A few weeks ago we got a batch of LEDs– a sample order from a new vendor. These are 10 mm diffused white LEDs, much like the ones that we use on the Peggy 2 or in the LED Ghosties.
On the surface, they look okay. But after lighting them up, we noticed something funny in a few of them that led us to discover their deep dark– or really, shallow and clear –secret. Continue reading A funny batch of LEDs
We are helping to sponsor the 2010 Open Hardware Summit, which is happening next month, Thursday September 23, at the New York Hall of Science. That’s two days before, and at the same location as, Maker Faire NY.
The summit agenda has just been posted: it’s a full day of talks and discussions about open source hardware, its meaning and its implications. I’ll be part of the panel discussing open hardware licenses and norms which will also be taking questions online– so you can participate even if you can’t make it to the event.
Tickets for the event are on sale now and include a 1-day pass to Maker Faire. We’ll hope to see you there!
Just launched: the Evil Mad Linkblog. It’s a microblog hosted on Tumblr where we post interesting links. Not so different from our monthly linkdump, but with lower latency. We hope that you like it.
Recently we put together this interactive Game of Life display as an educational adjunct for a new exhibit by the San Jose Museum of Art on the works of Leo Villareal. Leo primarily works with light sculptures, and we’re very excited to see (and participate in) the exhibit, which opens this Friday.
We put together a video showing off the project, embedded here:
(If you can’t see the video here, click here to visit the youtube page.)
We’ve just posted a few pictures from last weekend’s fantastic Electronics Flea Market at De Anza College in Cupertino.
One interesting thing that we came across: a set of leadframes not so different from those that might be made from that photomask that we wrote about a couple of weeks ago.
Only one two more flea markets left this year, September 11 is the next one; mark your calendars and we’ll hope to see you there!
(For a few more, check out photos from another electronics flea market a couple of years ago here.)
Corrected 8/16/10: two more flea markets left for 2010– Sept. 11 and Oct. 9.
One of our favorite projects of the last year is our Bulbdial Clock, an LED shadow clock based on an idea from Ironic Sans. And, while we have written a fair bit about it, we haven’t yet taken the time to describe some of the interesting technical details.
So in what follows here, we discuss some of those details, with an emphasis on a few in particular that we’ve been asked about. First, the process of designing and prototyping “funny shaped” circuit boards, but also charlieplexing LEDs in a mixed array, and (finally) getting that rear-projection scheme to work.
Continue reading On the design of the Bulbdial Clock
Maker Faire Detroit was a blast! It was held at The Henry Ford, which is a museum worth visiting in its own right. It is an amazing place we didn’t get to see nearly enough of and would love to go back and visit again.
This week we’re getting ready for our big trip to Maker Faire Detroit 2010, where we’ll be demonstrating the Egg-Bot, our forthcoming spherical-coordinate drawing robot, which we’re gearing up to release later this summer.
Our last Egg-Bot outing was to the California state fair a couple of weeks ago, where we had a blast showing off our machine, drawing on light bulbs and (yes) eggs:
What else is going on at Maker Faire? Well, lots— it’s hard to know where to begin –but for one thing Wes and Don told us about their cool project– a low-resolution 3D volumetric display based on a Peggy 2LE, rotated on a big box fan.
Embedded youtube video follows:
For those of you who can make it to the Henry Ford this weekend, we’ll certainly hope to see you there. (And further off and further away, we’re planning to be at Maker Faire NY in September.)
