I learned during the Boris project that, while creating ONE of something may not be a big deal, when you put a multiplier in front of the project it gets considerably harder. For Boris it was six -- six legs, six controllers, etc. Times six isn't so bad.
My project time in May has been dominated by the creation of electronic fireflies. They look like this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mTa98ezlkEA
A simple little project. One chip, on which is soldered three resistors, a capacitor, an LED, two jumpers, and two power leads.
I, of course, thought it would be neat to have fireflies in our camp! Fireflies are neat! More fireflies are NEATER! So I decided to make 100 of 'em. I'm actually making 105. What do 105 firefly circuits look like? Here you go:
http://www.simreal.com/blog_pics/firefly_bits.jpg
Each pile represens a patricular timing and LED color. I intend to wire them to batteries in bundles of 5 using 210 wires. Making 210 wires takes about two hours, by the way:
http://www.simreal.com/blog_pics/firefly_wires.jpg
But, once I solder the wires to the bits tonight, they will be very very cool. Assuming most of them work. And I don't run out of time. Tonight is ALSO the night I MUST video the working ruben's tubes, if I am to get documentation of that project at all.
Oooooooooo I'm also making T-Shirts using a new process. Dye release! I did a test using a chemical dye release a week or so ago, but I couldn't _see_ the action during the soaking of the material. The release occurs during steaming, a post process, so that experiment went very minimally.
Last weekend, though, I used bleach; pretty much straight up, so I could watch it work. To keep it from eating the fabric entirely, we use a bleach-stop deactivator soak once it reaches the desired intensity.
The two tie-dye shirts show both patterns; the lame dye release and teh somewhat better bleach process.
I did two tie-dye process shirts and three stencils of eyes that I made from images I stole from the intar-tubes. These are just backgrounds for additional color work that is in progress (and which promises to be extremely awesome; pictures to follow later):
http://www.simreal.com/blog_pics/shirt_b1.jpg
http://www.simreal.com/blog_pics/shirt_b2.jpg
http://www.simreal.com/blog_pics/shirt_b3.jpg
http://www.simreal.com/blog_pics/shirt_b4.jpg
http://www.simreal.com/blog_pics/shirt_b5.jpg
Okay, back to work for me.
Posted by Edwin at May 22, 2007 08:57 AM