The Candy Fab Project is an off shoot of Evil Scientist Laboratories. In trying to find a low cost rapid prototyping method, they designed and built a 3D Printer, that uses sugar!!! They've had so much inquiry into it, that the Evil Scientist decided they needed to start a separate page for the printer. Best of all, they're inviting people to sign up and be part of their experiment. Which means they'll be offering the plans for you to make your own printer for free! I've already signed up. They say the candy isn't edible yet, the potential for sculptural food is there though. I wonder if you could layer ingredients to create odd recipes. As an industrial designer, I could print out model mock-ups and eat them for lunch when the presentation is over. This post ends here while I geek out.
Someone in my Illumination class turned me onto Johnny Lee. He is a genius, with fantastic ideas that are demonstrated through effective working prototypes and clear scenario videos.
CERN builds a Large Hadron Collider [easy to digest information page here], of which the grander picture would be a step towards the Grand Unified Theory. In the mean time, in the simplest of english, it means scientists will be shooting protons at each at near light speeds. Other large issues that people bring up when talking about this are worm holes, black holes and of course time travel.
This thing is massive!
When I first read about the Large Hadron Collider, I was reminded of Earth, by David Brin, in which scientist must find a microscopic black hole that has somehow been lost in the Earth's core, threatening the destruction of the planet. In his story, the Earth is plagued by much of the problems that are actually looming on our horizon or already here. I'm not saying David Brin predicted these, or that the Large Hadron Collider will cause a black hole to be leashed up on the Earth. I was simply reminded of the book, which when I read in the mid 90s was quite gripping as I remember it. Science fiction can be used to influence science sometimes.
This is great because you can use any object to put it on there, and it will react differently.
The Reactable is even more interesting though. The visualization of the oscillation adds a level of complexity to designing it, though it simplifies the interaction with people. I find most of the sounds in this demonstration annoying though, I'm not much of a fan of trance anymore. I appreciate the creation of technology from concept though. Here is a slightly better video of the Reactable in action.
This thing is amazing. A cross between The Fly and a Masamune Shirow creation. It's been around for a while and is starting to get a lot of attention now. There is something about the construction and humming of the motors that give this thing a primitive feel, making its movement all the more technological and natural at the same time.
These are screen shots from Publicis and Hal Riney, a website that uses your webcam to navigate it. I particularly enjoyed doing this in the computer lab at school and having others come over to me and ask me what I was doing. I'm guessing the technology/software is similar to that of the Sony Eyetoy. I'm interested to see what's next. How about Simon says with my friends in Singapore or drawing in the air [equivalent to using an open shutter and a flashlight].
By Julia Lohmann, a sheep's stomach lamp. I'm a vegetarian, and this is still beautiful. This is exactly what I was thinking when I wanted someone to stick LEDs in Studio Libertiny's Honeycomb Vase. Bees and Sheeps, what other animals can we take advantage as natural beautiful structures? Hot dog glow lights anyone?
Latte art meets rapid prototyping [found via communicadores.info]. My passion for food leaves me excited about the possibilities this opens up. Of course there is no practical application... yet! I'm going to put all my day dreaming hours to come up with a good use. I imagine Molecular Gastronomists would love to play with this.
It would also be interesting to take a note at where Latte Art started, and now how it has ended up in the hands of machines.
What other food arts are currently performed by people that might be enhanced by machines? Maybe someone could rapid prototype a cake by sifting all the dry ingredients in layers, then adding liquid, then cooking each individual section with a laser. You could have nine different cakes right next to each other! You could have pink polka dot cakes, where the white was vanilla flavored and polka dots were strawberry!
Or maybe some intricate chocolate sculpture that was prototyped...
The honeycomb vase, by Studio Libertiny, is an amazing concept of alternative prototyping. It looks good enough to be a final product for me. Someone please throw some LEDs inside that thing, I think it would be a fantastic lamp. Or maybe a more chemically inclined person could duplicate firefly bioluminescence in there!
Studio Libertiny has some amazing projects with paper on their site too. A paper vase that has the properties of wood! And a paper table that they describe as feeling like "erotic suede." Check out all of their projects, quite inspiring.
"An electronic nose approaching the cability of the human sniffer, remains a dream despite twenty-five years of research" say German Scientist at Thuringia International School Weimar. Electronic noses are great at picking up non-odorous chemicals. Deciphering smells such as fruity, grassy and sweet are just beyond the nose. Information via Science Elements Podcast #51 March 10, 2008
This follows along the concept used in Japan aboutPollen Sniffing Robots. Though it doesn't explain to me how this little guy thinks "people taste like bacon." I guess there in lies the difference between olfactory and gastronomic senses. I still think robots will rise up against us in revolution, tracking us down like pigs so they can eat our flesh.
This bird is amazing, as a mating call it mimics the sound of its environment. This came up in my Beautiful Networks class, and we discussed how it was a measurement of what is going on in the world. People are trying to create various feedback systems [in regards to energy use and environmental impact], and here nature has presented us with an amazing signal of our times. Someone mentioned the sad irony of this bird unknowingly signaling the nearing of its own destruction by sounding out chainsaws and tractors. A its almost natural emergency signal, disguised as a call for love.
On a more inspirational note, hearing the Lyre bird mimic a camera and camera with a motor drive is pretty awesome. In class we also talked about how this reflects upon art as a means to get a mate. Another student noted, that it is fantastic that the best way for a male to get a mate is to reflect his environment sort of causing the female to say "oh, you're right, that is where we live." Speaking of reflecting one's environment, Michel de Broin's Superficielle is quite interesting.
