Shrinky-Dink Goliath Beetle Necklace

Time for a weekend mini-update!

I liked drawing the goliath beetle that I printed on those lunch trays so much that I had to draw another one on shrinky-dink paper to make my own goliath beetle necklace. If you look closely, you can see that there's a pin sticking about 1/4 of an inch out between the thorax and abdomen, so it looks a bit like the beetle is pinned to my chest when I'm wearing it. How delightfully entomological!

Entomological Lunch Trays

All right, to put a cap on last week's series of guerilla art, here's one last project: lunch trays printed in the theme of perhaps my favorite of all scientific branches: entomology, or the study of insects. I borrowed three trays from my dining hall for awhile, printed these three beetle specimens (the Pleasing Fungus Beetle, the Goliath Beetle, and one type of Tortoise Beetle) onto it, and returned them to the wild for dining hall patrons to enjoy. Here's what they look like:



And here they are being returned to the dining hall wilderness:



The tray return:

Electrobug: A Robotic Bug Made From a Toothbrush

Hello everyone! I think it's time to break my long silence...having a full time job this summer means not being able to devote nearly enough time to making things, I'm afraid, and this blog has suffered for it. But never fear, I go back to school soon, and will surely have lots more when I get back. For now, I've got a little robotic bug that I made today (it's a pretty easy project if you're looking for something to do in one day or less.)
Before I begin, I should say that I took the electronics behind this little guy from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories' Bristlebot instructions. The gist behind it is that if you take a vibrating pager motor and a battery, and attach them to the top of a toothbrush head, the vibrations will cause the toothbrush to move forward. It's a great project for people who aren't really technologically inclined but still love the idea of building a little robot for themselves. As for me, I just like the idea of having robot pests, especially self-sustaining ones (which is why the next time I do a project like this, I'd like to try working with solar panelling.) The cockroach-like movements of the little bristlebots appealed to me, so I built a paper bug around mine to give him a little more personality. So here he is!


When you open his little paper wings, you can see the battery and little red wire that connects to the motor.


And here's a view of the bottom, so you can see how his "feet" look (pardon my painty hand):

And of course, how could I post pictures without a video? So here he is in motion; now if only the video could get the detail that the pictures can!



P.S. If you haven't forgotten about the sneak-preview of the doll that I posted last time, don't worry! I haven't abandoned that project, I've just been busy with other things. He'll be on here soon!

Paper Insects

So these are three insects I made out of computer paper. I'm a bit bummed because this picture is pretty shitty; I spent a lot of time getting the minute details of the insects with the paper but you can hardly see anything. Aahhh well. So these are the Hercules beetle, the stick insect, and the harlequin beetle. I got the opportunity to see these charming fellows alive when I visited an insect museum in Costa Rica last summer!