My Digital Sketchbook

Gordie Fuz: The Wireless IR Wonder Toy

Gordie Fuz is a wireless toy that uses IR to communicate with other IR devices. He can receive and transmit various data with every toy made in my Wireless Toys class at Parsons.

THE SPECIFICS:
Each person's toy was to have three buttons, each of which sent out different data when it was pressed. Your toy had to read and visually show which toy was sending data, determine if a button was being pressed, and which button (if any) on the emitting toy was pressed.

LED Lamp with Pulse Width Modulation & the Arduino

I created a lamp for the first project (placies) in Wireless Toys.

The bottom shade houses 10 RGB LEDs (controlled by three knobs and two switches located on a cube off to the side). Each knob is attached to a potentiometer whose value corresponds to the amount of red, blue or green light the LEDs emanate. The switches turn pulse width modulation and blinking on and off.

The shades are casted using Sorta Clear silicone. Below is a close up of the top shade.

The lamp in action:

Download the code.

Parsons Does the Sims::BEATBOXER

An image from our (Marcus Pingel, Cameron Brown, Eric Nunez, and me) interactive musical beatbox system based on the Sims. Parsons Does the Sims now showing at the Chelsea Art Museum until Saturday, May 12th.

Chelsea Art Museum
556 West 22nd St., NYC (11th Avenue and 22nd Street)
Tues-Sat 12-6, Thurs, 12-8

DIY Acupuncture

My acupuncturist was having a problem with an item she had recently ordered. It seemed as if the product she ordered (an herb that is tightly packed in a cylindrical shape with a hole in the center) was too big for her ultra fine needles and kept on falling down the shaft. These herb packs are also lit with a match (they burn like incense), and she was worried about embers falling onto a patient's skin.





To solve her problem, I cast the bottom of a plastic container in silicone and cut a hole in the center and made small needle stoppers out of the same material.

My Mouse

This was my first crack at taxidermy. I attempted to put him in a dance pose so that he would appear graceful even after death.

All other mice beware!!!!

More Photos
Canida's Mouse Taxidermy Instructables

Who said electronics couldn't be sexy?!?!

This is an electronic card that I created for my friend's birthday. It was made using conductive thread, conductive fabric, L.E.D.s, two 3 V batteries, some construction paper, velcro, and a lot of love and imagination.

When you "take off" his clothes his hands close the circuit and the L.E.D. candles on his birthday cake hat and his man parts light up.

DIY: Haptic Mouse Earmuffs

For my HomeX:DIY class I created mouse earmuffs complete with a haptic beating heartbeat.

The earmuffs are made from the hides of approximately 15 white mice and are lined with leather. A motor is in each ear and a small cable connects them to an arduino board. The motors sound and feel like a heartbeat when they vibrate.

Side View:

Front View:

Mouse Disection:

User Testing

Photos of the disection, sewing and breadboard.