It's a maker break moment!
Over the last few years, I have been tapping into my inner maker. As I've found, there is no better time than now to get into this stuff! There are so many resources on-line to get started, from companies like Arduino, Adafruit and Turbosquid to free resources like YouTube and GitHub. Combine that with a little engineering, a lot of trial-and-error, and endless inspiration from my inimically gnarvelous friends, and you get:
Flagrare
Flagrare - "to burn" (Latin)
I made these bike flags for me and my bike gang! Everyone knows the most critical aspect of bike ganging is having ample pizzaz!
More patterns here:
More patterns here:
Here are some clips showing the different controls! I'm controlling the flag on the left.
The original beautiful flags were ordered from SoundWinds. I then attached over 200 LEDs in Neopixel strips along the edges and ribs on both sides, daisy-chaining the wiring to keep them in sequence. You can see the wires on the bottom side of the "ribs". I then cut and secured 3/4 inch PEX tubing over the LEDs as diffusers and structural support. I used mostly Loctite silicone sealant, some E6000 and caulk to secure everything, so far they've held up quite well!
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The battery, electronics and controls are housed in a tin, which closes and secures to the bike with velcro straps:
Everything runs on arduino! The switch powers everything on and off, button controls the modes (also lets you set favorite mode and lets you switch between solid color mode and rainbow mode), the yellow knob controls speed, blue knob controls color and white knob controls brightness. Wiring diagram and code coming soon!
Action shots on a bike coming soon!
Scramulets
This was my first real project! I was inspired to make these as gifts for a bunch of my best friends in the Underwater Squad. Naturally, you sea, as dutiful denizens of the deep, we hold the humble yet mighty scramp up as one of nature's greatest achievements. I got really ambitious with this one, and, not wanting to leave anyone out, I actually made 20 of these things.
Here are all of the other light patterns:
Here are all of the other light patterns:
I found the shrimp file on TurboSquid, and duplicated and modified it in SolidWorks, and 3D printed them. Fully encased in each scramulet is a 16-LED Neopixel ring from Adafruit. The whole thing runs on an Arduino Leonardo mini, and modes are cycled by pressing a small button under the battery pack. They run on 3 triple A batteries, and I milled the battery boxes to hold everything. Next time I'd probably use a rechargeable Li-ion battery for the smaller form factor, but it's nice to be able to hot-swap the batteries. The lanyards were made through CustomLanyard.net (great customer service!) and feature some delicious looking shrimp in the background!
Flora-essence
These are for you!
This was a relatively simple project but may be the best-looking one to date. Here are all the light patterns:
Each peony has a 16-LED Neopixel ring inside it, and I drilled holes in the bottom of each flower in order to wire the rings in sequence. There's also a power switch and a mode-control button hidden in the leaves under the petals! The whole thing runs on Arduino, and the code is very similar to the Scramulet code.
Spunflower
The spunflower was a breeze to make! All it does is spin, spin, spin no matter what! This one was pretty simple, I just found a nice triple pinwheel online, mounted it on some pvc pipe and taped microlights from emazinglights on the inner sides of the petals. I also painted a calyx on the back with UV reactive paint.
Lexundrum
This project was inspired in part by the cover art of one of my favorite books, Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter. The object is the physical manifestation of the coalescence of two words. It's name, lexundrum, was inspired by a term from another wonderful book, Nicholas Humphrey's Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness. Humphrey uses the term "Gregundrum" to name this object - a physically real "impossible triangle" built by Richard Gregory.
The gregundrum is an object that transforms when viewed from a very specific angle. Likewise, the lexundrum shows just one name when viewed straight on from the side, and a special image from the top!
This one was 3D printed on an Ultimaker Taz 6. The intricacy of the shape makes them a bit challenging to make! I've actually made a few of these, they make great gifts.
Here's one I made for my brother and his wife. Alas, I didn't get photos until after it broke and was repaired!
Here's one I made for my brother and his wife. Alas, I didn't get photos until after it broke and was repaired!
This one was printed on a Formlabs Form 1+. It gives a nice smooth finish!
The Mind Within Our Grasp
The cover art for my site! I made this for Mindscapes 2017. Mindscapes is an incredible event created by my friends Lizzie Manning and Micah Shelton. The annual event brings together art created by people diagnosed with mental and cognitive disorders, and art created by scientists whose research help us understand those disorders.
This image displays data collected during a single reach-to-grasp movement made by a rhesus monkey. Orange traces show the location of the arm and hand, as captured by infrared motion tracking cameras. Electromyographs (EMGs) of biceps and triceps activity are represented in purple. Action potential waveforms of 58 neurons are shown in rainbow colors. These neurons were recorded simultaneously from a microelectrode array implanted in primary motor cortex. Understanding the natural functioning of the motor system will help us develop treatments for stroke, spinal cord injury, and the psychomotor impairments that can accompany Parkinson’s disease, major depression and bipolar disorder.
I made this image mostly in MATLAB. Here's a couple of alternative color schemes that I tested!
Mindtrace
This video was created for Mindscapes 2018. It shows an MRI of a monkey, which was taken as part of one of my neural engineering projects. A little custom color mapping really makes these images come alive!