Chromatography As Art

July 15, 2026 by Al Williams 7 Comments

You may or may not remember in some ancient chemistry class studying or even performing chromatography. The short definition is using media like paper or powder to separate a mixture. It is an old technique, but [Suchir2004] is using it as an art form.

Chromatography works because the parts of the liquid mixture travel through the media at different speeds. While experimenting, [Suchir2004] noted that black ink and water perfused into constituent pigments. A butterfly ensued.

Is it art? Yes! Is it science? Well, sort of. Especially since the post does talk about how the effect works and even does some simple tests to start. This would be an excellent project for a class where some students are more motivated by art and others by science. Even with an individual kid, it might show you where their interests lie.

There’s nothing particularly difficult. A sketch pen, some paper, a coffee filter, a glue stick, and a few other household items are all you really need to get started.

Want something more practical? How about measuring caffeine content?

Bite Into Strange Sounds With NOISFERATU

June 30, 2026 by Donald Papp 20 Comments

The NOISFERATU is an open source generative textural sound synthesizer, or as creator [Robert Heel] puts it, “a sound designer’s dream and audiophile’s worst nightmare”.

NOISFERATU offers 45 different sound algorithms grouped into five banks to produce a dazzling range of evolving soundscapes and patterns that resist repetition or settling, each influenced and shaped — the word controlled does not quite apply — by a volume slider and a few hardware knobs.

So what does it actually sound like? Check out the video embedded below to give it a listen, it’s pretty trippy.

Hardware-wise NOISFERATU is centered around the Seeed Studio XIAO SAMD21 microcontroller board, takes power over USB-C, and has a headphone jack for sound output. We love the artwork on the dual-sided front panel, too.

DIY synthesizers based on logic chips have a long and proud history, and seeing the different directions people can go by incorporating microcontrollers is always a delight.

If NOISFERATU’s experimental sound and noise sounds up your alley, the design files and code on GitHub have everything one should need to build one. Kits are for sale direct from the designer, as well.

Continue reading “Bite Into Strange Sounds With NOISFERATU” →

Creating Beautiful Light Shows With Soap

June 19, 2026 by Zoe Skyforest 15 Comments

We feature a lot of fun projects with LEDs and lasers and all kinds of light effects going on. Most of these are very digital. However, there are a great many ways to make beautiful lighting effects without ones and zeros. The Maelstrom Lamp from [Michele Lorenzi] is a great example of that.

*The Maelstrom Lamp is externally decorated to indicate its function.*

The concept is decidedly old-school. The lamp uses a delicate, thin soap film stretched across an aperture as its primary optical element. The varying thickness of the film across its surface leads to constructive and destructive interference when white light passes through it. This creates a kaleidoscope of color; the same effect you might have seen when an oil slick forms in a dirty puddle.

In this case, though, that effect is projected with the aid of a powerful 800-lumen flashlight and some supporting optics. [Michele]’s write-up does a great job of explaining the finer design details that maximize the vibrancy of the effect, from the waviness in the gasket that supports the soap film, to the optics that focus the torch beam.

If you’re looking for some suitably psychedelic lighting effects for your next house party, you really ought to build one of these. We’ve featured some other fun classic lighting effects before, like these wonderful bubble lamps. Continue reading “Creating Beautiful Light Shows With Soap” →

The Uncooperative Mirror Will Not Help You

May 30, 2026 by Jenny List 7 Comments

The value of a mirror is in its clarity. If the reflection is cast by [danicakostic17]’s Uncooperative Mirror though, you’ll find anything but. It’s described as a useless machine, because it appears as a tiled mirror. As you approach it though, the tiles shake around and make it very difficult to follow what’s in front of you. It’s an art piece and a prank all in one, and we like it.

Behind the mirror is a 3D printed frame and a set of small servos with what look like some belts to hitch them up. There’s an ultrasonic sensor and an Arduino Uno, that sets those servos going as soon as the ultrasonic sensor sees anything. We can see this thing would be fun at a party.

Everything you’ll need is on the Instructables page linked above should you be foolhardy enough to want your own, and there’s even a YouTube video which we’ve placed below.

Continue reading “The Uncooperative Mirror Will Not Help You” →

Drawing Videos On An Etch-a-Sketch

May 26, 2026 by Julian Scheffers 2 Comments

We’ve covered etch-a-sketch robots before, but usually they’re not quite as fast as [Every Flavor of Robot]’s “video” etch-a-sketch, capable of drawing a full portrait in as little as a minute.

The robot, nearly finished drawing a portrait of [William Osman]

The idea comes from the motivation to make something cool for Open Sauce. Of course, most projects with a deadline come very close to missing it, and–like many an Open Sauce project–this one is no exception. Arriving in California, they realize they couldn’t access their code! Fortunately, they get a demo working where your portrait is drawn just in time.
Continue reading →

Slightly Sentient D20 Might Subtly Shift Your Rolls

May 25, 2026 by Donald Papp 2 Comments

A twenty-sided die (d20) is a common thing in tabletop gaming, and [kati]’s slightly sentient d20 is a PCB that not only delivers random results on demand, but responds to hot and cold streaks and may even tweak the results a little to reflect its mood.

On its face the unit is a touch-sensitive PCB with twenty small charlieplexed LEDs around its perimeter, one for each die result. When activated by a touch on the center pad, the die dutifully animates a die roll and delivers a result. But something happens if the RNG (random number generator) coughs up results that are unusually lucky, or unlucky.

After a streak of natural 1s, the device gets cranky. It begins to ignore the occasional activation input, and may glitch before a roll, reflecting a low mood. In addition, future rolls while in a low mood have a slight chance of being silently discarded and re-rolled into a low range (1-6), prolonging the unlucky streak. The inverse is true of a die that encounters a lucky run of natural 20s, with the die’s mood shifting to high spirits and having a slight chance of re-rolling future results into a high range (16-20).

The idea is to create (and feed) the feeling of lucky and unlucky streaks. Gamers are of course perfectly capable of projecting such feelings all on their own, which means the die acts as both mirror and amplifier of these emotions. In addition, each die acts slightly differently as a result of being imprinted with different RNG seeds, timing values, and response times which makes each one feel unique. There are reportedly other hidden features as well.

If you’d like to try making your own, keep an eye on the GitHub repository. The originals have design elements that were heavily personalized for [kati]’s gaming group, so the design files are in the process of being turned into a meaningful public release. Of course, there’s more than enough detail already to roll your own if you are so inclined.

Adorable ASCII Aquarium Lives On Your Desk

May 24, 2026 by Donald Papp 26 Comments

[Kert Gartner]’s ASCII Aquarium turns a cheap yellow display (CYD) into a tiny simulated aquarium, complete with ASCII sea creatures each with their own behaviors. There’s all kinds of options and even timekeeping functionality, so the miniature water world can also pull its weight as a desk clock.

The fish and other animal movements are not a series of canned animations; each creature has its own behaviors and responses to things like feeding, which is accomplished by tapping on the screen. A hidden menu offers a wide range of configuration and display options, and there’s even an option to export screen contents as bitmaps.

Add a 3D-printed enclosure and the whole thing looks like a pretty nice weekend project. There’s even a display flip mode, just in case you have a spare 50 mm beamsplitter kicking around.

It’s a very clever use of a CYD that shows how good color and graphics can look when one designs with the hardware’s capabilities (and limitations) in mind.

The CYD is an ESP32-based development board with integrated touchscreen display, and is known for its affordable price and wide availability. This one would look great next to a CYD electric jellyfish.