Flickery Halloween Fun

Shane from Dark Illusion Studios shared this video using our candle flicker LEDs to make skull sconces. Our flickering LEDs are great for lots of different Halloween projects.

If you still need some inspiration, check out our Halloween Project Archives:

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays, and … we’ve organized dozens of our Halloween projects into categories: costumespumpkinsdecor and food.

Linkdump: July 2022

Meandering waterways in the salt ponds of the South Bay by joSon (josonstudio.com)

Open Circuits

I’m very pleased to announce my forthcoming new book, Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Electronic Components, co-written with Eric Schlaepfer.

Open Circuits is a coffee table book full of cross-section photographs of electronic components, along with photos of those components in context, and descriptions of how they work. It’s coming this fall from No Starch Press, and is available now to pre-order.

Book cover for Open Circuits

From the rear cover:

Open Circuits is a photographic exploration of the surprisingly beautiful design waiting to be discovered inside everyday electronic devices. Through painstakingly prepared cross-sections and stunningly vivid close-up images, the book reveals a hidden world full of elegance, subtle complexity, and wonder. From simple resistors and capacitors, to cutting-edge circuit boards and retro Nixie tubes, the authors’ arresting imagery transforms more than 130 electronic components into awe-inspiring works of art that will delight engineers, artists, designers, and photography enthusiasts alike.

My co-author Eric Schlaepfer has been our regular collaborator on projects such as the Three Fives and XL741 soldering kits, as well as the MOnSter 6502 and our Uncovering the Silicon project.

Open Circuits is coming this fall in hardcover, and is available now with a pre-order discount and early-access PDF from No Starch Press.

It’s also available to pre-order at your local bookstore — who we sincerely encourage you to support — as well as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major booksellers.

AxiDraw used for developing techniques for bioprinting

Diagram of experimental setup with Axidraw and example results
Scientists working on developing techniques for bioprinting used the AxiDraw with a syringe in place of a pen as part of their experimental setup. They recently published an article they shared with us, saying,

We finally achieved what we planned with the Axidraw. It worked well! We made small patterns of hydrogel, millimetric, that we intend to use for seeding living cells.

It is always exciting for us to see people finding new uses for the AxiDraw. Thank you to Dr. Fitremann for sharing your results with us!

Linkdump: March 2022

Closeup of Casio keyboard settings

Linkdump: December 2021

TinyNES console with two controllers attached