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Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#321

Post by kmm »

sulZ wrote: post #134
kmm wrote: post #77

A few years ago I made a "string art" portrait for my girlfriend at the time. It's made from a continuous† 2 km long black thread, woven around a loom made from a bicycle wheel rim. I'm still very proud of how it turned out. †OK fine, it broke at a few points and I had to knot the ends together, but it's the principle that counts. https://imgur.com/gallery/ljoJeal I really wanted to make something creative for her, b…

Do you have the source code for the scripts you wrote to help? I'd be interested in seeing them

They're in two gists here:

https://gist.github.com/kaspermeerts/781f0137b361b51224dcab7...

https://gist.github.com/kaspermeerts/b6f158b1278de307e48a200...

I just hacked it together, but I do think it's not unreadable code

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#322

Post by [deleted] »

pimlottc wrote: post #130
kmm wrote: post #77

A few years ago I made a "string art" portrait for my girlfriend at the time. It's made from a continuous† 2 km long black thread, woven around a loom made from a bicycle wheel rim. I'm still very proud of how it turned out. †OK fine, it broke at a few points and I had to knot the ends together, but it's the principle that counts. https://imgur.com/gallery/ljoJeal I really wanted to make something creative for her, b…

That’s really cool! Did you publish your code anywhere?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#323

Post by 89vision »

kmm wrote: post #321
sulZ wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have the source code for the scripts you wrote to help? I'd be interested in seeing them

They're in two gists here: https://gist.github.com/kaspermeerts/781f0137b361b51224dcab7... https://gist.github.com/kaspermeerts/b6f158b1278de307e48a200... I just hacked it together, but I do think it's not unreadable code

> but I do think it's not unreadable code

hopefully your boolean conditionals are easier to read than that

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#324

Post by stankot »

neontomo wrote: post #291
stankot wrote: post #279

I'm a sucker for old games and good pixel art and I've built a pixel art frame powered by a LED matrix. It is not the most impressive thing I've built, but it is the one that brings me the most joy. Videos: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Stanko/retro-frame/dev/ret... https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Stanko/retro-frame/dev/ret... I wanted something that has a feel of an art object and sits on the shelf, rather tha…

Love it! You might wanna experiment with Flip-disc displays too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-disc_display

Oh boy, flip-disc displays are really nice, I would love to get my hands on one.

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#325

Post by kmm »

_zoltan_ wrote: post #300
kmm wrote: post #77

A few years ago I made a "string art" portrait for my girlfriend at the time. It's made from a continuous† 2 km long black thread, woven around a loom made from a bicycle wheel rim. I'm still very proud of how it turned out. †OK fine, it broke at a few points and I had to knot the ends together, but it's the principle that counts. https://imgur.com/gallery/ljoJeal I really wanted to make something creative for her, b…

would you consider sharing the python code?

Here you go

https://gist.github.com/kaspermeerts/781f0137b361b51224dcab7...

https://gist.github.com/kaspermeerts/b6f158b1278de307e48a200...

Haven't looked at it in five years, but it should probably still work if you update the variables at the top.

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#326

Post by gilbetron »

shimon wrote: post #222
gilbetron wrote: post #209

My family and I built a two story house as a family cabin in 1992-4, which was a cool experience, albeit exhausting and humbling. The only things we didn't do were the foundation and some of the finish drywall. Everything else we did mostly in a single summer, from the first floor joists to the roof (which we did in 90F weather!). Great experience, really helped me understand what is behind the walls of my future hom…

I'd love to do something like this with my family someday. Any advice based on your experience?

Make sure everyone involved is closely aligned in what they want out of it! Half our family wanted rustic, the other wanted a modern house built in the woods, it caused a lot of issues. Likewise, talk about timeline and set expectations, who wants things done by when? Some of us through we were going to take a year to build the cabin, others thought we were going to have it done by the end of summer!

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#328

Post by egberts1 »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #78
egberts1 wrote: post #47

All before 1982: a belt-driven windmill to an auto alternator, complete with a household DC circuit providing switchable lights. (thanks Popular Mechanic magazine!) a 6' multi-stage magnetic-driven projectile launcher complete with a horkage of old TV capacitors. An amplified passive Ultrasonic sniffer with earphone. An alarm trip sensor comprised of mirrored lightbeams. And created/deployed "THE" original credit car…

How did you make a reader like that back then? I'm assuming that these days, and such device would use a generic microcontroller, with most of the interesting logic in the software. (Insert snarky joke about it also requiring Electron and 16GB of RAM.)

Some of us remember the good ol’ reel-to-reel audio tape from Sony, ones with BIG capstan pinch rollers and tiny read multi-head.

That’s the primary set of part for this card reader as it came from the AKAI M-7 reel-to-reel tape deck that my dad vet sent from Thailand (that I ripped apart).

The rest is machining the new box to hold together the mechanicals and gears. It was big, something like 13”x8”x18”.

Then came the hacking part, which included plenty of social engineering to obtain its data format and then garage-based pattern construction of data bits.

Then came an Intel MCS-48 (8048) …. old, old, but big ICs approach with ADC capability.

Featured it at a Pacific Oil and Gas Conference booth, sold that day in its entirety,

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#329

Post by kmm »

nojs wrote: post #138
kmm wrote: post #77

A few years ago I made a "string art" portrait for my girlfriend at the time. It's made from a continuous† 2 km long black thread, woven around a loom made from a bicycle wheel rim. I'm still very proud of how it turned out. †OK fine, it broke at a few points and I had to knot the ends together, but it's the principle that counts. https://imgur.com/gallery/ljoJeal I really wanted to make something creative for her, b…

That is insanely cool, I would love to see the script to convert png to string placement.

Enjoy

https://gist.github.com/kaspermeerts/781f0137b361b51224dcab7...

https://gist.github.com/kaspermeerts/b6f158b1278de307e48a200...

I hope it's readable

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#330

Post by jacquesm »

kmm wrote: post #77

A few years ago I made a "string art" portrait for my girlfriend at the time. It's made from a continuous† 2 km long black thread, woven around a loom made from a bicycle wheel rim. I'm still very proud of how it turned out. †OK fine, it broke at a few points and I had to knot the ends together, but it's the principle that counts. https://imgur.com/gallery/ljoJeal I really wanted to make something creative for her, b…

That's very nicely done, impressed!
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