device

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Art Design

The New ‘NeoLucida XL’ Camera Lucida Makes it Easier to Trace What You See

Artist and SAIC professor Pablo Garcia (previously) has added an update to his previous take on the two century old Camera Lucida, an optical device that allows you to trace images and scenes directly from life. The new version, NeoLucida XL, is similar to its predecessor, however with a much larger viewfinder. The prism inside the updated analog device remains the same size, while the larger mirror and glass make it much easier to draw the projected “ghost image.” You can read more about the device on its Kickstarter page.

Craft Design

Kniterate: A New Digital Knitting Machine Lets You ‘Print’ Fashion Designs

Kniterate is a compact industrial knitting machine created for designers and entrepreneurs that facilitates the one-off creation of garments. Built by London-based designer Gerard Rubio, Kniterate is meant to act as a sort of 3D printer for knitwear, allowing you to create digital designs in Photoshop and turn them into a wearable garments in just a few hours. The machine is capable of knitting scarves, sweaters, dresses, ties, or even the components of shoes. Kniterate could dramatically reduce lead time for a fashion business or design school in need of quick prototyping, or help a more ambitious artist in the fabrication a completely unique wardrobe. Learn more over on Kickstarter. (via Inhabitat, Make:)

Design

Float Through Time with Flyte’s New Magnetized Clock

Tell time or count down the moments until your next big life event with STORY, a new magnetized piece from Flyte (previously). The company’s latest design is an improvement to the wall clock, a work that uses powerful magnetism to move a hovering metal ball around STORY’s edge.

The designed object was built with three modes. With the Journey setting, you can set your mechanism to a specific date, watching the magnetic ball travel along the circular piece of wood until the ball reaches an upcoming moment such as a vacation or birth of a child. Selecting Clock allows you to use the object more like a traditional timepiece, and finally Timer acts as a short term countdown for kitchen prep or time out.

STORY also features a shining digital display to add detail to your chosen setting, and is backlit to be seen in the dark. When synced with Flyte’s mobile app, you can also use the backlight to demonstrate realtime sunsets, sunrises, and phases of the moon.

STORY was just launched on Kickstarter. You can see more of Flyte’s levitating designs, including a set of floating planters, on their website.

 

Design Science

New Magnetized Planters Allow Your Garden to Levitate in the Air

For over a year, Swedish scientist Simon Morris has been experimenting with levitating plants, growing common flora while suspended in the air. This system, called LYFE, consists of a planter that hovers just over an oak base powered by strong magnetism. Through this invisible force field house plants are able to hover while also turning slowly to give equal sunlight to each of their sides.

Every LYFE planter is designed as a geodesic form, paired minimally with its discrete base to draw attention to the action of the vessel rather than the piece itself. You can read more about LYFE on their Kickstarter and see Morris’s other floating home accessory, FLYTE, on their website. (via Design Milk)

Art Design

A Kinetic Sculpture of 15 Moving LEDs Mimics a Walking Person

With spindly legs that look like an upturned spider, this experimental kinetic artwork by Random International relies on the viewer to watch from just the right perspective to reveal a hidden secret. Each of the 15 ‘arms’ is tipped with white LEDs that collectively move to mimic the motions of a walking human figure. Titled Study for Fifteen Points, the piece was created to examine the “minimal amount of information that is actually necessary for the animated form to be recognised as human.”

Random International are an artist collective known for their ambitious interactive installations and sculptures that incorporate robotics and data, most notably the wildly popular Rain Room. Study for Fifteen Points is the first foray into a new body of work by the group and we’re excited to see what follows. (via The Creator’s Project)

Art Design Science

A Kinetic Artwork that Sorts Thousands of Random River Stones by Age

Performing the role of a scientist, Benjamin Maus and Prokop Bartonicek’s kinetic machine Jller selects and sorts pebbles found on a 6 1/2 x 13 foot platform into a grid organized by geologic age. Without assistance, Jller analyzes the stones’ appearance to understand their correct placement, then transports them to the correct location.

All of the rocks for the project were extracted from a German river of the machine’s own name, pebbles that are either the result of erosion in the Alps or have been transported by glaciers. Because the history of this sample location within the river is known, it is a relatively straightforward process to assign each stone its geological age. To do this, Jller first analyzes an image of the stone it selects, extracting information like dominant color, color composition, lines, layers, patterns, grain, and surface texture. The machine then places the stones in alignment of age and type by sucking them into an industrial vacuum gripper and dropping them in the correct location within the grid.

The project is part of ongoing research in the field of industrial automation and historical geology, and was presented last December as a part of the exhibition “Ignorance” at Ex Post in Prague. The full video of the project can be seen below.

Art Design Science

Draw Infinite Geometric Designs With the DuoGraph, a Compact New Drawing Machine by Joe Freedman

The DuoGraph is the latest drawing machine from inventor and designer Joe Freedman whose Cycloid Drawing Machine took the internet by storm a few months ago. His elaborate devices are capable of producing amazing geometric patterns akin to a Spirograph on steroids. This new creation is quite a bit simpler to setup and use, relying on 7 gears and a number of parameters that can be changed quickly to produce infinite designs. While the DuoGraph is a bit more limited in its level of customization, it’s capable of producing elaborate Lissajous patterns which the larger device cannot. Learn more about it on Kickstarter.