Craft & Design

From traditional crafts to modern crafts, we’re covering news and interesting projects to educate you and keep you inspired. Design trends and pop culture related projects are here to inspire.

Fireflies – Networked Nightlights

Fireflies – Networked Nightlights

3Jars Fireflies are networked nightlights for a local environment, the jars can be placed in different bedrooms or other spots around a home so people can communicate with one another through simply tapping on the jars. For example, if you tap the jar in your bedroom you will pulse the colored fireflies associated with that jar. The neighboring jars in your home will receive and pulse your taps, record them and then play them back. The neighboring jars can respond with their own tapping and broadcast themselves to the nightlights in the home. Pretty- here’s how to make them. Link.

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Mini-Edgerton for

Mini-Edgerton for $40

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This might be useful if you’re ever interested in building a high speed flash photography system. Two students used a procured BASIC micro-controller and bolt gun. With the aforementioned micro-controller, we simply had no choice but to build a flash timing mechanism to capture images of hot bolt-on-food action. Link.

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DIY 2.0 Megapixel IR Camera

DIY 2.0 Megapixel IR Camera

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Keith Moloney writes “I have successfully modified a 2.0 Megapixel camera (Polaroid PDC2010) to take infrared pictures using similar methods to the tutorial listed in the previous entry. The main difference is that the Lens assembly was sealed, so the infrared filter required more than a little persuasion with a brutish whack from a needlenosed pliers, and the sound of shattering glass“. Wow, Hi-Res IR photos! Link.

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LEGO Harpsichord

LEGO Harpsichord

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exogenous writes “A full-size working harpsichord made from Lego”. With the exception of the wire strings, this instrument is entirely constructed out of LEGO parts–the keyboard, jacks, jack rack, jack rail, plectra, soundboard, bridge, hitch pins, tuning pins, wrestplank, nut, case, legs, lid, lid stick, and music stand are all built out of interlocking ABS (Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene) plastic bricks and related pieces. There’s even a MP3 of it playing. Link.

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Future DIY Interfaces Go Open Source

Future DIY Interfaces Go Open Source

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Peter Kirn has a great overview of how Chris O’Shea is going open source with his experiments in building tangible interfaces — interactive tables on which moving physical objects (like blocks) create visuals and sound. One obstacle in this technology has been people haven’t been able to refine the techniques; they just create bare-bones proof-of-concept but haven’t been able to build on others’ work. This is really encouraging. Link.

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Converting Super 8 to DVD?

Converting Super 8 to DVD?

Images Karl writes “I have a bunch of super 8 movies that I inherited from my father and would like to put them on DVD using some kind of compression (is mpg). Do have any suggestions? I have tried the projector with mirrors and a 8mm camcorder approach and was not satisfied with the quality“. Suggestions for Karl? I found this here, but not sure if that’s the best way. Post up in the comments!

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