Published on
February 8, 2009 in
ITP.
Tags: toys.
My idea for the toy design workshop is to build a zoetrope/projector that will teach kids the main concept of animation. Here is a video demo of a zoetrope in action, which explains how it works better than I can.
The main difference between this new zoetrope and the traditional kind is that it will project the frames on a wall instead of having to look through slits to see the motion. This will be done very simply by using a fixed light source in the center pointing out, and having only the outside part of the zoetrope spinning. The light source will flicker on and off like a traditional projector using physical switches installed on the spinning platform.
Instead of the images being drawn on paper, they will be drawn on pieces of transparent acrylic. This will allow the light to shine through and project the image on a wall. The frames will be drawn using whiteboard markers so that they can be wiped off and new animations can be created indefinitely.
The zoetrope will be spun using a crank, and the speed of the animation will be controlled by the person using it. The light source will use a battery that recharges itself as the zoetrope spins, so no external power supply will be necessary.
Here is our awesome LEGO crane. As can be seen in the pictures, we went for the version with the electric motor.
Couch Potato is an interactive coffee table for the living room, designed to help you make the most out of your relaxation time. Once you sink into the couch, the last thing you want is to have to get back up. That’s where Couch Potato comes in, by centralizing tasks and keeping you comfortably on the couch.
Can’t find the remote?
Couch Potato has an integrated keypad which can be used as a remote controller for most TVs, cable boxes, and DVD players. It can even be configured to control the lights in the room, so you can dim them to an appropriate level when watching a movie.
A little chilly?
Simply use the corresponding slider on Couch Potato to set the desired temperature without having to get up.
Bored?
Couch Potato comes with a variety of games for quality time-wasting such as Solitaire and Minesweeper.
Hungry?
Use the Google Maps to find restaurants nearby. You can even place your order, using the keypad to dial the number and the built-in speaker and microphone to talk. You can even set up Couch Potato to buzz the delivery guy in when the doorbell rings!
Continue reading ‘Couch Potato’
Here are some pretty impressive statistics I found. It should be noted that I did not cross-check these for accuracy.
- In the US, it is estimated that as much as 30% of food gets wasted. (source)
- On average, Americans owe about $8,000 per household on credit cards. The average household with at least one credit card has 6.0 bank credit cards, 8.3 retail credit cards, and 2.4 debit cards for a total of 16.7 cards. There were roughly 5 billion credit card offers mailed last year to about 200 million individuals in the U.S. This means the average person receives about 25 per year. The average household receives more than one per week. (source)
- French fries are the most eaten vegetable in America. (source)
- In the U.S., we eat more than 1,000,000 animals an hour. (source)
- At Wal-Mart, Americans spend $36,000,000 every hour of every day. This works out to $20,928 of profit every minute! (source)
- Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined. (source)
A simple app that captures video and displays the colour of the pixel under the mouse. Exciting!
Download pixelFetcher.
Continue reading ‘pixelFetcher’
Published on
February 1, 2009 in
Art and Work.
An antique metal library card catalogue embedded with a series of ultra bright LEDs, which signal in binary code any time a source word from a database of terms is found while searching through a large aggregate of world news feeds. The words used are “missing, disappeared, lost, absence…” and so on, all realting to the theme of missing persons, and the lights blink out the word found after the systems conversion of the adjective to its binary equivalent.
See http://www.teleshadow.net/autosuggestionII/ for more information.
A project by Brad Todd with Elie Zananiri.
Published on
February 1, 2009 in
Art and Work.
A screen based, real-time visualization of the processing of a database of paintings. The system takes as its seed Baudelaire’s one surviving notebook “Journaux Intimes” and runs it through text analysis in turn determining the selection of various areas of color and shape, then recombines them in infinite variations and iterations.
See http://www.teleshadow.net/autosuggestionI/ for more information.
A project by Brad Todd with Elie Zananiri.
