Robotic Rose Of Enchantment Drops Petals On Command

December 19, 2023 by Kristina Panos 2 Comments

In Disney’s 1991 film Beauty and the Beast, an enchantress curses the young (10 or 11-year-old) prince to beast-hood for spurning her based solely on her appearance. She gives him a special rose that she says will bloom until his 21st birthday, at which time he’ll be turned back into a prince, provided that he learned to love by then. If not, he’ll be a beast for eternity. As the years go by, the rose drops the occasional petal and begins to wilt under the bell jar where he keeps it.

[Gord Payne] was tasked with building such a rose of enchantment for a high school production and knocked it out of the park. With no budget provided, [Gord] used what he had lying about the house, like nylon trimmer line. In fact, that’s probably the most important part of this build. A piece of trimmer line runs up through the stem made of tubing and out the silk rose head, which connects with a custom 3-D printed part.

Each loose petal hangs from the tubing using a short length of wire. Down at the base, the trimmer line is attached to a servo horn, which is connected to an Adafruit Circuit Playground. When the button is pressed on the remote, the servo retracts the trimmer line a little bit, dropping a petal. Be sure to check out the demo after the break.

Dropping petals is an interesting problem to solve. Most of the flower hacks we see around here involve blooming, which presents its own set of troubles.

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A 3D Printed Blooming Rose For (Next) Valentines Day

March 17, 2019 by Ted Yapo 7 Comments

Inspiration runs on its own schedule: great ideas don’t always arrive in a timely manner. Such was the case with [Daren Schwenke]’s notion for creating a 3D-printed blooming rose for his valentine, a plan which came about on February 13. Inspired by [Jiří Praus]’s animated wireframe tulip, [Daren] figured he could make a rose from clear printed petals colored by RGB LEDs. 24 hours seemed tight but sufficient, so he diligently set to work, but – after a valiant effort – finally had to extend the schedule. It’s now more than a month later, and tweaks to the design continue, but the result is nothing short of spectacular.

We first saw a discussion of the idea over on Hack Chat, and followed as it evolved into a project on hackaday.io. There, you can read the full details of the trials and tribulations that had to be endured to make this project happen. From a printer that wouldn’t boot, through testing PLA, TPU, and nylon filament, trying a number of different approaches for springs and hinges to operate the petals, and wiring the delicate DotStar LEDs with magnet wire, you can get a really good sense of the amount of experimentation it takes to complete a project like this. If you know anyone who still thinks 3D printing is as easy as clicking a button, send them over to read the logs on this project.

What finally materialized is a terrific combination of common hacker technologies. The petals are printed flat in nylon, then formed over a hot incandescent chandelier bulb. The stem and leaves are also printed, but the side stem has a piece of magnet wire embedded in the print as a capacitive touch sensor; when the leaf is touched, the rose blossom opens or closes. Magnet wire for the LEDs and a connecting rod for the mechanics run through the main stem to the base, where a 9g servo is responsible for controlling the bloom. The whole thing is controlled, naturally, with an Arduino. To move the project along a little more quickly, [Daren] enlisted the help of another Hack Chat denizen, [Morning.Star], who did an amazing job on the software without any access to the actual hardware.

Be sure to check out the video of the rose in action, after the break.

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A Perfect Rose, A Stepper, An X-Ray Machine, And Thee

February 14, 2018 by Dan Maloney 18 Comments

The Day of Compulsory Romance is once more upon us, and in recognition of that fact we submit for your approval an alternative look at one of the symbols of romantic love: an X-ray of a rose.

Normally, diagnostic X-rays are somewhat bland representations of differential densities of the tissues that compose various organs and organ systems, generally rendered in shades of gray. But [Linas K], a physicist with time to kill and access to some cool tools, captured the images in the video below not only in vivid color, but as a movie. The imaging side of the project consists of a low-power X-ray tube normally used for non-clinical applications and a CMOS sensor panel. The second video shows that [Linas] did an impressive upgrade on the X-ray controller, rolling his own from an FPGA. This allowed him to tie in a stepper motor to rotate the rose incrementally while taking images which he stitched together in post.

Watching the interior structure of the flower as it spins is fascinating and romantic in its own right, for certain subsets of romance. And really, who wouldn’t appreciate the work that went into this? But if you don’t have access to X-ray gear, fear not — a lovely Valentine’s gift is only a bottle of ferric chloride away.

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Hackaday Links: February 12, 2012

February 12, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 16 Comments

This is why digital picture frames were invented

[Petros] sent in this video of his visualization of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. He did this with openFrameworks and also made a version that reacts to sound. Is anyone else reminded of that one scene in Vincent and the Doctor?

A boat’s a boat, but a mystery box can be anything

[Rick] wanted to build a lock pick training station for the Eugene Maker Space, but he needed a way to make it interesting. What could be better than a mystery box? When you pick the deadbolt, open the box up and you’ll get a prize. Just make sure you put something of yours in the box for the next person.

3D printer prints its own case

Because the 3d printer community isn’t segmented enough, [Sublime] decided to design a new one. Here’s where it gets cool: the Tantillus can print its own case, and can ‘daisy chain’ to another Tantillus so only one set of electronics are needed. Interesting ideas afoot.

A diamond says I love you, but a duct tape rose says I’ll fix that for you

Valentine’s Day is coming up, so if you haven’t already made dinner reservations, you’re probably up the creek. How about making a duct tape rose for that special person in your life. Bonus: a dozen costs $3, and they won’t die in a week.

Using keypads over serial or SPI

[Leniwiec] sent in a tutorial on connecting keypads to a microcontroller with a serial or SPI interface. If you want to build a calculator, this is your chance. We’d use this for an Apollo Guidance Computer, though.