Art

437 Articles

The Eyes Of The Basilisk Are Watching You

November 9, 2023 by 1 Comment

MIT student [Anhad Sawhney] built an interesting decoration for his dorm room corridor called The Eyes of the Basilisk. Named after the mythical creature with a deadly gaze, the project monitors passers-by using thermal cameras and an LED matrix.

The project uses a thermal camera and a 64 by 64 LCD panel, with an ESP32 taking the signal from the thermal camera and processing it to find the largest hot blob in the image, which is (probably) a person. The ESP32 then displays the pixel art basilisk eye image with the iris closest to the blob’s coordinates, updating once a second. With a bit of processing to make the eye appear more spherical, it is a pretty convincing trick.

Most might have built one (or two) of the devices on a breadboard and left it at that, but [Anhad] decided to use the project as a way to teach PCB fabrication to some friends, so they created a PCB that could be mounted onto the back of the LCD matrix and built 14 of them, using the pick & place machine that he had access to at the MIT Media Lab. They then mounted all of them on the wall of his dorm room so the wall appeared to keep track of anyone walking by. I’ve never met a Basilisk, so I don’t know how many eyes they have,  but it has a pretty creepy look as it watches you walking down the corridor.

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Oh, The Places You’ll Go With Stop Motion Animation

November 5, 2023 by 5 Comments

Robots made of broken toy parts, stop-motion animation, and a great song to tie it all together were not on our bingo card for 2023, but the results are perfect. [Mootroidxproductions] recently released the official music video for I Fight Dragons 2019 song “Oh the Places You’ll Go”.

The song was written by lead vocalist [Brian Mazzaferri] with inspiration from the classic Dr. Seuss book. [Brian] wrote it for his newborn daughter, and we’re pretty sure it will hit any parent right in the feels.

[Mootroidxproductions] isn’t a parent themselves, but they expanded on the theme to create a video about sacrificing oneself to save a loved one. With a self deprecating wit, they take us through the process of turning broken Bionicle parts, bits of Gundam, Lego, and, armature wire to make the two robots in the film. He also explains how he converted garbage into sets, greebles, and lighting effects.

The robots had to be designed so that they could fulfill their roles in the film. From the size of their hands down to their individual walking gaits, he thought of everything. His encyclopedic knowledge of Bionicle parts is also on full display as he explains the origin of the major parts used to build “Little Blue” and “Sherman”

Click through the break for both the main video and the behind-the-scenes production.

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Blatano Art Project Tracks Devices In Its Vicinity

October 26, 2023 by 2 Comments

Computers, surveillance systems, and online agents are perceiving us all the time these days. Most of the time, it takes place in the shadows, and we’re supposed to be unaware of this activity going on in the background. The Blatano art piece from [Leigh] instead shows a digital being that actively displays its perception of other digital beings in the world around it.

The project is based on an ESP32, using the BLE Scanner library to scan for Bluetooth devices in the immediate vicinity. Pwnagochi and Hash Monster tools are also used to inspect WiFi traffic, while the CovidSniffer library picks up packets from contact-tracking apps that may be operating in the area.

This data is used to create profiles of various devices that the Blatano can pick up. It then assigns names and little robotic images to each “identity,” and keeps tabs on them over time. It’s an imperfect science, given that some devices regularly change their Bluetooth identifiers and the like. Regardless, it’s interesting to watch a digital device monitor the scene like a wallflower watching punters at a house party.

If you’ve built your own art-surveillance devices to comment on the state of modernity, don’t hesitate to drop us a line!

Interactive Chameleon Lamp Changes Color At Your Whim

October 26, 2023 by 2 Comments

You never forget your first diorama, especially when it’s interactive. Although admittely a bit late to celebrate Erntedankfest (Germanic Thanksgiving), [Markus Bindhammer] is ahead of the curve when it comes to the American version.

This interactive diorama lamp features a cute chameleon that [Markus sculpted from a wire frame and a lump of clay]. In the chameleon’s midsection is a ping pong ball that does the work of diffusing an RGB LED. Wires run out the far side and through the bamboo stand and connect to a TCS34725 RGB color sensor and an Arduino Pro Micro.

The lamp does what you think — hold any colored object up to the color sensor, and the chameleon will change colors to match. When no one is interacting with the lamp, it slowly runs through a rainbow of colors. Be sure to check out the build video after the break.

Don’t have a color sensor? You can roll your own with an RGB LED, a photocell, and not much else. If you’re wondering how they work, we’ve seen the color sensor demystified.

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This Machine Has Lost Its Marbles

October 26, 2023 by 15 Comments

The astonishing variety of ways to tell the time which have appeared on these pages over the years provides a showcase of the talents and ingenuity of our community. Many clocks use designs we are familiar with, but every now and then along comes a clock that rings something new. So it is with [Ivan Miranda]’s latest work — a digital clock that shows the time with a dot matrix made of marbles. So far he’s published only part one of what will become a series. There’s technically no clock yet, but as it stands it’s enough of a marble machine to be a worthy project in its own right.

In the video below we see him solving the problems of creating free-running marble transport and handling via a conveyor belt, and solving such unexpected problems as cleanly releasing them from the belt, holding a row of marbles with a solenoid, and catching errant marbles that bounce free of the machine. The result is a rather pretty marble machine that makes an endless cascade of falling marbles on a curved track. We’re guessing that future videos will deal with the assembly of lines for the dot matrix display, such that the figures of the clock will be formed from black and white marbles, so this is a series to watch out for.

We’ve seen [Ivan]’s work in the past, not least for his giant 3D printer.

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The Insatiable Hunger Of Paper Shredder-Based Locomotion

October 18, 2023 by 16 Comments

We enjoy hacks that combine or alter devices, enhancing (or subverting) their purpose in the process, but [Japhy Riddle] reminds us all that sometimes it’s fun just to enjoy a spectacle. In this case, it’s an old paper shredder given wheels and a continuous line of paper to rip into.

The result is a device demonstrating a shredder-based form of locomotion, noisily pulling itself along by its own insatiable appetite.

It even looks like a robot, even though there’s nothing really going on inside. It just mindlessly and noisily consumes, converting paper into shreds, moving inexorably forward and limited only by the supply of paper or the length of its power cable, whichever is shorter. Powerful artistic statement, or simple spectacle? You be the judge.

Want to try your hand at a paper shredder-inspired piece? You can take artistic inspiration from the stock tracker that literally shreds your money when the market is down, or if you’re more interested in the worky bits, make your own shredder from LEGO.

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Spuds Lend A Hand In The Darkroom

October 5, 2023 by 10 Comments

If film photography’s your thing, the chances are you may have developed a roll or two yourself, and if you’ve read around on the subject it’s likely you’ll have read about using coffee, beer, or vegetable extracts as developer. There’s a new one to us though, from [cm.kelsall], who has put the tater in the darkroom, by making a working developer with potatoes as the active ingredient.

The recipe follows a fairly standard one, with the plant extract joined by some washing soda and vitamin C. The spuds are liquidised and something of a watery smoothie produced, which is filtered and diluted for the final product. It’s evidently not the strongest of developers though, because at 20 Celcius it’s left for two hours to gain an acceptable result.

The chemistry behind these developers usually comes from naturally occurring phenols in the plant, with the effectiveness varying with their concentration. They’re supposed to be better for the environment than synthetic developers, but sadly those credentails are let down somewhat by there not being a similar green replacement for the fixer, and the matter of a load of silver ions in the resulting solutions. Still, it’s interesting to know that spuds could be used this way, and it’s something we might even try ourselves one day.

We’ve even had a look at the coffee process before.