Mister Sunchip

I’m building a lighting effect for my friend Mike’s costume. There are four 12V LED strips driven by a BlinkM MaxM. With the BlinkM, I can write a small program for how the lights fade and flicker. I’ll post an in-depth write-up later, but for now I just wanted to share this slightly odd photo.

Showers of free gadgets and junk

In light of the new F.T.C. ruling, I would like all makers of awesome products to know that I’d be more than happy to review their stuff on this site and give full disclosure about it. How come I haven’t been hit with a deluge of cool products? Huh?

Laser tripwires for Machine Project art heist

Why are we building laser tripwires? My friend, we’ll call him Agent Todbot, and I are creating a competitive art heist event for the upcoming Machine Project benefit. This means lots of fog, laser tripwires, and flashing lights. Competitors will try to get through, steal a piece of art, and return without crossing any beams.

To build this, we’re pulling apart a bunch of laser pointers, mounting them at carefully measured intervals (in Mister Jalopy’s museum behind Coco’s Variety), and pointing them at photosensors. Tod attached these to small acrylic discs to allow some slack in the system. We’ll provide more build details as we go.

Machine Project Benefit 2009