I’ve got the footpedal from Rockband hooked up to the PC via an Arduino, the games written in Processing (yeah i’m too lazy to setup a proper java app) and features all of the classic jokes

For some reason Processing puts black borders around transparent PNG textures, I cant figure out why but its f**king annoying

The LED earplugs have evolved slightly too now, its still being controlled by an IR receiver but now features a 3-colour LED. Each colour can be set by sending commands to the IR receiver from a string of IR leds sewn into the hood of a hoody. These are connected to a bluetooth device that ultimately connects to my phone. Voila! Internet connected jewelry! No photos as yet because its kind of a mess. I might change them so that TV-remotes can set the colour, although getting that to work could be a pain in the arse

We’ve been boardgaming a lot recently too (mostly Settlers Of Catan) which has set me off on the whole Augmented Reality gaming tangent. I’m now writing an OpenCV based app to detect dice on a board using a ps3eye camera.. Ideally I want to set the projector above the Settlers board with the camera and have it detect which number was rolled on the dice, then highlight the hex that matches it.

I think using a projector like this could add some depth to boardgames, throw in some animations for certain events for example. Or have the board change its layout in relation to things happening in the game, a good example of this would be linking the property costs on Monopoly to actual market rates.

All this just to connect my earings to the internet..

I dismantled the flashing ear-tunnels today and started again with them, going back to the original plan of getting a tri-colour light controlled by TV Remote signals. Well after a lot of cocking about its working. The arduino (on the right of the picture) is sending RC5 codes to the AVR in the middle. Each of the 3 lights has 4 brightness settings (controlled with fake PWM as the AtTiny only has 1 timer) and can be set individually. Once the three colour LED arrives I’ll add it and find a way to package it neatly behind my ear.

Been back on the t-shirt printing too

Oh and I’ve had a go at designing an Ambigram

this should look the same upside-down

This is a blender preview of a sculpture I’m working on, its going to get printed by Shapeways again (cba with clay and all that). The A and B are shadows that are cast by the object when lit up from 2 different angles. Its taken me a fair while to work out a technique for doing this.. but the results arent bad. Ideally I want to do this with the numbers 1 through to 12 then use them as some sort of sun-dial

Now to make this object printable…

The banner is taken from a live webcam thats pointing at the sky out of my window, every 10 seconds it takes a snapshot and appends a small slice of it to the left hand side of the banner. It looks particularly cool during sunsets as it fades across from blue to orange then on to black

Technically speaking its a f**king mess… The webcam is a lego-quickcam connected to a Linksys NSLU2 (which for reasons of noise and power usage is using an old iPod for its storage) running Debian linux and the Motion software. Its also running lighttpd to serve the webcam stream. The grunt work of image composition is done by my other server running a Python program I created to rip MJPEG streams from streaming cameras and do all the composition work.

Bit of a mess eh? But it works, so I’m happy On some days when theres a north-south cloud movement it actually acts like a slow scanning camera in that you get a very stretched image of the cloud forming from left to right.

Its given me some other ideas for image-based hacks too, PIL is a kickass library for in-memory image manipulation. Ideally it’d support creating animated GIF’s so I can do some time-lapse photos of the sky, dare say I can hack around it though

Theyre a bit rough but they work:

The elastic bands from my current 5mm ones fit perfectly too Next plan: make a range of sizes, order them then list on Etsy (for more than the $1.50 they cost to make :p )

Shapeways also do a “co-creator” system where someone with knowledge of the 3d software (i.e. Me) designs something that can be customised on request from a peon (i.e. the rest of the internet). I might do something similar with these, I’m sure theres people that want custom tunnels but cant figure out how Blender/Autocad work..

First prototype cast in Pewter After a lot of sanding and polishing I’m quite happy with it. The mold needs some work to make it easier to cast with but it looks like I’ll be able to run off copies easily enough for people

This looks ok but actually its reversed, the sticky side shouldnt face this way. Time wasted: 10 minutes to reload plotter and start again

After submersing the belt buckle in liquid silicone rubber and buggering off to cook some dinner I realised I’d put it in upside-down. Time wasted: 6 hours waiting for the rubber to cure so I can start again. Lots of rubber wasted

OH WELL ITS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE