Here's another bunch of links for your viewing pleasure. Under the current meteorological conditions we wonder who would consider looking at screens, because, you know, real life takes over sometimes, especially when it is so nice outside, at least in our neighborhood. A clock that uses sixty RGB pixels Hey, we made that! Well, almost. This […]
New Years, New PumLantern Art
Dave Hrynkiw
December 30, 2009
Well, we've taken a few days off to enjoy some turkey and presents, and we've come back to the office to keep chugging away... But it's time for another break! New Year's is within spitting distance, and we'll be closed for New Years Day (that, of course, would be Friday, January 1st). As always, we'll resume processing/shipping orders and replying to any correspondence the following Monday. We hope everyone has had a great year and that 2010 will be even better.
On a different note, we want to roll out some new artwork for the PumLantern. Instead of doing all the work ourselves, though, we want some input from you. What theme do you want to see on your lantern shells? Being the graphic designer dude, there are few things I need to keep in mind when designing new artwork:
- Detail: As impressive as our laser engraver is, it can only cut so small before destroying very fine segments. Additionally, we want the artwork to be somewhat sturdy, so we can't have a whole bunch of itsy-bitsy elements that might break off.
- Stencil: We're cutting shapes out of a single piece of material - there isn't any glue or wire to keep pieces in their spot. All elements need to be attached to the wall of the lantern, and you can't have any free-floating islands/shapes-within-shapes.
- Subject matter: We like to release our PumLantern designs through a creative commons license, and we don't like being sued. All our designs have to be original (or build on other public domain designs), and cannot infringe on any copyrighted materials.
So what would you like to see on your lantern? Cute critters? Aliens? Electronic circuitry equations? Flaming tacos? If you want to share your ideas, feel free to give me a shout: chris [at] solarbotics [dot] com . Over the next few weels we'll be sure to follow up the designs that are being frequently requested. But only if they can meet the above design requirements. Feel free to even draw up some rough concepts and send them over - just remember that the simple designs are generally better. Take a look at the existing PumLantern designs or the shell source files if you need something to reference to.
MORE POSTS
Roundabout Pieces!
David Cook wrote a book. That book is a technically a Cook book, but we won't call it that. We'll call it Intermediate Robot Building (no, we don't have it yet, we're still waiting for our order!), and it heavily features the Roundabout Robot. If you're familiar with Mr. Cook's first book Robot Building for […]
BEAM Tools - See What We Use
We asked Grant, our resident BEAM technician, to come up with a list of some of the tools he uses, and here we have it! This list will help those first starting out to see what they should use, and for those who've been doing it awhile we have some of our more advanced tools. […]
GM10 Modifications
Grant has taken some time to document how to turn a standard 81:1 GM10 pager gear motor and turn it into a 9:1 version. Why would you want to do that? You tell me - I'd love to know what project you build with a speed demon like that! Read More...
Solarbotics has been operating for more than 25 years, bringing electronics know-how and supplies to both the electronics professional and hobbyist. We'll be happy to help you too!
Solarbotics, Ltd. is not responsible for misprints or errors on product prices or information. For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.
Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.