'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the shop Not a creation was stirring (except the Turbot!). All robots had been packed and shipped with care, With hope, to their destination, they soon would be there. The bosses and staff were heading home straight To settle down to gift wrapping, probably 'til late. When out […]
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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Closed Monday, February 21st
We all have family, in one form or another. Parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, friends, pets... In some cases, even a delapitated, 20 year-old Honda Civic lovingly referred to as Lou. It has rust in the rear quarter panels and the steering wheel squeeks when it gets cold, but things just wouldn't be the […]
MakeFashion Tech Gala Photos
Solarbotics just attended the MakeFashion Gala here in Calgary. It was a glowing show of glowing lights and wearable technology. Check out the photos in our Flickr stream. Photo courtesy George Dimitrov Photography Among all the other wonderful things we've seen using our string LEDs before, there was nothing quite as intense as these outfits. […]
Coming to the WCRG this year?
Thinking of coming to the Western Canadian Robot Games this year? Although the games don't have any BEAM events this year, we're still planning on being there to meet up with our customers (and enter a few 'bots in competition!). As usual, we're planning at also having our free annual post-event BBQ, so if you'll […]
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Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.