Denver Mini Maker Faire Roundup

I had a great time at Denver’s 3rd annual Mini Maker Faire, which was held inside the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The official theme this year was “Building the Future” and looking back, I can tell you that they pulled the theme off well. There was a strong turnout in two categories that are crucial to building the future: the growth that comes from education at all ages and the physical places where learning becomes immersive.

The Really Fun Stuff

[Casey] from Caustic Creations were showing off Poison Arrow just in time for season 2 of the BattleBots …read more

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3D Printed Zoetrope Sculpture squashes 4 Dimensions into 3

This fascinating project manages to be both something new and something old done in a new way. Artist [Akinori Goto] has used 3D printing to create a sort of frameless zoetrope. It consists of a short animation of a human figure, but the 3D movements of that figure through time are “smeared” across a circular zone – instead of the movements of the figure being captured as individual figures or frames, they are combined into a single object, in a way squashing 4 dimensions into 3.

“Slices” of that object, when illuminated by a thin shaft of light, reveal the …read more

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A Fountain of Superhydrophobic Art

Superhydrophobic coating finds a new application in art through [Arthur Carabott] in the form of a bizarre fountain.

A Master’s student in the Global Innovation Design course at the London Royal College of Art, [Carabott] achieved the effect by leaving parts of the laser-cut acrylic untouched by Rust-oleum’s NeverWet Multisurface coating. A 3d printed spigot mounted high above the surface imparts greater velocity to the impacting water so as it hits the acrylic the liquid forms into channels giving the impression of something surreal. Indeed — his design is inspired by the optical illusions of Japanese mathematician Kokichi Sugihara which …read more

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Autonomous Musical Soundscapes from 42 Fans and 7 Lasers

[dmitry] writes in to let us know about a new project that combines lasers with fans and turns the resulting modulation of the light beams into an autonomous soundscape. The piece is called “divider” and is a large, wall-mounted set of rails upon which seven red lasers are mounted on one end with seven matching light sensors mounted on the other end. Interrupting the lasers’ paths are forty-two brushless fans. Four Arduino Megas control the unit.

Laser beams shining into light sensors don’t do much of anything on their own, but when spinning fan blades interrupt each laser beam it modulates the solid beams and turns the readings …read more

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The Unity of Dance and Architecture

In an ambitious and ingenious blend of mechanical construction and the art of dance, [Syuko Kato] and [Vincent Huyghe] from The Bartlett School of Architecture’s Interactive Architecture Lab have designed a robotic system that creates structures from a dancer’s movements that they have christened Fabricating Performance.

A camera records the dancer’s movements, which are then analyzed and used to direct an industrial robot arm and an industrial CNC pipe bending machine to construct spatial artifacts. This creates a feedback loop — dance movements create architecture that becomes part of the performance which in turn interacts with the dancer. [Huyghe] suggests …read more

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FabLab Hackathon Gives the Gift of Art Back to a Stranger in Need

If building the James Webb Space Telescope and F/A-18 fighter jets aren’t enough reasons to work for Northrop Grumman, there’s always the FabLab – the company sponsored hackerspace. It’s a place where anything goes and everything is possible, including giving the gift of art back to a stranger in need.

The video below tells the story of [Raul Pizarro], a young man and gifted artist. Diagnosed as a child with muscular dystrophy, [Raul] was getting to the point where the progressive weakening of his muscles was making it difficult to hold up his arm. [Raul]’s art was slipping away – …read more

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