle a month for a year. The unique thing about this campaign is that it is itself a puzzle. The project video includes a whole bunch of clues related to interesting and geeky people like Theodore Gray, Nolan Bushnell, and (gasp) me! The Kickstarter puzzle is free to everyone, whether or not you’re backing the project. However, if you like the puzzle, you may want to help out the project to get the full year of puzzles!

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Twitter controlled Eggbotted LED Ornaments

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AJ Fisher posted an incredibly thorough write-up about his Twitter/Raspberry Pi/Arduino controlled LED lit Eggbot decorated Christmas tree ornaments. Each ornament would light up when twitter keywords represented by their icons were being used.

In the words of a friend of ours, “It makes me feel as though there are people all over the world celebrating with their family and friends just like we are, and you’ve brought them all into the room with us” – and if that’s not what doing this sort of technology is all about then I don’t know what is.

The article includes techniques he used, links to his code, source vector art, and so much more.

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More Star Trek Menorahs for Hanukkah

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Star Trek TNG Menorah

We’re not sure what it it is about Hanukkah that brings out the Star Trek fans, but they’re back. First, Joyce brings us an updated TNG hanukiah. Joyce was one of those responsible for the epic menorah we posted about in 2009. The LED on the Enterprise is being worked on–we think they may have a problem with their dilithium crystals.

Star Trek Menorah

Next, VanEdge posted this menorah in the forums. Both of these fine examples are based on Pez dispensers, which seem to be a handy size for holiday hacking, particularly when combined with our LED Menorah kit.

Happy Hanukkah to you both, and thank you for sharing your projects!

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Classic Robot Costume

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Our friend Ben sent us this picture of his son’s “robot” costume:

…lit with, what else, EMSL surplus traffic light— kill your eyes —LEDs. It’s five series pairs of your LEDs pointed up inside the costume and down the sleeves so the light bounces around and positively pours out of every crevice – highly visible for trick-or-treating!  There’s another two pairs, not lit in the picture, controlled by the momentary switches on the front panel for “turn signals.”

Thank you, Ben for sharing your project! And we still have just a few more of those eye-killing LEDs in the shop.

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Interactive LED Bar

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Interactive LED Bar

Alter Itay sent us pictures of a bar he designed with our Interactive LED Panels installed under the glass bar top.

Empty bar

This is a popular use for the panels, but we rarely get to see the end results, as the bars they get installed in are all over the world.

People interacting

As the patrons interact with each other and the bartenders they trigger the sensors and their drinks are illuminated by the LEDs.

Interactivity in action

Thanks very much to Itay for sending us the pictures and letting us share them!

Black & White Bar Picture

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