- Chronophotographs Capture Birds in Flight
- Watch 118 Bird Species Migrate Across a Map of the Western Hemisphere
- A Lizard With Scales That Behave Like a Computer Simulation
- Original Macintosh Lode Runner, in your browser
- Laser drawing stroboscopic patterns on an egg covered in photochromic paint (youtube)
- Conway’s game of life, emulated in Conway’s game of life
- Video game archaeologists exist
- “How Nature Documentaries Are Fake” A useful take on storytelling in documentaries.
- An epic teardown of the Juicero press
Robotic Art Contest 2017
The second annual Robot Art contest Is in its final lap:
The Robot Art 2017 competition will be running between now and May 15th when more than $100,000 in awards will be given to the top painting robots. Winners will be determined based on a combination of public voting, professional judges consisting of working artists, critics, and technologists, and by how well the team met the spirit of the competition – that is to create something beautiful using a physical brush and robotics.
You can help by voting on the artwork now!
Stippled Ceramics
HEXceramic posted examples of using StippleGen to create lasered molds for making ceramic tiles. Very cool!
From the mailbag: Sciencey!
Dave wrote in about the EggBot:
My daughter wanted to tell you that she loves your creation. The other day she told me that she is more sciencey than girly, and I told her that she could be both. I have attached a picture of her with her first multi color print, Wonder Woman.
Thank you for sharing, and the egg turned out great!
Linkdump: March 2017
- morejpeg: Another microservice that you didn’t know you needed
- The Backyard Scientist: Pouring Molten salt into Water (YouTube)
- Did Voyager 1 capture an image of Enceladus’ plumes erupting?
- If the moon were one pixel
- Digital Clock in Conway’s Game of Life
- Make your own landed Falcon 9 model
- A Vector Field Playground
- Using a CNC mill to open a case of beer.
- 74181 ALU chip: how it works and why it’s so strange
- Classic Game Postmortem: Oregon Trail (YouTube)
- Original songs sampled by Daft Punk
- Scientific studies suggest that cats are nice.
Using the AxiDraw for Mouse Testing
The folks at Mouse-Sensitivity.com used the AxiDraw to do a mouse sensor accuracy test, comparing the Logitech G900, G700s, and G9X (and a cheap HP they had on hand). The resulting visualization of the sensor information is fascinating!
Linkdump: February 2017
- Boris Karloff’s Guacamole Recipe
- Can you fake a TV Remote control with paper and a lighter? Probably not.
- EL wire Nixie Tube
- CatterPlots: Scatter plots, with cats as points
- Convert Inkscape SVG drawings to KiCad footprints
- Double pendulum with UV LED & GITD backdrop (Youtube)
- The Rotating Hallway Scene from 2001, stabilized
- A review of science books for kids, on pages 4-5 of the Reno News & Review Family Guide 2017 including The Annotated Build It Yourself Science Laboratory
- What’s in that Subway Oven Roasted Chicken Sandwich?
Evil Mad Scientist Valentines: 2017 Edition
Today we are releasing our newest set of “Download and Print” cards for Valentine’s day. This is our fifth year, and fifth set of cards: The 2013 set had six equation-heavy cards, the 2014 set was a set of six symbol-heavy cards, and the 2015 set included love, hearts, and arrows. The 2016 set featured Pluto’s cold heart, and the perfect card for your robotic expression of love.
This year’s set features relativity, atomic orbitals, exponential growth, an LC resonator, and an epsilon delta declaration of love.
“You put me in an excited state.”
Roses are red. Which does suggest that they’re moving away from us, quickly.
While this sounds much like an “epsilon delta proof,” it lacks the logical rigor that we would normally associate with one. It’s more of a postulate, really.
“You make my heart feel like sin(1/x)….” If your heart isn’t jumping yet, you’ve probably never tried to graph that.
The original title for this one was “my love for you grows exponentially.” But hey, your valentine is smart (or you wouldn’t be sending these kinds of valentines): Let them do the math.
You can download the full set here, which includes all 30 designs from all five years (a 1.5 MB PDF document).
As usual, print them out on (or otherwise affix to) card stock, personalize, and [some steps omitted] enjoy the resulting lifelong romance.
Update: New cards have been released! Please check out the 2019 set, which contains all 42 cards from 2013 through 2019.
Linkdump: January 2017
- Cool drafting tools: the Keuffel & Esser Trammel Ellipsograph. (See also: 507 movements.)
- Just Add Water: The history of Sea Monkeys, dark side and all.
- Magica: A beautiful solenoid coil driven wooden clock
- An introductory servo control project with ROS, the Robot Operating System
- Dial-A-Grue: Text adventure games with a rotary dial phone
- Another take at weaving string art with a 3D printer
- VisiCut: a userfriendly tool for laser-cutting
- How Canned Mandarin Oranges are made: in Spain and China, and Japan
- The history of the MOS Commodore KIM-1 Computer in pictures
ATmegaXX8 Target Boards in Funk Amateur
We just got a copy of the December 2016 Funk Amateur, a German ham radio and electronics magazine.
There’s a two page spread on our ATmegaXX8 Target Boards with examples of how to use them for various circuit and projects.