We love unique displays here at Hackaday. If you can figure out how to show information on some weird object, we’re all about it. So when [Julius Curt] wrote in to share his work on the Pasta Analog Display, we were hooked from the subject line.
But in reading his account, it ended up being even better than we hoped for. Because it turns out, getting pasta to behave properly in an electromechanical device is trickier than you might think. Oh sure, as [Julius] points out, those ridges on the side of penne might make them look like gears — but after spending the time and effort to build a particularly slick 3D printed frame to actually use them as such, it turns out they just won’t cooperate. You’d think the pasta makers of the world would have some respect for mechanical tolerances, but unfortunately not.
So if [Julius] couldn’t use the natural shape of the penne to get them to rotate, what was the alternative? First, he switched to the far larger cannelloni. Their increased internal volume, most commonly used to hold spinach and ricotta, has in this case been stuffed with a 3D printed armature. Thus each cannelloni is physically attached to a gear, which means when one of them is rotated by a 28BYJ-48 stepper motor, the rest follow.
All that’s left is to apply some artwork to the pasta (again, easier said than done), and rotate them into position. Depending on how much you can cram onto each cannelloni, the display can be rotated to show several different messages. In the video below, [Julius] shows off three distinct images rendered at the push of a button.
If you get hungry while trying to turn pasta into a workable display medium, you can always cook and eat some of your building materials. Luckily, a couple years ago Barilla released the design for an open source device to help you cook their pasta more efficiently.
I wish I had this much time on my hands!
It’s all a matter of priorities and the mindset.
I do know a worker who “never has time”,
even if that worker sits in the arm chair on a sunday doing nothing.
As a friend of mine used to say, If you want to do something, you will always find time that.
I stopped using the phrase “had time” and started using the phrase “make time”. Because let’s face it, unless you’re dead you have time, it’s just a matter of prioritizing it. So I made time for this post.
It’s pretty disappointing that you can’t use past as gears. I would have thought that wagon wheels would have to work. Fun idea though. As kids me and my brothers would use dry pasta to make props. You’d be surprised the kinda of space lasers you can make with duct tape lasagna penne and some cardboard
Damn, thought this was going to be dynamic. Pretty cool otherwise.
Video is a commercial wrapped in pasta…
Don’t play with food !
this is a far better use for penne (the WORST pasta shape) than cooking and eating it
Penne is actually really convenient for kids who can’t use a fork properly yet. Just slip a fork tine in the large hole of the penne and pick it up.
The article is wrong in calling them Penne. Those don’t have straight ends.. What was used here is a pasta shape called cannelloni.
The change from penne to cannelloni is covered in the third paragraph.
Don’t know if the article’s been updated since your comment, but it does now actually point that out – “So if [Julius] couldn’t use the natural shape of the penne to get them to rotate, what was the alternative? First, he switched to the far larger cannelloni…”
Given the confluence of tech and pasta, I was trying to slip a “penne-testing” pun in, but it was an exercise in fusili-ty.
Never forget the tragedy that was ….. Jerry Fusili !
Or was it Fusili Jerry ?