The wheels of the humble pushie have been utilised for Persistence of Vision optical displays before, usually with an array of LEDs flickering a pattern as the bike rolls along.
London-based animator Katy Beveridge took a different approach when she used hand cut paper to generate dynamic moving patterns on her bike wheels. A fancy, limited edition laser cut version is available on her Etsy store.
Styled on the very early phenakistoscopes, the animation is only visible when viewed through a camera. This is because of the way that the eye perceives motion, as the technique relies on the refresh rate between frames to create an illusion of animated movement.
A comment on Katy’s blog suggested attaching a strobing LED light to the forks of the bicycle, thus creating the required flicker for the animation to be visible to the naked eye. Until a solution like this is incorporated, Katy’s novel laser cut wheel patterns will only really come to life on-screen.
The phrase “flying cube” does not initially bring to mind something beautiful, but this experimental kite certainly is. If the pictures don’t convince you, watch the video below. It is remarkable how something so large and, well, block-like can be so graceful. I normally avoid using words like “enchanting,” but I think it is applicable here.
The kite, Three Cube Colliding, was designed by Alex Sash Reading with Ivan Morison and fabricated and engineered by Queen and Crawford. It is made from 1700 3D printed connectors, carbon fiber rods, and aerospace fabric.
Parametric software can save you a lot of time by automating repetitive tasks. The Grasshopper plugin for Rhino is well known for its impressive generative architectural modelling, but it is also useful for much simplier tasks such as offsetting lines as you might do manually in Illustrator or inkscape for CNC routing. (more…)
Who needs Santa when you can print infinite chocolate anythings?
Moving Brands got themselves set up with a RepRap3D printer and came up with the only correct answer to “how shall we use this for the holidays?” – delicious high resolution chocolates! The studio set about making models of things with personal meanings, then filled a company advent calendar with the results.
According to Ben Lambert, the parts beyond the standard RepRap stuff are:
- Frostruder components minus wood w/solenoids mounted on top of the A frame
- A “big-ass” tank of compressed nitrogen
- A custom, 3D printed clamp for the syringe
- A pipe heater
- Chef’s cooling spray
- Lots and lots of milk chocolate!
I’m definitely going to look into doing something like this for the holidays next year… It would make for a great collaborative project with any group. Here’s where you can see more:
The joys of magnets and their mysterious ways is something we’ve all been fascinated by at some point in our lives.
This clever little desktop sculpture from ThinkGeek makes for a fun educational project and also serves quite well as a quirky curiosity item.
Using laser cut supports and a simple threaded mechanism, the device can be finely adjusted to get the small magnet hovering at an optimum distance from its metallic plinth.
The design emerged from a successful Kickstarter project and has since received geeky acclaim all across the globe. Click through for a rather unique double levitation portrait featuring a proud owner with his Magnetic Levitator. (more…)
USA laser-cutting (excluding metal):
We are not expecting any delays, but contact us if you are hoping to have your order by a specific date
New Zealand laser-cutting (excluding metal):
Fabrication will resume as normal on the 3rd of January. There will be delays between Boxing Day and New Year.
USA & NZ Metal laser-cutting:
Orders placed over the holiday season will made around the end of January/beginning of February.
3D printing (excluding metal):
Orders placed over the holiday season may potentially take 2-3 weeks to make instead of 1-2 as normal.
Metal 3D printing:
Orders placed over the holiday season may potentially take 4-5 weeks to make instead of 3-4 as normal.
Pick-up Order Collection Dates
Ponoko USA office will be closed for collections:
Friday December 23rd
Monday December 26th
Monday January 2nd
Ponoko NZ office will be closed for collections:
Monday December 26th – Monday January 3rd.
However, collections could be scheduled on request by contacting us.
Posted in Ponoko News by Josh Judkins | Comments are off for this post
cardstock comes to Ponoko US = a whole new range of things to make!
Awhile back we gave our most frequent customers the chance to tell us what new material they wanted to see in the Ponoko materials catalog, and we promised to add the top two materials by the end of the year.
We even let our top users vote on what colors they most wanted, so we’ve got black, ivory, and red.
The cardstock laser engraves really well. It looks awesome, to be honest. And one trick you can do is use a medium vector engraving line to create perfect fold lines. Because it’s paper, its 100% recyclable and can be easily joined with glue or tape.
It’s nearly Christmas, but you suddenly realised you’ve forgotten to make a present for your precious grandmother who you had promised to craft a personal gift for. What do you do?
FabScan may be your only hope, other than blatantly lying to her, that the mass produced gift you bought at the last minute was actually made by you. Fortunately with FabScan and 3D printing you can turn modelling clay sculpts into hard physical models to save your family’s Christmas. (more…)
The Laser Cutter Roundup — a weekly dose of laser-cut love: #58
Hey, Sam here. I’m back collecting the post from The Laser Cutter.
The abovewall mounted bird comes from Daniel Howard of Shelf Help at Etsy.com – and he has generously extended a 15% discount to all TLC Readers, just use coupon code TLCBLOG15. Seems like a good opportunity to get some Christmas shopping out of the way.
After the jump, snowflakes, wisegrads, irony, another use for the Living Hinge, and graffiti… (more…)
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