Cool toys and Gadgets

Photograph by Kim Dow

Scott Wade of San Marcos, Texas, thought he could do better than write "Wash Me" on the backside of a dusty car. He started drawing caricatures. His father was a cartoonist of sorts and had taught him to draw funny faces. It was Wade's idea to make a dirty car window his canvas.

"For the last 20 years living on a dirt road," he says, "there's always dirt on my car."

With the sun baking it, the dirt takes about two weeks to form a stable work surface. Wade began, like anyone else, by using his finger, and then tried popsicle sticks. To introduce shading, he decided to use brushes. Over time he developed a range of techniques, which included using plants and rubber paint-shaper tools.

Wade particularly likes the dirt of central Texas, where crushed limestone mixed with clay serves as a road base.

"It makes the perfect dirt," he says. "It's very light-colored and the contrast is great against the dark shadow inside the car."

As he got more requests to create his Dirty Car he realized that he had to figure out how to dust up a car himself. Now, he can prepare a car in minutes using a light coating of oil and pyro-lite, a less toxic alternative to fuller's earth.

At the Austin Maker Faire in 2007 (& 2008), Wade dusted up his Toyota and created Monsters from the Movies, featuring the Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman. The next day he painted a tribute to Willie Nelson that included Waylon Jennings. "After a good rain," he says, "it appears to wash off, but in a couple days it comes back in a ghostly form."

Recently, he was asked to draw Biff Henderson for the David Letterman show. In addition to portraits, he enjoys dusting up the old masters. "I have this grandiose idea of parking cars all the way up the ramp of the Guggenheim Museum and painting in dirt reproductions of the pieces that are on the wall next to it."

>> Dirty Car Art: dirtycarart.com

From the column Made on Earth - MAKE 14, page 23 - Dale Dougherty.

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Even though it was announced last month, the Cosmos Black case bundle from Cooler Master just got an addition that is definitely worth mentioning. In fact, it got a HyperZ600 CPU cooler added to the package, which suddenly makes it much more worthwhile.

This new case is, of course, all black and the HyperZ600 CPU cooler is meant to keep the latest high performance processors running cool without drowning you in noise. The cooler itself features a 120mm fan capable of 800 to 2200 rpm. It also has a spacer that goes between the fan and the top of the cooling fins to better channel the air. This also has the benefit of reducing noise greatly.

We don’t know what CPUs this cooler would be compatible with, but it does seem to be rather universal. If the HyperZ600 cooler sounds interesting to you, then you should take note that it is only available as a part of the Cosmos Black bundle.

[via SlipperyBrick]

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If you’re in need of both an iPhone charger and a night light, then you might just be in luck with the reviveLITE. This thing acts as a dock to your iPhone and lights up nice and bright to help ensure you won’t trip over any spare shoes in the middle of the night and won’t get eaten by any monsters.

Developed by Scosche Industries, the reviteLITE charges iPods and iPhones of all kinds. All you have to do is plug it into a wall outlet and it casts a subdued light against your wall. 

So now you can keep your iPhone charged up, keep a reassuring light illuminated in your room at all times and do all of this while maintaining some sense of style. You can get the reviveLITE now in black and white models for $39.99.

[via Gearlog]

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Brink, a new Science Channel show, will be covering Illuminati Motor Works during next week's episode. This is the first of 3 episodes including projects from this year's Austin Maker Faire.

Learn more about Brink here, and be sure to catch the Illuminati guys 10pm EST Friday, December 12th!

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The helpless cries and LCD spasms of a very bent GB under the modulating influence of LoFi Ninja's keyboard rhythm section. That synched screen-streakery is a thing in and of itself! - LoFi Ninja - Circuit bent Gameboy

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Phil Clandillon saw a recent post about sparebots, and was moved to show his own work.

Asked about his technique to make the animation, he responded with great detail and technical clarity:

It was a very DIY operation. I've been doing these interactive flyers for around 6 years in my spare time for Sancho Panza, who are a house music sound system / promoter (most famous for their annual stage at Notting Hill Carnival) over here in London, UK. I typically make the flyers over the course of one or two evenings so that quality can be a bit variable, but the dancing electronic parts man turned out well. In 2006 the theme for the year's flyers was that Matt and Jim from Sancho would send me a piece of music, and I would base the flyer on it. The February tune was "Over and Over" by Hot Chip which is a repetitive electro-pop number. I had the idea for the dancing man made from components based on this.

The process of realising it went something like this:

I dug around in the drawers at home for all the electronics bits I could find (also a work colleague at the time helped out by donating some more vintage bits, such as those used for the head and legs) and made up the character on a piece of bread board.

I then need to photograph him in the various "frames" in order to create the animation. The biggest challenge was mounting the camera so it pointed down at the breadboard and so it didn't move around between shots. Also lighting was a problem as the character need to be reasonably evenly lit so he wouldn't throw shadows.

I used a combination of an open frame from a filing rack (think a cube with no sides), and a plywood wine rack with a seven inch reggae record stuck over one of the holes. The type of seven inch with the middle taken out turned out to be exactly the right size to poke the camera lens through. I used two pillowcases and three desk lamps to make a rudimentary light tent. I then moved the character gradually through his dance moves, taking a photo at each step. One problem was that pressing the camera's shutter button caused the camera to move, putting the animation out of alignment, so I used the camera's self timer instead, resetting it for each shot.

I then made the final adjustments to the characters position by layering up the frames in Photoshop, before animating the result in Flash.

I have a website but it's a bit out of date at the mo (shoemaker's shoes and all that) - you can see more e-flyers in my archive. Interestingly the artwork for the website is also created from electronics. I had a friend who can solder better than me help me make up an LED logo of the tag I used to spray when doing graffitti as a kid. I then took it out on the street in London and photographed it in a variety of locations. These photos went on to form the backdrop for the website (my gf is standing out of shot holding a 9V battery on the end of two wires!).

Phil and colleague Steve Milbourne also recently did this Excel spreadsheet ASCII music video for AC/DC from a few weeks ago.

We're a digital creative team and we're very inspired by the maker scene, so a lot of our ideas involve getting our hands dirty with hardware and software. We're also daily readers of the Make: Blog!

Thanks Phil. Keep up the great work!

How are you changing the way you look at the things in your life? When you look at a pile of junk, what do you imagine? What do you make when nobody is looking? Pass along your ideas in the comments, and add photos to the Make Flickr pool!

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Sparkfun posted another handy tutorial, this one covers how to use a relay to switch wall power via one little ol' 5-volt microcontroller. A very helpful ability to add to your palette, which of course requires the obligatory "mains supply" caution statement - Don't Touch! I very much look forward to resetting my cable modem via AVR, how bout you? - Controlling Big, Mean, Devices

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Michael Mandiberg's created a beautiful and beautifully simple way to be seen biking at night:

I wrapped up my bike in retroreflective vinyl. Retroreflective vinyl is like a big scotchlite sticker; scotchlite is that super-reflective stuff that is on running shoes, jackets, and night safety equipment.

Here's a video of the process and result:

And, an opportunity to make your own:

Everyone I show it to wants to wrap theirs SO on December 13 at the Eyebeam Holiday Hackshop we are wrapping Bright Bikes.

Check it out: http://theredproject.com/brightbike/

We have materials and space for 30 bikes. Bring your washed bike (and chain), and turn it into a Bright Bike. We will have black, white, red, blue and yellow, and maybe a surprise color. You can wrap the whole bike, or put stripes/bands on it, or just cover your most visible parts (the seat stays in the back, and the fork in the front.)

Signup is at the Eyebeam Bookstore, the day of the hackshop, and or you could stop by before. First come first served. We will have slots and material for 30 bikes. Running in two shifts, from 1-230 and 230-4. At 4pm we will go for a dusk ride to document our critically-reflective-mass.

And if you are not NYC based, DIY. I will be in LA the last week of Feb and first week of March, and I can run workshops then. I will be in SFO the last week of April. Or you could just order the materials and do it yourself! http://www.beacongraphics.com/supplies/3M/3m-580.html

The cost will be $30 for 6 feet of vinyl (that is at cost). If you are going for a partial wrapping, you can get 2 feet for $10. What a deal!

Wheelin' and Dealin' for bicycle safety.

DONT FORGET TO WASH YOUR BIKE and chain!!!

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The Instructables book has a nice little write up in the NYTimes! Penelope Green writes-

The duct tape roses I made over Thanksgiving were fetching (until they were gummed by the cat), but post-turkey lethargy prevented me from digging into the meatiest projects in “The Best of Instructables” (Make: Books; $34.99). One example: the concrete light bulb wall hook, described as “an excellent excuse for driving a lag bolt into your wall” by its inventor, Ray Alderman. He and it are emblematic of the instructables universe, a blogging community of do-it-yourself-ers, robot-makers, food hackers and techno-geeks who share their crafty ways at Make magazine and Instructables (makezine.com and instructables.com), sometimes selling the finished products on etsy.com, the online bazaar for handmade things.

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