This is a lamp made from scavenged parts which uses heat from one candle to generate electricity to power 6 ultra-bright LED butterflies. It’s a designed for someone who lives off-grid, so it can provide a bright white light source off just one tea-light. It uses the heatsink from an old Dell computer, and a thing called a peltier chip (converts heat into electricity) taken from a 12V fridge.
I was inspired by the amazing instructable from reukpower, and have made a few refinements to the way it all fits together. Pretty happy with it. The most cool thing about it is that the light from the LEDs is really really bright – much brighter than the light of the candle. Spooky huh?
close up of the butterfly – cut from a plastic bottle and painted
One thing that particularly pleased me is that it’s made from hardly any new parts. I only had to buy a transistor and some heat conducting paste.
you can see the circuitry underneath – it’s a circuit known as a joule thief, which sort of transforms the voltage from the peltier chip into something that can run the high-brightness LEDs
inside the tin cans – loft insulation surrounds the peltier chip (the white square)
These are shoes attached to LED floor tiles, equipped with a pressure switch so that they light up when you step, just like the Michael Jackson Billie Jean video.
I had this project lying half-built around for ages, but lacked the will to finish it, as I went through this phase of being unable to do any fancy dress without getting a giant sinking empty feeling inside. In the end I’m glad I finished it, it’s one of the best outfits I have ever made. They are much fun/funnier that I thought they would be – people just start dancing around you.
My new thing for projects is trying to make them from as little newly purchased stuff as possible. For this project I had to buy the polycarbonate (£10), the LEDs (cheap – about £5) and the electronics (about another £5), but the shoes and wood are scraps/charity shop.
In the future I will modify them so that they have a “flash on and off” mode as well as pressure mode.
I had a spare lightbulb that I had hollowed out left over from another project so I made it into a terrarium for my mum for Christmas.
It’s very easy to make, you hollow out a lightbulb, then add regular soil, then stone or bark (I used bark) that has a load of moss on it. A dramatic rock adds good zen effect too – I used a chip of slate stolen from the garden centre.
No special tools required, though I used a few cotton buds to clean up the inside after all the soil had gone in.
Inpsiration from Instructables, one of the fewer and fewer remaining websites that bring me some form of joy.
The other good thing about this is that I still don’t really know what it is. I guess the nearest analogy is a pot plant, but it’s much cooler than a pot plant.
So I now have video from Neil of our installation in action. It’s built on our home made multi-touch screen, which allows users to paint or draw using their hands or an empty brush.
The idea is that users copy a picture and submit it. The software then creates an composite image based on all the submitted user images. As more and more people submit images, the composite image starts to look more and more like the actual image.
It’s based on the idea of the Wisdom of Crowds – a theory which basically states than in the right conditions, the averaged guess of a crowd will consistently beat any single expert’s guesses. An example of this is sports odds – the odds (which are formed by a huge number of people all guessing and hedging) are a more accurate predictor than any single expert, over time.
I really enjoyed working on this. it’s the first bit of interactive art, or in fact any art I have done. I was mostly surprised at how possible it is to build devices that on the outset seem impenetrably complex, and has given me loads of ideas for the future.
Here’s the posh write up of it.
Sum of its Parts
Brief Synopsis
The Sum of its Parts is an experiment in collaborative art. Over the course of an exhibition, participants take turns to reproduce iconic pieces of art. After each interpretation, the average colour is calculated for each pixel to produce the current collaborative work. This installation was exhibited at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre in May 2009.
User Experience
In it’s rest state, the installation cycles through the original pieces of art. Next to the original, the participants’ interpretations are shown being composited together. Once the composite reaches its current state, it pauses briefly before the next original is shown. Participants are instructed to touch the screen to begin. On touching the screen, they are presented with a selection of four works they can reproduce. They select one of the works by touching it at which point it grows to fill the whole screen. On touching the screen it fades away to leave a blank canvas the same colour as the background of the original. There is a menu that allows participants to see the original again, show a palette or submit their painting. After using their hands or a brush to interpret the original and selecting to submit, they see their painting becoming part of the collaborative work. The installation then returns to its rest state.
Tech Spec
Hardware
1 x Laptop running installation software
1 x Multitouch Table Sending TUIO signals over OSC
Multitouch setup for the installation at the Science Museum consisted of:
4 x 780nm 25mw laser
4 x 90 degree line splitter
1 x Unibrain Fire-I Monochrome Webcam
1 x IR Filter
1 x 150cm x 113cm sheet of Perspex
1 x Projector
1 x Sheet of drafting film for back projection
Software
The software for the installation is written in Java. The blob tracking was done using Tbeta.
I’ve just started doing evening classes once a week in silversmithing and jewellery making at the community college in Bethnal Green, just for fun.
I plan to make a series of 13 pieces of jewellery – one representing each Inner City Borough of London, using items I find on the floor in each Borough.
The first piece is these Sterling Silver earrings made from chips of car glass from an accident next to a bus stop on Grove Road, Bow, Tower Hamlets, London.
It was my first time trying to use silver wire like this. I was hungover as hell, and they took about 2 hours to make, but if I did them again, it would would take much less time. Pretty pleased with the result, the safety glass really blings well – much brighter than I thought it would be.
These ones aren’t for sale, but I could make a new pair if you want, or even something different. Any ideas for the next pieces also welcome.
PS
I found the silversmithing course via the Tower Hamlets Learning Ladder scheme which is brilliant, has a range of courses in all kinds of different stuff, from cooking to languages, and cheap too – a 10 week course is £85, compared to fees of £400+ for doing it at a name like St Martins.
This year, I thought I’d get a bit more high-tech and try using some electronics in a costume. So, inspired by this book I bought, The Deep, I tried to replicate a deep sea bioluminscent jellyfish.
It’s made from:
1 x washing up tub – £2.99, pound store
22 x kids LED light up necklaces @ £1 each – Internet wholesalers
1 x cheap sports helmet – £9.99, Decathlon
Hot glue gun
cable ties – any hardware store
battery pack, wires, switch and box – Maplin Electronics
Here it is, by day: view from underneath – your head goes in the helmet bit
It was definitely the most fun I’ve ever had building anything – the materials were my favourite blend of ordinary objects, technology and loads of glue and cable ties. I spent about 8 hours over 2 days building it, and if I could somehow do this all the time for a living, I would.
The visual impact at night was amazing – from far away it really did look unearthly – but it wasn’t as fun to be in as last year’s Zoltar outfit. Mainly because it only works at night, by which time everyone is too far gone to really make the most of it. People’s reactions are limited to staring, getting all their mates and dancing around you, having a fit, or asking very slow unintelligent questions about it. Best quote of the night:
“Jelly head man, in the rave tent you were freaking me out big time.”
I plan to use it at bonfires and firework shows this winter to entice children towards me, where I will try sell them the leftover LED rope necklaces (I had to buy a wholesale batch of 72, so have 50 left). If you would like to buy or borrow this jellyfish head suit, let me know.
If you are interested in the technical details of how to build it, you can go to Flickr, or there is a full Instructable here.
