Solar powered charger for small electronics such as mobile phones or portable music players, with carrying case made from a book. The charger is an Instructable and consists of: Minty Boost kit from Adafruit Industries and additional parts from Spark Fun.

Background:

Needed a hinged case to house the components - wanted to add warmth to the cold components, something which naturally would not short out the circuit or heat up easily and be a simple form factor (the original project suggests an Altoid tin).

Technique inspired by the Burroughs and Gysin cut up method, aesthetic derived from A Humument by Tom Phillips (an artist book created from a Victorian novel).

This project was a true lesson in materials… slow going and things broke and needed to be repaired. Humbling. And I have yet to fully understand it from a solar energy perspective.

Ok, this project is a kit called the Brain Machine which I decided to create a new look for by using pilot goggles instead of sun glasses. It’s purpose is to function as a sound and light machine to induce brain frequencies for meditation. 

The Brain Machine is an electronic version of the Dreamachine (the Dreamachine didn’t include sound), which Brion Gysin (an artist in the 60s) originally invented with the help of a mathematician named Ian Sommerville, based upon this experience which he wished to recreate: 

Had a transcendental storm of color visions today in the bus going to Marseilles. We ran through a long avenue of trees and I closed my eyes against the setting sun. An overwhelming flood of intensely bright patterns in supernatural colors exploded behind my eyelids: a multidimensional kaleidoscope whirling out through space. I was swept out of time. I was in a world of infinite number. The vision stopped abruptly as we left the trees…(BG, journal entry 21st December, 1958).

Dreamachine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamachine

A beautiful device. This is why I needed to create a nicer electronic version.

Bamboo single speed city bicycle built over two weekends at the Bamboo Bike Studio. I wanted a new bike which was lighter than my 20-year-old touring bike. The folks at the Bamboo Bike Studio lead workshops where you choose what type of bike you’d like, and customize the components. Then you show up at their Red Hook studio, and build it with their guidance. Each bike is measured and designed to fit the builder. Super challenging working with the materials and shaping and tweaking the bike throughout the process. Amazing experience! And a fabulous bike for riding in the city. More here on NPR.

Gummy bear shaped mood lamp. I’d soldered together a 4x4 cube of multi-color (RGB) LEDs, but didn’t want to display them on their own. Using an Arduino board to control the cube, a program to cycle through colors was modified from an existing piece of code. The bear lamp was purchased in England and had been kicking about the house for ages. It didn’t have the right plug for the US, so was never used. I took it apart and replaced it with the slowly cycling mood lights. It’s really great to have around - super cute and relaxing effect.

Singing hula-hoop. My first experience programming an Arduino microcontroller and demoing it to the public at the school Christmas party. I modified a few pieces of code to first use a range sensor to take in distance values, and a piezo buzzer to sound different tones according to those values. I can’t say I planned on attaching it to the hula-hoop from the get-go, but liked it once I gave it a try. A very noisy toy - the tones scale up and down as the hoop goes round.