rubber

16 Articles

Gently Stroke This Drum

April 19, 2010 by 16 Comments

The silent drum is played with your hands. It acts as a midi device by analyzing the movement of the rubbery black drum head. As you can see in the photo, one side of the body is clear and the other is white. A light shines up into it to boost the contrast and a camera picks up the black head as it moves past the white side of the shell. [Jaime Oliver] has provided an interesting look at the analysis method used with this instrument and there’s also a system of notating a composition for future performance. See and hear it played in the demo after the break.

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Transparent Rubber Enclosures

February 12, 2010 by 31 Comments

This clear rubber puck serves as the enclosure for a diy mp3 player. The wires encapsulated in the rubber are just there for looks but the utility of using this material as a case is fascinating.  Alas, there’s no details on the material other than that it’s clear rubber. Update: [Reboots] picked up on some info that we originally missed. Looks like this is made from some Smooth-On PCM 780 urethane rubber.

We’ve looked into casting our own molds from silicone rubber in the past.  That may be the process used here but we can’t tell what allows the two halves to be pried apart. We’ve embedded video after the break that details casting rubber around a part in one solid block, then cutting the rubber off of that to create a mold. We’re also familiar with the mold making kits from Tap plastics but as far as we know, they’re always colored and never clear.

We keep our eyes peeled for new prototyping products and we want to know more about the materials and the process used to make this cylindrical elastomer. If you’ve got the goods on how this is done, please share them in the comments.

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