You write that a lot of the novels and popular science writing during the early 20th century were concerned with the “idea of progress.” Can you expand on that?
During this period, “progress” was increasingly being seen in terms of technology. Throughout the 19th and 20th century, industrial progress was seen as very important and the sense of the future was shaped by the sense of what technology could do: rationally planned cities with your beautiful high-rises and airports on top of airports and helicopters, and all this giving people a better life.
In earlier periods, the utopian future tended to be defined in terms of the social relations put into place. But increasingly, people thought the utopian future (including these better social relations) would depend on the application of technology — which is why it was so easy for narrow-minded technophiles to focus on a particular technology which they see as going to give us all a wonderful new life.
What are some of the predictions that they made? Were the writers all technophiles? Or was there a lot of doom and gloom?
It was both. The newspapers were enthusiastic about Lindbergh flying across the Atlantic, which often led to speculations about when we’ll be able to fly, plus warnings about the dangers of aviation. Rudyard Kipling wrote about a world transformed by a peaceful use of aviation, but there were plenty of doom and gloom novels, too. H.G. Wells wrote about civilization almost wiped out in a great war and gas, and yet in his book it was still the scientists who had the technological skill to build the rationally planned world. So we did see both sides of the equation.
With the tag line “Stay Stylish, Stay Healthy” Stealthy hopes to create fashionable wearables that monitor health. Via Wearable.com:
So what does Stealthy do? The collection includes a necklace, bracelet and a hijab pin. The final devices will have sensors which monitor levels of Vitamin D by calculating how much time is spent outdoors in adequate vitamin D level sunlight during optimal hours. The wearable is paired with a companion lifestyle app which makes activity suggestions and encourages users to share the data with their doctor.
Siddique has working prototypes for the bracelet (pictured with the founder) and says she is working on a new design with a smaller module plus bangle form factor (pictured in the CAD mock up images below).
One potential customer is women pre and post pregnancy but the team isn’t narrowing itself when so many people could benefit from being more in tune with Vitamin D levels.
“We believe wearables are the future and will fast become integral to the future of personalised medicine,” says Siddique.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
Narratively shared this interesting story on Youtube!
Calder Greenwood is a prolific street artist that roams Los Angeles searching for the perfect homes for his fantastical creations—giraffes, giant pigeons, mammoth skulls, truck-sized spiders, and even the occasional wizard. Calder chooses cardboard and paper mache as his medium for the materials’ ephemeral qualities, intentionally designing his creations to fall a part after only a few days.
Narratively is an online platform that publishes untold, original human stories from around the world.
The basic components for the stepper motor and the drive to the Pentax lens pretty much remain the same. Since I’m using a 1.5 foot ethernet cable to connect the stepper motor to the box containing the Metro 328, I used a small RJ45 breakout board that I attached to the stepper with some 3m automotive double-sided foam tape. And since the iOptron mount, the Metro 328, the stepper motor shield, and the TEC on the astro camera all needed DC power I decided to use part of the project box for power distribution. The Metro 328 and motor shield are powered from inside the box, the 4 power jacks can be used to drive external 12 volt devices, two are presently used by the iOptron mount and the camera’s TEC. The green digital meter is battery voltage and the red is the amps the battery is supplying.
If you decide to make something similar there is something to be aware of. I am using no limit sensors for the focusing, meaning that the stepper motor can drive the focusing mechanism against its internal stops. With the motor I used and my lens that is not a problem but I could see it might be if a high torque or geared stepper motor was used. Also it would be a good idea to use an inline fuse in the battery cable, something that I am planning to do.
British artist Lizzie Campbell recreates iconic oil paintings, not with oil, but rather, with polymer clay.
In her series Polymer Paintings, the UK-based creative takes classic artworks – such as the Mona Lisa and Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring – and remakes them in the style of clay animation.
According to Campbell, her process involves using FIMO modeling clay to create the backgrounds and the three-dimensional characters. These pieces are then placed in an oven to harden before being framed and hung on a wall.
Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!
The basic components for the stepper motor and the drive to the Pentax lens pretty much remain the same. Since I’m using a 1.5 foot ethernet cable to connect the stepper motor to the box containing the Metro 328, I used a small RJ45 breakout board that I attached to the stepper with some 3m automotive double-sided foam tape. And since the iOptron mount, the Metro 328, the stepper motor shield, and the TEC on the astro camera all needed DC power I decided to use part of the project box for power distribution. The Metro 328 and motor shield are powered from inside the box, the 4 power jacks can be used to drive external 12 volt devices, two are presently used by the iOptron mount and the camera’s TEC. The green digital meter is battery voltage and the red is the amps the battery is supplying.
If you decide to make something similar there is something to be aware of. I am using no limit sensors for the focusing, meaning that the stepper motor can drive the focusing mechanism against its internal stops. With the motor I used and my lens that is not a problem but I could see it might be if a high torque or geared stepper motor was used. Also it would be a good idea to use an inline fuse in the battery cable, something that I am planning to do.
Jason Fagone at the San Francisco Chronicle details the story of the team who worked months to resurrect the distinctive voice of physicist Stephen Hawking from the long-out of date CallText 5010 boards and firmware.
It is interesting to see the entire process unfold – emulating the chips and the mysterious firmware, the hard work done by Eric Dorsey and his team.
And the fun fact: the final code was placed on a Raspberry Pi 3!
The team was ultimately successful, but Dr. Hawking passed away several months after the project was completed.
From arts festivals to contemporary museums, the UK’s Independent have a good article on the “art technicians” – aka artist, fabricators, engineers, designers, welders, makers – who design many of the things that other people claim as their art.
Down a chaotic lane in chaotic Govanhill, the works of two of Glasgow’s female Turner Prize-nominated artists, Lucy Skaer and Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, are being produced. But it is two men who have their studio here.
Simon Richardson and Simon Harlow are art technicians, a job that people are often surprised to learn exists. They are the invisible hands who build sculptures and installations for which someone else gets the credit, taking on (almost) all of the graft for none of the glory. They are anonymous outside of their workshop, where they make the works that make others household names.
Their work prompts the perpetual question of what makes art, art – the idea, or the execution? In a world of self-promotion, aided and abetted by social media, it also raises questions over whether pride can still be a private, rather than a public, emotion.
Harlow is a practising artist as well as a technician, who in the latter capacity has worked with Ross Sinclair, Kate Davis and Assemble – the collective of architects who won the 2015 Turner Prize – and with Lucy Skaer, whose latest show is about to open at the Edinburgh Art Festival; the pair were at Glasgow School of Arttogether 20 years ago.
Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!
Pioneers from Beyond: Artist Statement
My current body of work illustrates a fictional series of events and interactions between various extraterrestrials and settlers of the Western United States. I have always been a bit of a storyteller, and as I draw in my sketchbooks to create the concepts for my paintings, I am slowly building and expanding on a western fantasy world. Much like a medieval setting with tales of elves and fairies, my imaginary landscape is that of the southwest desert where UFO’s hover on the horizons and aliens eat gold. And much like the mischievous and even malevolent nature of elves in fairy stories, the extraterrestrials in my paintings often have sinister motives.
Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!
I should have mentioned in the video that the exhaust from a flame will be oxygen-poor, thus also making it more diamagnetic than normal air. Air is a mixture of nitrogen (diamagnetic) and oxygen (paramagnetic). Removing the oxygen will make the resulting gas more diamagnetic.
Do you like scientific investigation? Let us know in the comments below!
After printing laydown the map on a table. This way you kan compare the pieces with the complete image from Thingiverse. Tape a frame from 96cm wide and 55 cm heigh, so you can position the pieces en glue them on.
Our Adafruit IO library for Arduino was recently updated to include lots of new features. We especially like this guide which integrates If-This-Then-That with Adafruit IO to build a door-detection circuit to email/tweet at you if somebody opens a door.
The code in this guide has been edited to be compatible with the new changes to the Adafruit IO Arduino Library.
Nice profile of Emily Calandrelli from WIRED, in which Calandrelli discusses her new Sci-Fi children’s book series Ada Lace.
Science is a constant presence throughout the series, but Calandrelli (and her co-author Tamson Weston) never let the story get bogged down in technical detail.
“What we do in the book is we add just a pinch of science, and then for the kids who want to learn more, there’s basically a glossary of science in the back,” Calandrelli says. “So it’s a fun way—for the kids who really want to dive into the science—to be able to give them that information that they’re craving.”
Each Tuesday is EducationTuesday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts about educators and all things STEM. Adafruit supports our educators and loves to spread the good word about educational STEM innovations!
Glass artist Kim KototamaLune creates ethereal sculptures that resemble abstracted organic shapes and faces. She builds delicate glass grids without molds, which she then works into sculptural form and displays in darkened rooms. This presentation allows light to permeate, which both illuminates the sculptures from within and casts dramatic shadows on the surrounding walls.
The artist was born in Vietnam and now lives and works in France, and has studied multiple languages. Cultural identity, the origins of life, and in-between spaces play into her inspirations. KototamaLune shares with Colossal that she seeks to create an “uncharted territory in order to engage in a silent dialogue with the ‘strangers’ living in us. Those sculptures arise from the will to recover within each of us what is common in our fetal origins.’”
KototamaLune is represented by Da-End Galerie, with whom she’ll be showing work at the ASIA NOW art fair in Paris from October 17 – 21, 2018. You can also see her work through September 15, 2018 at Villa Tamaris Art Center in southern France. Discover more sculptures in KototamaLune’s portfolio on her website.
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
Glass artist Kim KototamaLune creates ethereal sculptures that resemble abstracted organic shapes and faces. She builds delicate glass grids without molds, which she then works into sculptural form and displays in darkened rooms. This presentation allows light to permeate, which both illuminates the sculptures from within and casts dramatic shadows on the surrounding walls.
The artist was born in Vietnam and now lives and works in France, and has studied multiple languages. Cultural identity, the origins of life, and in-between spaces play into her inspirations. KototamaLune shares with Colossal that she seeks to create an “uncharted territory in order to engage in a silent dialogue with the ‘strangers’ living in us. Those sculptures arise from the will to recover within each of us what is common in our fetal origins.’”
KototamaLune is represented by Da-End Galerie, with whom she’ll be showing work at the ASIA NOW art fair in Paris from October 17 – 21, 2018. You can also see her work through September 15, 2018 at Villa Tamaris Art Center in southern France. Discover more sculptures in KototamaLune’s portfolio on her website.
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
781 – The earliest recorded eruption of Japan’s Mount Fuji takes place.
Mount Fuji is an attractive volcanic cone and a frequent subject of Japanese art especially after 1600, when Edo (now Tokyo) became the capital and people saw the mountain while traveling on the Tōkaidō road. The mountain is mentioned in Japanese literature throughout the ages and is the subject of many poems.[15] One of the modern artists who depicted Fuji in almost all her works was Tamako Kataoka.
It is thought that the first recorded ascent was in 663 by an anonymous monk.[citation needed] The summit has been thought of as sacred since ancient times and was forbidden to women until the Meiji Era in the late 1860s. Ancient samurai used the base of the mountain as a remote training area, near the present-day town of Gotemba. The shōgun Minamoto no Yoritomo held yabusame in the area in the early Kamakura period.
1703 – English author Daniel Defoe is convicted of seditious libel after publishing a satire and placed in a pillory for punishment. He’s, however, pelted with flowers.
Defoe was a natural target, and his pamphleteering and political activities resulted in his arrest and placement in a pillory on 31 July 1703, principally on account of his December 1702 pamphlet entitled The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters; Or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church, purporting to argue for their extermination.[18] In it, he ruthlessly satirised both the High church Tories and those Dissenters who hypocritically practised so-called “occasional conformity”, such as his Stoke Newington neighbour Sir Thomas Abney. It was published anonymously, but the true authorship was quickly discovered and Defoe was arrested.[11] He was charged with seditious libel. Defoe was found guilty after a trial at the Old Bailey in front of the notoriously sadistic judge Salathiel Lovell. Lovell sentenced him to a punitive fine of 200 marks, to public humiliation in a pillory, and to an indeterminate length of imprisonment which would only end upon the discharge of the punitive fine.[7] According to legend, the publication of his poem Hymn to the Pillory caused his audience at the pillory to throw flowers instead of the customary harmful and noxious objects and to drink to his health. The truth of this story is questioned by most scholars, although John Robert Moore later said that “no man in England but Defoe ever stood in the pillory and later rose to eminence among his fellow men”.
1858 – Swiss-American educator Marion Talbot is born.
Talbot was born in Thun, Switzerland, while her parents were on a long European trip, but grew up in Boston. She was the eldest of six children born to Emily Fairbanks Talbot and Israel Talbot, who was dean of the Boston University School of Medicine. Her mother was an activist and former teacher; the paucity of college preparatory opportunities for her daughters led her to work to establish the Boston Latin Academy, the first all-girls’ college preparatory academy in the United States.
Talbot herself, however, was the eldest and did not benefit from that effort directly;[4] she attended the Chapel Hill – Chauncy Hall School near Boston, and subsequently attended Boston University, where her other had to work aggressively to secure her admission. Talbot earned an AB there in 1880 and an AM in 1882.[1] She additionally obtained an BS from MIT, where she studied under domestic science pioneer Ellen Swallow Richards, who had established her own laboratory there. Talbot initially dropped out due to poor conditions for women at MIT, but completed the degree in 1888.
Primo Levi, whose autobiographical writings drew on his experiences as an Auschwitz survivor and his training as a chemist, died today in Turin. He was 67 years old.
The authorities said they were treating the death as a suicide. Mr. Levi was found by members of his family and neighbors at the foot of a stairwell in the home where he was born, in the Crocetta neighborhood, and he was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital.
Renzo Levi, the writer’s son, said by telephone from Turin that his father had had serious bouts of depression in recent months.
The elder Mr. Levi had undergone minor surgery recently, and friends suggested he was deeply troubled about the condition of his 92-year-old mother, who was partially paralyzed by a stroke last year.
1926 – American computer scientist Hilary Putnam is born.
Putnam has contributed to scientific fields not directly related to his work in philosophy. As a mathematician, Putnam contributed to the resolution of Hilbert’s tenth problem in mathematics. This problem was settled by Yuri Matiyasevich in 1970, with a proof that relied heavily on previous research by Putnam, Julia Robinson and Martin Davis.
In computability theory, Putnam investigated the structure of the ramified analytical hierarchy, its connection with the constructible hierarchy and its Turing degrees. He showed that there exist many levels of the constructible hierarchy which do not add any subsets of the integers and later, with his student George Boolos, that the first such “non-index” is the ordinal {\displaystyle \beta _{0}} \beta _{0} of ramified analysis (this is the smallest {\displaystyle \beta } \beta such that {\displaystyle L_{\beta }} L_{\beta } is a model of full second-order comprehension), and also, together with a separate paper with Richard Boyd (another of Putnam’s students) and Gustav Hensel,[56] how the Davis–Mostowski–Kleene hyperarithmetical hierarchy of arithmetical degrees can be naturally extended up to {\displaystyle \beta _{0}} \beta _{0}.
In computer science, Putnam is known for the Davis–Putnam algorithm for the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT), developed with Martin Davis in 1960. The algorithm finds if there is a set of true or false values that satisfies a given Boolean expression so that the entire expression becomes true. In 1962, they further refined the algorithm with the help of George Logemann and Donald W. Loveland. It became known as the DPLL algorithm. This algorithm is efficient and still forms the basis of most complete SAT solvers.
Ranger 7 radioed to earth today the first close-up pictures of the moon- a historic collection of 4,000 pictures one thousand times as clear as anything ever seen through earth-bound telescopes.
Scientists here were hailing the achievement, which exceeded all expectations, as by far the greatest advance in lunar astronomy since Galileo.
They said the pictures not only represented a great leap in man’s knowledge of the moon, but also, on a more practical level, lent encouragement that the lunar surface was suitable for Project Apollo’s manned lunar landings.
781 – The earliest recorded eruption of Japan’s Mount Fuji takes place.
Mount Fuji is an attractive volcanic cone and a frequent subject of Japanese art especially after 1600, when Edo (now Tokyo) became the capital and people saw the mountain while traveling on the Tōkaidō road. The mountain is mentioned in Japanese literature throughout the ages and is the subject of many poems.[15] One of the modern artists who depicted Fuji in almost all her works was Tamako Kataoka.
It is thought that the first recorded ascent was in 663 by an anonymous monk.[citation needed] The summit has been thought of as sacred since ancient times and was forbidden to women until the Meiji Era in the late 1860s. Ancient samurai used the base of the mountain as a remote training area, near the present-day town of Gotemba. The shōgun Minamoto no Yoritomo held yabusame in the area in the early Kamakura period.
1703 – English author Daniel Defoe is convicted of seditious libel after publishing a satire and placed in a pillory for punishment. He’s, however, pelted with flowers.
Defoe was a natural target, and his pamphleteering and political activities resulted in his arrest and placement in a pillory on 31 July 1703, principally on account of his December 1702 pamphlet entitled The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters; Or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church, purporting to argue for their extermination.[18] In it, he ruthlessly satirised both the High church Tories and those Dissenters who hypocritically practised so-called “occasional conformity”, such as his Stoke Newington neighbour Sir Thomas Abney. It was published anonymously, but the true authorship was quickly discovered and Defoe was arrested.[11] He was charged with seditious libel. Defoe was found guilty after a trial at the Old Bailey in front of the notoriously sadistic judge Salathiel Lovell. Lovell sentenced him to a punitive fine of 200 marks, to public humiliation in a pillory, and to an indeterminate length of imprisonment which would only end upon the discharge of the punitive fine.[7] According to legend, the publication of his poem Hymn to the Pillory caused his audience at the pillory to throw flowers instead of the customary harmful and noxious objects and to drink to his health. The truth of this story is questioned by most scholars, although John Robert Moore later said that “no man in England but Defoe ever stood in the pillory and later rose to eminence among his fellow men”.
1858 – Swiss-American educator Marion Talbot is born.
Talbot was born in Thun, Switzerland, while her parents were on a long European trip, but grew up in Boston. She was the eldest of six children born to Emily Fairbanks Talbot and Israel Talbot, who was dean of the Boston University School of Medicine. Her mother was an activist and former teacher; the paucity of college preparatory opportunities for her daughters led her to work to establish the Boston Latin Academy, the first all-girls’ college preparatory academy in the United States.
Talbot herself, however, was the eldest and did not benefit from that effort directly;[4] she attended the Chapel Hill – Chauncy Hall School near Boston, and subsequently attended Boston University, where her other had to work aggressively to secure her admission. Talbot earned an AB there in 1880 and an AM in 1882.[1] She additionally obtained an BS from MIT, where she studied under domestic science pioneer Ellen Swallow Richards, who had established her own laboratory there. Talbot initially dropped out due to poor conditions for women at MIT, but completed the degree in 1888.
Primo Levi, whose autobiographical writings drew on his experiences as an Auschwitz survivor and his training as a chemist, died today in Turin. He was 67 years old.
The authorities said they were treating the death as a suicide. Mr. Levi was found by members of his family and neighbors at the foot of a stairwell in the home where he was born, in the Crocetta neighborhood, and he was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital.
Renzo Levi, the writer’s son, said by telephone from Turin that his father had had serious bouts of depression in recent months.
The elder Mr. Levi had undergone minor surgery recently, and friends suggested he was deeply troubled about the condition of his 92-year-old mother, who was partially paralyzed by a stroke last year.
1926 – American computer scientist Hilary Putnam is born.
Putnam has contributed to scientific fields not directly related to his work in philosophy. As a mathematician, Putnam contributed to the resolution of Hilbert’s tenth problem in mathematics. This problem was settled by Yuri Matiyasevich in 1970, with a proof that relied heavily on previous research by Putnam, Julia Robinson and Martin Davis.
In computability theory, Putnam investigated the structure of the ramified analytical hierarchy, its connection with the constructible hierarchy and its Turing degrees. He showed that there exist many levels of the constructible hierarchy which do not add any subsets of the integers and later, with his student George Boolos, that the first such “non-index” is the ordinal {\displaystyle \beta _{0}} \beta _{0} of ramified analysis (this is the smallest {\displaystyle \beta } \beta such that {\displaystyle L_{\beta }} L_{\beta } is a model of full second-order comprehension), and also, together with a separate paper with Richard Boyd (another of Putnam’s students) and Gustav Hensel,[56] how the Davis–Mostowski–Kleene hyperarithmetical hierarchy of arithmetical degrees can be naturally extended up to {\displaystyle \beta _{0}} \beta _{0}.
In computer science, Putnam is known for the Davis–Putnam algorithm for the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT), developed with Martin Davis in 1960. The algorithm finds if there is a set of true or false values that satisfies a given Boolean expression so that the entire expression becomes true. In 1962, they further refined the algorithm with the help of George Logemann and Donald W. Loveland. It became known as the DPLL algorithm. This algorithm is efficient and still forms the basis of most complete SAT solvers.
Ranger 7 radioed to earth today the first close-up pictures of the moon- a historic collection of 4,000 pictures one thousand times as clear as anything ever seen through earth-bound telescopes.
Scientists here were hailing the achievement, which exceeded all expectations, as by far the greatest advance in lunar astronomy since Galileo.
They said the pictures not only represented a great leap in man’s knowledge of the moon, but also, on a more practical level, lent encouragement that the lunar surface was suitable for Project Apollo’s manned lunar landings.
Great new video that breaks down binary code from José Américo N L F de Freitas over at TED-Ed.
Imagine trying to use words to describe every scene in a film, every note in a song, or every street in your town. Now imagine trying to do it using only the numbers 1 and 0. Every time you use the Internet to watch a movie, listen to music, or check directions, that’s exactly what your device is doing, using the language of binary code. José Américo N L F de Freitas explains how binary works.
Each Tuesday is EducationTuesday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts about educators and all things STEM. Adafruit supports our educators and loves to spread the good word about educational STEM innovations!
Australian artist Daniel Agdag (previously) produces invented contraptions and antiquated flying machines from cardboard, timber, and trace paper, turning his whimsical fantasies into highly detailed sculptures. The works seek to connect his audience with the mechanics located beneath the exterior of modern machines, while emphasizing the complexity present in our everyday experiences.
New sculptural works include a flying caboose the combines the visual language of locomotives and hot air balloons, and a turbine-assisted car that moves horizontally along a raised track. In addition to these new pieces, Agdag has also released a short film with producer Liz Kearney titled Lost Property Office. The stop motion animation follows a custodian named Ed through his solitary work in a large city’s Lost Property Office, exploring the whimsical creations he builds from discarded objects and machines. Over 2,500 sheets of recycled cardboard were utilized over the course of film’s 18-month production, which translated into 1,258 hand-crafted and Art Deco-style set pieces and props.
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
Handcrafted with charcoal pencils and sticks on white paper, Marina Fridman‘s massive installation “Omniscient Body” is actually a single, enormous drawing. The piece, at 74-feet-by-14-feet, is installed at the Fosdick-Nelson Gallery at Alfred University, as part of the artist’s MFA thesis exhibition. The celestial forms offer a chance “to approach the celestial body of Mars at their own scale, to be towered over by one of the rings of Saturn, and to look up at planet Earth and the Moon as though from a great distance.”
“My hand-drawn installation ‘Omniscient Body’ invites the audience to be enveloped in space, to approach the celestial body of Mars at their own scale, to be towered over by one of the rings of Saturn, and to look up at planet Earth and the Moon as though from a great distance,” she tells us. “Spanning 75 feet by 14 feet, this work is entirely hand-drawn using charcoal pencils and compressed charcoal sticks on white paper. From afar, the trompe l’oeil style drawings appear convincingly three-dimensional. Upon close examination, however, one can see the thousands of pencil marks that make up the images. Even from the seemingly empty space enveloping the planets emerge the gestural marks that make up the texture of the drawn void.”
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
Vicki Niu arrived at her freshman orientation at Stanford, in 2014, with dreams of changing the world with technology. At Stanford, professors consulted for Facebook and Google, and students took classes in buildings named for Gates, Hewlett, and Packard. Google, Yahoo, and Snapchat had been started by students while they were on campus. “I remember before coming here, I looked up a list of Stanford alumni, and was like, I can’t believe these people started all these companies,” Niu told me. “It had to be this place that made people so exceptional.”
Each Tuesday is EducationTuesday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts about educators and all things STEM. Adafruit supports our educators and loves to spread the good word about educational STEM innovations!
Whether inspired by human blood vessels, complicated computer systems or the entwining roots of trees, Janaina Mello Landini loves to craft networks of her own, using nylon rope in a rainbow of different colours.
In one particular artwork, Ciclotrama 115, the Sao Paulo artist begins her installation on a giant canvas, weaving the thinnest of threads in red, blue, green and grey onto its surface before increasing the thickness of the material to eventually draw it away from the hanging artwork to end in four separate piles of heavy rope.
Born in São Gotardo, Janaina graduated in Architecture in 1999 and studied Fine Arts from 2004 to 2007, both at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil. Her work encompasses her knowledge of architecture, physics and mathematics and her observations about time, and her installations vary from object to public space. Discover more at mellolandini.com or follow her on Instagram. Thanks to Colossal for the discovery.
When Edvard Munch painted his most famous painting, The Scream, in 1893 he perfectly captured the existential angst of modern humanity. He did not, however, have access to a microcontroller board with built-in sound sensing connected to a servo motor and speaker, so he failed to make his masterpiece interactive.
Today, we’ll change all of that! By using the Crickit with Circuit Playground Express, and a bit of code in CircuitPython, we can make The Scream scream back at you when you scream at it!
By Edvard Munch - National Gallery of Norway, Public Domain, https://ift.tt/2v0s3G0
In addition to the parts above, you’ll need:
Two copies of the painting printed on a color printer
Corrugated cardboard
Cardstock
Chipboard (thin cardboard)
Frame and mat with cardboard backing
Scrap wood for standoffs
Glue stick for paper
High temp hot melt glue and glue gun, or wood glue and clamps
A beautiful use of the 60 LED NeoPixel ring as a clock that also talks! This all new project uses the Adafruit Feather M0 Bluefruit LE board for both brains and Bluetooth communications. You can also add an optional infrared receiver to interact with the clock with a remote. The Swiss Army of clocks.
The guide has step by step instructions, full code written for the Arduino IDE, and wave files for the voice.
A beautiful use of the 60 LED NeoPixel ring as a clock that also talks! This all new project uses the Adafruit Feather M0 Bluefruit LE board for both brains and Bluetooth communications. You can also add an optional infrared receiver to interact with the clock with a remote. The Swiss Army of clocks.
The guide has step by step instructions, full code written for the Arduino IDE, and wave files for the voice.
If you’ve ever seen an orchestra perform you’ve probably had a difficult time looking away from the person dead center on the stage – the conductor. It’s hard to miss someone as they swing their arms around pointing at the musicians that seem to be focused instead on their music stands. So what exactly is the conductor doing?
When I came across this old wooden door bell at a boot sale I thought that it would make a great case for a nixie clock. I opened it, and found that the large transformer and solenoids that makes the bell ring, occupy most of the space. My initial idea was to strip it all out and use some other method of alarm. But after a bit of pondering I thought perhaps it’s possible.
Challenge accepted !!!
As this clock uses several up-cycled parts and components which you may not be able to find exact pieces, this instructable is a guide to creating something similar.
Old bells like this were made by different companies for different uses; Hotels, shops and telephone extensions. This one had a large transformer coil, so I guess it was probably a telephone extension bell used in a large shop or factory.
Disconnect and unscrew the transformer. (Don’t be tempted to connect it to the mains power. It will probably catch fire) Once removed you can now begin to test the solenoids which actually make the bell ring.
Invented by the Frenchman Denis Papin in 1679, the Digester resulted from landmark experiments involving the utility and power of steam. The ramifications transcended the kitchen: Working with the same basic science that underpins the Instant Pot, Papin’s first pressure cooker also played a significant role in the development of the steam engine—a world-changing device that launched the Industrial Revolution. How this happened is a story of innovation, collaboration, and Papin’s long-forgotten legacy.
Little is known of Papin’s childhood. Born on August 22, 1647, in Blois, France, he studied medicine at the University of Angers between 1661 and 1662, and likely earned his doctorate at the same institution in 1669. He moved to Paris soon after, where he met and befriended Christiaan Huygens, the famous Dutch polymath. Throughout the early 1670s, the pair conducted experiments on an air pump. After publishing the results of these tests in 1674, Papin moved on to England, where he launched a similar project with the chemist Robert Boyle at the Royal Society of London.
TrackTalk is a new feature from the Adafruit music team. In this companion to the MusicMakers Q&A series, we invite artists to take us behind the scenes of a particular track to talk creative process, recording set up, and more. This week we feature the new single from Derbyshire’s Haiku Salut.
We’re so pleased to welcome Haiku Salut back to the Adafruit blog after their fabulousMusicMakers Q&Aback in February. It’s great timing too as just last week we were able to featureKayla Painterin our MusicMakers series, who we reached out to on Haiku Salut’s recommendation! Gotta love the community.
The trio are returning soon with a new album,There Is No Elsewhere, released September 7th on PRAH Recordings. So far the two lead singles have seen the band at their eclectic best, glimmering layers of folky homeiness clashing with glacial bursts of electronics and post-rock dynamics. Their music is as full of melody and surprises as ever.
The latter of these two singles, “The More And Moreness,” is perhaps the most curious of the two. Bubbling synth rhythms and looping vocal melodies blaze beneath a burst of jolting accordion. These juxtaposing elements create a gorgeously beguiling musical swell that breaks like a fever with a brass section to die for. Haiku Salut remain delightfully and powerfully unusual. There’s a lot of good reasons to be excited about the upcoming new record.
We’re still anxiously awaiting updates onADA, the forthcoming play fromEmily Hollyoakeabout Ada Lovelace for which Haiku Salut will be providingthe soundtrack. But in the meantime, we’re very grateful toSophie Barkerwood for finding the time to talk us through the curious origins of the latest single:
Sophie Barkerwood of Haiku Salut on “The More And Moreness”:
“The More and Moreness started life as the soundtrack for an ice-cream van on the North-West coast. We were asked to write something illuminating for a travelling art exhibit and the bones of this song are it. It used to have a whole different twinkly introduction. A dead music box, in a dreary seaside town, coming back to life. The end section with the accordion loops and the brass band were written very quickly, I barely remember how that came together. One day it wasn’t there and then it was, in all it’s moreness. The beginning of the track as you hear it now was written on Christmas Day in 2015 after acquiring some new speakers. It was hanging around for ages, we didn’t know what to do with it and didn’t recognise that the two pieces belonged together for a long time. Sometimes you just have to wait it out. It was a wonderful feeling when it all clicked into place.
The track was partially recorded at our home studio and then brought to life in Snug Recording Co in Derby. We’ve worked with Snug for a while now and they understand our quirks and foibles. Crisps and milkshakes are band from the studio. In January 2017 we travelled to a community hall in Somerset to record the brass sections with Glastonbury Brass. It was cold in there but the brass warmed our insides, it was very emotional. Brass band in winter, a feeling I can’t quite place, belonging or pride? We went for a drink with a few of them afterwards and they told us about their community. We wanted to continue the sense of belonging and solidarity in the video and decided to work with with our longtime friend and collaborator James Machin from Grawl!x. The video is an inky dark noir, we play a group of revolutionaries working together to bring an explosive change to the World. Much like the brass band, the revolution is bigger than the sum of its parts.”
If you’d like to hear a little more from Haiku Salut, dig in below:
Photo courtesy of 
