This week, we've had a lot of fun with our Epilog Laser. And by fun, I obviously mean "turmoil and general miserableness". Fortunately, we've sorted the issue out. What I'm going to do is chronicle our pains, describing the exact issue and solution, so that The Googles will index the knowledge for other explorers of […]
Solarbotics at Calgary Comic Expo 2013
Solar botics
April 30, 2013
Whelp, many moons have passed since we posted last time (er, maybe that's a slight exaggeration), and many a thing have happened. We went to Las Vegas to the Magento conference, lasered some ukuleles, but mostly were in a mad rush preparing for the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo 2013. We teamed up with a wonderful costume designer and artist Angela Dale to produce wearable pieces that merge electronics and costume design.
Here's the first example - joint effort of Graeme Janzen, Angela Dale and Solarbotics. Custom Fosshape molded helmet is fitted perfectly to the wearer, and 3 layers of lasercut acrylic are edge-lit with 24 high-power white LEDs:
Our Voltron Helmet is based on the Black Lion toy design from Defender of the Universe, a popular cartoon in the mid eighties. Voltron consisted of 5 robot lions that joined together to form a Giant Robot that protected the galaxy from evil doers. The Black Lion in particular is special because it formed the head and torso of the combined Robot Voltron. Since the head had two different modes: Robot and Lion, it was intriguing to try to emulate the two modes as best as we could.
We used an Ardweeny, Multipack, TTLy FTDI, 2 Star Controllers, and 2 HXT900 servos to animate our replica and make it come alive with a few electronic bits. Special thanks to Angela Dale and Robyn Ayles (props designer and full-time faculty at the Mount Royal theater program) for their assistance!
This Chameleon Cocktail Ensemble was created by Angela and her assistants as a part of MakeFashion project. It uses 20 meter of addressable LED strips (add 5 meters in the headdress) powered by 3.7V LiPoly batteries, and ArduinoPro Mini to control the lighting sequences.
We also hosted the Arduino workshop at the Expo, with a slight costuming application bend and many blinky lights...
..and did lots of people watching.
Check out our Flickr photostream for details on more projects and photos!
MORE POSTS
Ordering glitches
As part of our on-going website upgrades/patches, it seems that fixing one thing tends to ...botch... other aspects of the website. Right now, our shopping cart isn't cooperating. Trust us, if there was an aspect of the website we don't want going down, it's our order forms! We're on it right now, but in the […]
Solarbotics looking for fun people
...oh, and they also should want to work with us. We have a few positions open we want to fill with people that have a good sense of humour, have some geek qualities, and can tell the difference between a diode and resistor (or sincerely want to learn!) Here are the types of people we're […]
Moving ActiveTech
As some of you know, ActiveTech is changing locations and merging operations with Solarbotics. The retail store is going to take the space where the former RnD lab was, and we've been working hard to prepare that area for the move-in.
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.