Our friend John made Sconic Sections for a dinner party, with a slight variation: he baked the scone dough in ice cream cones. That led to a little bit of extra difficulty in slicing them, but the cone also provided an outline for the ellipses, hyperbolas and parabolas.
We’ve put together a roundup of our simplest LED projects; easy things to put together mostly with a bare LED and a coin cell.
Pictured above, Basics: Simple LED Pumpkins
How to hack LEDs into Lego minifigures for Halloween, and LED Ghosties for Halloween
LED-lit sea urchin shells, RoboGames Awards
Picking resistors for LEDs and Some thoughts on throwies
Quick, easy, temporary, and beautiful LED garden lights
Paper Circuitry at Home: Electric Origami, and the Soft circuitry merit badge
Edge-lit holiday cards and part II, Refining edge-it holiday cards
Amazon today decided to remind me about some of our past projects through book recommendations. We contributed a bunch of projects to The Hungry Scientist Handbook and were interviewed for Cooking for Geeks. Well targeted, Amazon— perhaps too well…
The Kickstarter campaign for Super Awesome Sylvia’s WaterColorBot is almost at a close, with just 24 hours remaining; it winds up tomorrow (Thursday) morning, at 7 AM eastern time.
So, if you haven’t signed up yet— and you think you might like to —this would be a great time to do so. If you’d like to learn more about the WaterColorBot, we’ve written a number of articles here on our blog, and there is also a detailed introduction on the Kickstarter page itself.
And for those of you who have backed our project, we are thrilled to have your support, and to have you along with us as we unleash so many art robots upon the world this fall. We can’t wait to see what kinds of amazing things people will create with them.
Artwork painted on the WaterColorBot by Robert “RoboGenius” Sloan.
A low power CO2 laser cutter (like the one that we use) is fantastic for cutting and engraving wood, fabric, paper, and plastics. It’s also great for engraving painted or otherwise surface coated metal, like anodized aluminum (for example, making the labels on a Maglite).
However, with only a few exceptions, a laser like this generally falls down flat if you want to cut or engrave a chunk of bare metal. One exception is that you can actually cut through metal if it’s thin enough. Another is that you can make dark marks on metal with the help of a ceramic coating compound like CerMark. CerMark is sprayed on metal, then blasted with the laser so that it fuses to the surface, leaving a dark, permanent mark. Unfortunately, a spray can of CerMark costs $60, and as it is a specialty item, it may not be easily available when you happen to need it. So what do you do if you need something like this and you don’t have it?
Continue reading Laser Marking with Moly
Even while the Kickstarter campaign for our WaterColorBot is in full swing, we’re continuing to improve its hardware design. Here are a select few of the refinements we have made since the last revision that will make the WaterColorBot better for everyone.
If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area next Monday, we hope you’ll join us for an open house:
When: Monday, August 12, 5 pm ? 9 pm
Where: Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
175 San Lazaro Ave, Suite 150
Sunnyvale, CA, 94086
Come see the WaterColorBot in action (just a few days before the end of our Kickstarter campaign!), meet minor internet celebrity Zener the cat, and share in food and conversation.
Remember those vintage chemistry sets that we opened up the other day? We left out one of the coolest things that came along with them: A thick stack of fantastic manuals, instructions, posters, and charts. Let’s take a look through them!
One of the questions that we’ve had on the WaterColorbot is about its ability to use higher-quality materials. And in particular, can you use it with fine (artists’) watercolor paints?
The WaterColorBot comes with a starter set of Crayola watercolors. This kind of paint set is great for kids and great for learning how to use the WaterColorBot. And in the United States at least, it’s also easy to obtain direct replacements from your local office or art supply store.
But on the other hand, watercolors like these do not offer the depth or range of color nor the archival quality that professional artists expect and require. And, replacement paint sets may not be so easy to find overseas, or even in less urban areas of the US. Fortunately, you can use the WaterColorBot with other paints, and we’re working on expanding the number of different ways that you can.
The first, easiest solution is to note that the Crayola paint set actually comes with (well, in) a perfectly-sized paint palette; simply rinse out the remaining paint with cold water.
The empty Crayola palette can be reused with tube-based watercolor paints, which are available at art supply stores worldwide. Like dry (pan) watercolors, tube based watercolors are available in many grades, from very inexpensive to fine artists’ watercolor, and in a truly impressive range of colors.
While the the empty Crayola palette is perfectly serviceable, it is a bit flimsy, and we are also planning to offer a couple of more durable permanent palettes as optional accessories for the WaterColorBot.
Here is the first of those accessories: A milled plastic palette for use with tube-based watercolor paints. It’s tough and permanent with eight oval wells.
For artists who prefer to paint from pans (dry paint), our second accessory is a palette that cradles up to eight “standard” half pans, which are one of the preferred shapes for artists’ watercolors. The word “standard” is in quotation marks because there is actually quite a range of variation in the size of half pans; this particular palette is sized for Winsor & Newton (and Cotman) watercolors. We also plan to offer other holders to fit half pans from other manufacturers.
And what about paper?
The WaterColorBot is designed to fit 9×12” paper, which is one of the most common sizes for watercolor paper. Heavier and finer grades of paper (140 Lb, 300 Lb) can be used without issue, and standard methods for affixing paper to the board– such as tape and tacks –will work just fine. Larger sheets of paper can be cut down to fit, and smaller paper– including A4 and US letter –can be used, although you may need to pay attention to the margins.
A good friend recently presented us with his estate sale find: two 1960’s era vintage chemistry sets. One set is big, white, and mysterious, the other is smaller but showier. Let’s take a look at what’s inside!
