Slick Music Synchronized Light Show Uses UV LEDs And Water

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[mike6789k] wanted to spice up his dorm room, so he built a cool music synchronized light show that struck us as being very well thought out. We have seen similar music-based visualizations before, but they tend to be pretty basic, relying on volume more than actual audio frequencies to trigger the lighting.

[mike6789k] didn’t want to build “just another” synchronized light show, and his all-analog approach gives a true representation of the music being played instead of just flashing lights along with the beat. Using a trio of simple filters, he broke the audio signals down into three distinct frequency bands before being driven through a high gain transistor to power a set of LEDs.

We were pretty impressed at how bright the display was given that he is using UV LEDs, but the 1W diodes seem to have no problem lighting up the place when aimed through the UV-reactive water, as you can see in the video below.

If you’re looking to make something similar for your next party, the folks over at Buildlounge were able to wrangle a schematic out of [mike6789k], which you can find here.

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Cheap Ikea Camera Boom Ensures Shake-free Video

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[Chris] recently got himself a nice web cam for documenting his Makerbot builds, and much like [Dino], he was looking for a way to get a bird’s-eye view of the action while keeping the camera nice and steady. While [Dino] ventured off to the hardware store, [Chris] tried a few different options that included tape, before heading off to Ikea to see what he could find.

$9 and a few Swedish meatballs later, he was on his way home with a “TERTIAL Work Lamp” that can be mounted on virtually any desk-like surface. He had to remove most of the web cam’s useless mounting hardware, doing the same with the lamp’s light fixture. He put together a small bracket in Google Sketchup, which he then printed out using his Makerbot.

It fit perfectly, and now he can get steady video of his Makerbot prints every single time.

Sweet Octocopter Takes The RED Epic To New Heights

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So you’ve got a $40k+ RED Epic video camera and you need to get it from all the way down here to all the way up there. Sure, you could rent an expensive crane and take your shots from above that way, but why bother with that when you can fly instead?

German video effects company OMStudios decided that it was up to the task of finding a crane alternative, so they built a crazy octocopter drone to get the camera up to where they needed it. Figuring that if four rotors is good eight is even better, the group’s octocopter lifts the camera to heights of up to 150 meters, which is pretty impressive considering the weight of its payload.

While we might be a little hesitant to trust such an expensive camera to a glorified RC helicopter, it actually looks pretty solid from the video. Besides, we’re pretty sure these guys know what they are doing since they have a RED camera in the first place.

[via Engadget]

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