Solarbotics and HVW Tech will be at the Bay Area Maker Faire this weekend! If you have a chance to come out be sure to stop by and say hi, we'll be in our booth all day Saturday and Sunday. Also Dave will be doing a presentation in the workshop area over the weekend, so […]
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!
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BEAM as part of thesis work
Rory Nugent (of Solar Xylophone fame) has posted his thesis presentation to the Interactive Telecommunications Program, which heavily features BEAM devices. By "building things with a sense of life", he's documenting what we've known for a good while - autonomous devices ("pets") offer unusual interesting relationships. Keep up the good work!
Friday New Product: Cables, Lil' Logger,...
This week we did get our hands onto that shelf full of new product that was waiting patiently for its grand appearance here on the front page. Well, the product there wasn't that abandoned and lonely, technically - there's a bunch of stuff there to entertain itself. Like cables can hang out with other cables, […]
New Product - Pico of Canada
In the process of trying to keep business as normal, we've added the cable-management products from Pico of Canada. It's all the standard interconnects, looms, and wire terminations you'd find in almost any electrical box. They're now online, and also viewable in our Virtual Store!
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.