Back in the 1970s, my friend Wayne Gillis and I used to do light shows at science fiction conventions. We had the usual panoply of overhead, slide, and custom-made projectors, and a single, very expensive, helium-neon laser from Edmund Scientific. Calling ourselves Light Opera, and later, Illuminatus, we performed at ConFusion conventions in Ann Arbor, […]
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Motorize a phenakistoscope, a 19th-century parlor novelty that preceded motion pictures, and keep its frames synched to an LED strobe by using a sensor and an Arduino microcontroller. Invented in 1832 by Joseph Plateau, this device creates a moving picture from a sequence of stills arranged on a spinning disk and viewed through strategically cut […]
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I run a site called CorSec Engineering which offers kits for making planets for tabletop gaming or science fair projects. They can be found here. This planet was painted in less than 30 minutes and is really easy to do. Theme: This planet has an abundance of water but it is a little cold and […]
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Need a bright surface for your projector? Get high gain at low cost using house paint and sandblasting beads.
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Spin art is a children’s activity, often found at school fairs. Kids drop paint onto a spinning square of paper, making beautiful, colorful patterns. As adults, we imagined it would be fun to scale this up, and up, and up. Our friends envisioned injuries, or worse — an elaborate, spinning contraption flying high into the […]
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A free and easy thermal assist from the sun.
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Replace a boring surface with a cool, durable, and cheap new top.
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