Made in Japan – 1/16/09

This week:
“One-Chip” Arduino, Making Dot Paintings w/ Bubble Wrap, More Decochari, Recotana’s
AVR-based OSC Server, Gundam Bento, Life Preservers Replaced With Recycled DIY Flotation Devices, Making Glasses From the Bottoms of Bottles.
“One-Chip” Arduino
Make: Japan blog points us to Kosaka’s “One-chip Arduino” project that puts a Lilypad-style Arduino on the back of a DIP-packaged ATmega88. There’s even the LED on D13. The whole thing cost about $5 in parts, making it a pretty impressive little hack.

Making Dot Paintings w/ Bubble Wrap
Here’s a great use for any extra bubble wrap you might have around the house. Fill the bubbles with a syringe full of paint for a pixelated, mosaic sort of effect.

More Decochari
Tokyomango provides us with a link to a great collection of “decochari” decorated bikes. These bikes combine the gaudiness of India’s decorated trucks with Japan’s “matsuri”-style imagination and design sensibility.

AVR-based OSC Server
The cool thing about controlling electronics from an AVR-based Open Sound Control server? You can use it from virtually any internet-abled device, for example, an iPhone.

Gundam Bento
The bento boxed lunch has long been about presentation, but the actual food has taken the background in these bento made to look like characters from the popular Gundam cartoon metaseries. The depictions are so accurate that you almost forget that they can be eaten.

Life Preservers Replaced With Recycled DIY Flotation Devices
In another small win for recycling, economics also seems to play a part in the Takamatsu Coast Guard’s decision to use lifesavers made from used plastic bottles.

The Takamatsu Coast Guard Office has placed the lifesavers at three breakwaters in Kagawa Prefecture popular for fishing. A brand-new lifesaver costs ¥5,000 to ¥20,000 depending on the size, but one made from plastic bottles only costs about ¥200.

The Takamatsu Coast Guard Office began to set up the flotation devices after junior high school students and an organizer of a children’s activity group in Sanuki, Kagawa Prefecture, rescued a person who was nearly drowning with a raft made with 16 plastic bottles.

Making Glasses From the Bottoms of Bottles
It turns out that the old taunt that “Your glasses are so thick, they look like they’re made from the bottoms of Coke bottles” is somewhat of an international phenomenon, as the bottle bottom reference appears in modern Japanese folklore as well. So what would glasses made from the bottoms of bottles really look like? DPZ shows us here, as they cut off the bottoms of milk bottles to make these spazzy specs.