Category Archives: Art

Fall Field Trips!

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Tailgating for electronics guys

First up: the last Electronics Flea Market of the year is tomorrow, Saturday, October 9 in the morning at De Anza. We’ll be there, and if you’re anywhere near here, you should be, too!


RoboGames 2006

Coming up soon: Combots Cup V at the San Mateo Event Center on Saturday, October 23 and Sunday, October 24. Combots is the annual heavyweight robot combat championship.

“This event highlights the best combat robot teams in America and their 220 pound flame-throwing, blade-spinning, titanium shearing robots of destruction! Whether you’re a sports fan or techno geek, ComBots puts on the best robot events in the world! If you missed seeing fighting robots at Maker Faire this year, or are longing for RoboGames, here’s your chance to see them again.”

We’re thrilled to announce that ComBots is offering EMSL readers a 20% discount on ticket prices (adults normally $20, kids $15). Coupon is valid for advance ticket purchases until Oct 20th. Buy tickets here and use the coupon code EMSL-1337 for your discount when you check-out!

We’ll be there all day on Saturday, so come say hi!


Pumpkin?

That same weekend: East Bay Mini-Maker Faire is on Sunday, October 24 at the Park Day School in Oakland. We’ll be bringing our Egg-Bots and showing off a few of their Halloween related applications.

We hope to see you there!

Robogames 2006 photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid under cc-by-nc license.

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Bottles of Hope Chandelier

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Bottles Of Hope By Peter Sid from peter sid on Vimeo.

Peter Sid wrote in to tell us about his “Bottles of Hope” chandelier that he has entered into a design contest at Apartment Therapy.

Evocative of the famous Droog Milk Bottle Lamp, Peter’s design features an array of 108 chemotherapy bottles, individually lit by LEDs. (Chemo bottles have been decorated and repurposed since 1999 by the Bottles of Hope project, hence the name.)

We’ve embedded Peter’s slideshow video above. If you can’t see it here, you can click here to view it at Vimeo.
And, if you look closely, you might spot the Peggy 2LE that he used to drive his LEDs.

Voting for the contest is this week, and I’m sure that Peter would appreciate your vote.

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Cooking for Geeks

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Cooking for Geeks cover


Woo-hoo! We just got Cooking for Geeks in the mail. You can view it as a cookbook that takes time to delve into the science of the recipes or a food science book with demonstrative recipes. Or maybe an introduction to everything that food geeks know about, but everyone else wishes they did. It also has a series of interviews with geeks, chefs and scientists– including us, but I’m not sure which of those categories we fit into. Regardless, we enjoyed talking with Jeff about the book and are happy to see it out in print!

The cover design with splatter marks and stains means less worry when it gets spilled on in the process of cooking (not that I’ve ever worried about that with any of my other cookbooks).

Cooking for Geeks inside


Most pages have ample room for margin notes, which is something I’m fond of for recipe alterations. It flops open on the counter well, too.

We got a nice shoutout from Jeff on NPR’s Science Friday last week for the laser cut pie crust from our Apple pie, which is featured in the book along with our electrocuted hot dogs. Thanks, Jeff, and congrats on getting the book out there!

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Manufacturing art: Photomask

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Masking plate1


After seeing our photomask coasters, a friend gave us this giant photomask as an art piece. While we’re not certain what this was for, our best guess is that it is a mask for the lead frame for some device in an SO-20 package. The overall size is about 18″ x 24″ and about 1/8″ thick.


Masking plate3


Shown with an SO-24 device on the edge of the plate for comparison. (Didn’t happen to have a correctly sized 20 pin device handy.)

Masking plate5


The transparent lines show where the metal will be after processing and the black portions are where the metal will be removed. When you line up the 24 pin device on the plate it is a bit misleading, as it obscures the fact that those two outer transparent lines aren’t actually for device leads. It does confirm that it is sized correctly for a 1:1 mask for a device with a 0.050″ pin spacing, and the central square looks like the right width for a device in an SO-20 package as well.


Tangentially related: CCD wafer

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Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories: Year 4

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Evil

Happy birthday to us! Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has now been around for four years. We’ve collected some interesting projects from this past year to celebrate.

Microcontroller and Electronics Projects:

Tabletop Pong
Tabletop Pong

Breadboard
Moving from breadboard to protoboard

Revenge!
Revenge of the Cherry Tomatoes

drink making unit
Drink making unit

pin 1
Finding pin 1

xmega - 2
Say hello to xmega

Peggydot
Adding a Chronodot to Peggy 2

Meggy Twitter Reader
Meggy Jr RGB Twitter Reader

twisted wire bundle
Twisted Wire Bundles

LED graph
Some thoughts on throwies

rovin pumpkin
Rovin’ pumpkin

ADXL335 - 10
Accelerometer with an AVR (updated)

LEDcalc - 20
Wallet-size LED Resistance Calculator

Science:

seeing magnetic fields
Seeing Magnetic Fields

Ice Spikes
Ice Spikes

opposition effect in clover
Opposition effect

Kitchen Science 18
Litmus Candy

Beans day five
Gibberellic Acid and Giantism in Sprouts

Simple LED Projects:

fake seven segment display
Fake seven segment display

LED-lit sea urchin
LED-lit sea urchins

Edge Lit Cards
Refining edge-lit cards

Food Hacking:

Ice Cream Gyoza -13
Ice Cream Gyoza

Lemon Pickle
Lemon Pickle

The array
Spices

coffee bean cooler
DIY coffee bean cooler

Marmalade 30
Marmalade: easier than it looks

AtomicCookies 7
Atomic Cookies

asteroids cookies
Asteroids (the edible kind)

Crunchy Frogs01
Crunchy Frog

Kit Projects:

tortiseshell
Bulbdial Clock Kit

Peggy2le-end
Peggy 2LE

Scale
LED Hanukkah Menorah Kit

Larson Scanner
Larson Scanner

D12 bag8
Handbag of Holding Kits

Crafty Projects:

arecibo 2
SETI Scarf

scrap acrylic
Scrap acrylic shelf

Tombstone
24 hour tombstones

ipad 3
iPad lap stand

Custom iron ons 10
Custom iron-on techniques

Geek Design:

symmetrisketch
SymmetriSketch

Typographic Coasters
Typgraphical Character Coasters

Ornamental Components 08
Ornamental Components

Cat String 6
Radio controlled string

Bookend - 9
Bookends for physics geeks

Lego business cards-2
Lego Business Cards

Tie Stools2
Portable Stools

And, don’t forget, you can win a Peggy 2 or one of 13 other prizes in our clock
concept contest, going on this week.

Related:

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How to Kick Ass and Take Names in the Spice Aisle

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Spice 7

There are a few standard ways to acquire spices. The usual involves buying a new spice now or then when you need it for some new recipe. Or perhaps acquiring a “set of spices” with a built in organizer system. These obviously work, but are prone to being expensive, disorganized, or subject to artificial limits. Obviously, a more optimal solution exists. We set out to create a better, backwards compatible, scalable spice organization system so that you don’t feel silly adding another 20 or 30 or 40 items to your palette.

Continue reading How to Kick Ass and Take Names in the Spice Aisle →

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HP Sauce

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HP Sauce - 2

HP Sauce - 1


HP Sauce - 4


HP Sauce - 5

There. Fixed that for you.



HP Sauce is a popular condiment in the UK and Canada, though now made by Heinz (yes, that Heinz) in the Netherlands.


It says you can use it on pretty much anything– not sure that my printer will taste that much better with sauce on it, though.

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One of many lemon pickles

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Lemon Pickle

Indian style preserved lemons, commonly referred to just as “lemon pickle,” come in probably not hundreds, but thousands of varieties. Here’s how to make just one of these amazing creations: Gujarati Lemon Pickle.

Sweet, salty and easy to make, it takes a few spices, a few minutes and about a month.

Continue reading One of many lemon pickles →

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