Thursday, December 24, 2009

Inflatable sound visualizer

I got the inspiration for this when I went to Tulsa to see CAKE and Gogol Bordello live in concert. Oh yeah! I saw CAKE and Gogol Bordello live in concert! Woooooo!

woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Anyway, one of the other bands I saw was The Uglysuit, whose stage decoration involved simply putting a huge black tarp over all the junk behind the drummer (Why was there all that junk on the stage anyway?). It was a windy day, and as the wind blew, the tarp would billow, inflating and deflating almost in time with the beat. Almost.

But it would totally be possible to create that effect intentionally, and in time with the music! It would need an inflater, like those used in bouncy houses, with some computer control system. The control system is needed in order to ascertain the rhythm of the song and time the inflation/deflation appropriately. You could try it with a cruder system where inflater-activity and volume are directly proportional, but then the visual effect would have a delay effect and that would just look weird.

Speed Metal Cuckoo Clock

Oh yes. The title says it all. Here's a cutaway view of what I'm envisioning:



I don't trust myself with fine clockwork mechanisms and all, so this is a primarily electromechancial thing. You know, servos and microprocessors and all. The two pucks in the top are continuous-rotation servos. At a chosen time, one rotates the outer track such that Guitar Man is outside; then, the other servo gets the inner track rotating. The bumps on the inner track make the Guitar Man's guitar wiggle or make his head bob. A speaker in the lower cabinet plays speed metal. The square thing in the back is some processor that controls the clock, the servos, and the speaker. Oh man you guys this is so cool so coooooooool.

Ethan R. is in cahoots on this one. He's got the greatest ideas here.

Monday, December 14, 2009

First idea of my return: popcorn kernel things

We all know how popcorn pops. I don't have to go into that.

Here's a popcorn kernel:


When it's going to pop, who knows where that rupture line is going to be? Not you, that's for sure. But what if we could control the popping location?

I propose a suit of armor, with a little hole in it. The armor, which could be an electroplated metal coat or a thick layer of plaster or something, will force the kernel to pop at the little hole, creating mushroom-cloud-shaped popcorn. Hooray!


I'm back!

Hey guys, I might start posting things here. Not on a MWF schedule or nothing, just whenever I feel like it. I'll start repopulating this place with my wacky ideas and terrible stories. You know, a repository of things for when I feel like explaining something to someone but I don't feel like typing the entire story for the umpteenth time.

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.