GeekMomProjects

A tabletop display of a multi-segmented car wash balloon man sculpture constructed of PCBs in different colors arranged at jaunty angles to each other with some the backlit LEDs running up the front center of the sculpture illuminated in an alternating blue and red pattern.

Maker Tom Keddie remixed the Bendy SAO board for a Pride event, and
love how it turned out!
https://hackaday.io/project/203708-bendysao-went-to-pride

A medium sized black and tan 2-year-old dog sits on a pedestal next to a giant bear statue that is life size or slightly larger. The dog is looking at the camera and his tongue is hanging out

Riley (left) channeling his spirit animal on the UCLA campus

A black bucket cap rests on a table. Several silver flowers with illuminated red centers run around the middle of the hat. In front of the hat is a string of pebble lights in which the LEDs have been covered by translucent circular diffusers. Some of the diffusers form the center for vinyl flowers that have been placed around them. On the table in front of the LED string are two of the 3D printed diffusers, along with two flowers cut from vinyl with holes in their centers for placing the diffusers through.

Experimenting with making an illuminated daisy chain by 3D printing snap-on circular covers for a pebble light string and cutting shiny vinyl flowers that fit around the glowy centers.

I'm belatedly getting around to showing off this **GORGEOUS** crochet hat the uber talented @alpenglow made for me. She integrated a pebble light string and #pixelblaze controller. It's all powered by a flat top 18650 with a clever charge/discharge circuit […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]

A notebook with a crayon picture of a fish drawn on it and titled "Detective who took the fish"

A child's notebook of observations that reads: Detective Isla fish on the loss (loose) Who took the orange fish in the morning sign I'm lonely (the kidnapper left a sign next to the remaining mascot saying "I'm lonely") Ms. Sherry in the office Mr. Alex he was playing Frisbee outside Mss Debra: I don't trust her But it could be Ms. Amy

I'm teaching at a nonprofit STEM education camp this week, and yesterday we had an activity where the kids had to solve science puzzles to figure out who had kidnapped our class mascot, a masking-tape goldfish. All staff members were suspects. One child made […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]

Two green poseable PCB assemblies, shaped like inflatable car wash men are illuminated through translucent patches on the front of the PCBs. One assembly is laying on a table, connected to a programmer while the other assembly stands vertically with its base held by a round silver 3D printed stand. Begind the assemblies is a plastic bin filled with dozens more identical assemblies.

The prize for winning a top spot at the Hackaday SuperCon SAO challenge with my Bendy SAO design was getting 100 copies of it produced and assembled. These bendy boys just arrived this week. They're getting flashed and paired with 3D printed stands, so now I […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]

A folded student newspaper named "The Westwood Enabler" with a main headline reading "UCPD ARRESTS STUDENT FOR THINKING ABOUT PALESTINE"

A satire version of the Daily Bruin titled "The Westwood Enabler"

A satire version of the Daily Bruin titled "The Westwood Enabler"

Walking in the UCLA campus today, I grabbed what I thought was a copy of the "Daily Bruin" student newspaper. Turns out it's a (quite good!) lookalike satire. Worth zooming in on the images to read the headlines.

There will come a day when I finish an entire sewing pattern without installing a piece backwards. Today is not that day.

Just finished sewing a new sling bag with a 32x18 LED matrix inside the pocket flap. The pocket flap snaps off so the matrix can be used in other designs. The #Pixelblaze controller and battery fit nicely inside the front pocket

A hand holding a large bleached tibia bone

Was hiking when my dog emerged from the bushes with this large bone. I texted my (doctor) husband to see what it was and he texted it back "fibia," then immediately went offline before answering my second question, "not human, right?" Still waiting for that […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]

A grey haired man and woman standing on a street corner holding up protest signs reading "Boycott Tesla" and "Elon Kills Babies"

Is my weekly #teslatakedown protest. This Saturday I'm in Santa Monica. Smallish but quite high impact protest with good energy and a very high visibility location at the 3rd Street promenade. Also, this couple is awesome.

A small group of protesters holding anti-Musk signs across the street from the Beverly Hilton which has a sign announcing the Milken Institute conference

A small group of anti Musk protestors on a street corner holding signs

Another small but mighty protest outside the Milken conference in Beverly Hills where Musk is speaking #teslatakedown

A cascading series of lever wire connectors, joined to each other with hookup wire, start with a single barrel jack to wire connector and end by sending voltage/ground to 15 different power wires to power 15 PCBs from a single cable.

This is fine...

A small but mighty group of protesters standing along a sidewalk holding signs outside of a Tesla dealership

It rained this morning, so the weekly Santa Barbara #teslatakedown protest is smaller than usual, but mighty in spirit.

The diffusers on the new LED polyhedron (dihedral hexacontahedron, right) looked so much better than the first build that I had to print new ones for the truncated icosahedron (left). I also synced up the patterns on both builds (with #pixelblaze) and will be […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]

A line of protesters holding signs and standing in front of a Tesla dealership

Another Saturday, another #teslatakedown protest. This is a portion of the crowd outside the dealership in Santa Barbara.

The LED deltoidal hexacontahedron is complete! 60 identical PCB sides covered with 3D printed diffusers. Two #Pixelblaze controllers work in sync to provide a fast frame rate for patterns on the 1200 LEDs.

Am enjoying having a Pixelfed account

There are small differences between it and Mastodon that are taking some getting used to. Nothing too radical, nothing really better or worse, just little things like the layout. It took me a bit to get comfy here, but I did, so I expect these growing pains […]

New LED polyhedron build is underway. The video shows two halves of a dihedral hexacontahedron which will have 60 identical kite-shaped sides. This is the third PCB-based polyhedron build in a row, and each one is an improvement. These 3D printed tile covers […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]

A protest poster laying on a wood with images of a Porsche, Ferrari and Cyber truck stacked vertically. The cybertruck sits next to an image of Musk giving a Nazi salute. Next to each car is a label reading "FAST" (Porsche), "FASTER" (Ferrari), "FASCIST" (Cybertruck) Next to the poster is a camo baseball cap with yellow letters that read, "Resist Fascism"

Headed out to my weekly Tesla protest

It's been a fun morning. I'm helping a Los Angeles STEM education nonprofit prepare a kids' event, and I got to build and play with this vertical wind tube. (Remarkably simple instructions here: https://gooddayswithkids.com/2015/02/08/build-wind-tube/)

Finished V2 of the truncated icosahedron, and I'm very happy with how it turned out. The sides are 32 hexagonal and pentagonal PCBs, joined by 3D printed corner connectors and covered with 3D printed diffusers. The pixels are mapped and it's running 3D animation patterns on a #pixelblaze.

Man carrying a protest sign that reads, "Hey Elon, forget Mars go explore Uranus."

A cute black and white dog wearing a sign that says, "Paws off our democracy"

A woman carrying a white sign with a circle and red slash through the word, "broligarchy"

[US Politics]

Went to a protest at SpaceX today. It felt good to join others in taking action.

Truncated Icosahedron project rev. 2 is in progress, and I'm much happier with this version. It's less (but still somewhat) fiddly to assemble and has 3x the LEDs!

A hand holding a black truncated icosahedron with translucent acrylic flowers inset each side, in front of a computer screen. The screen shows a 3D rendering of labelled points corresponding to each of the vertices of the truncated icosahedron, and a partially completed list of faces comprised of lists of vertices within the code.

Using p5.js to map the vertices of the truncated icosahedron build. I'm always too lazy to make 3D mapping part of a project's design phase and I always regret it later on!

On the plane home from Winter Light Festival and I looked down to see my water bottle doing this. Took me a second to realize it had accidentally toggled a random LED bauble that was in the same pocket 😂

Me, taking a selfie in a mirror wearing an LED headband, illuminated Lux Lavalier necklace, a white LED scarf, carrying a blue soft icosahedron plush studded with LED circles. Also carrying a messenger back with an illuminated voronoi pattern displaying a heart,.and attached to the messenger bag is a blie plush dish with illuminated scales.

Headed out to the Portland Winter Lights festival. I have adopted a "more is more" aesthetic for the evening.

This quote from Count Zero by the very prescient William Gibson (@GreatDismal) keeps popping into my head...

"And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human."

I spent much of 2016 through 2020 in mental "fight or flight" mode, and I gotta say, that feeling sucks just as much now as I remember it did.

Close up of an illuminated cylindrical 3d printed tea light holder with a red top and bottom rim about 1/2 inches in height embossed with a floral design and a translucent middle section about 2 inches in height embossed with the Chinese character for good luck. The light inside the holder is glowing blue.

Six of the tea light holders described in the previous image, arranged in an irregular row on a wood floor. Each is illuminated in a different color.

Quickly designed and printed tea light holders for a Lunar New Year celebration tonight. The transclucent portion is embossed with the Chinese character for luck. The embossing should be thicker to make the characters stand out more, but the pretty, color changing LED tea lights cover any flaws.