Animated monkey

As you can see in the photo of the monkey under construction he sits on a circular ply board that is attached to a bar the other end of which runs in a gear-driven eccentric self-aligning bearing which rocks him with a circular motion. This motion is continuous and draws attention to him. If a…

Bike battery chargers

A couple of things found (a Topsy, for example, “runs for 7 hours on a 12 volt 30 AH battery“): http://www.mark-ju.net/bike_ride/equipment/charger.htm charges stack of 6Vs For about the same weight as a generator setup, you could get a solar charger that works whether you are pedaling or not. Batteries.com has one that weighs .28 pounds…

Gumstix

D says re controlling barrel organ valves using MIDI: Could probably do that very neatly using micro pc like a gumstix No need for hard drive for midi files – use flash memory. Power it off solar/dynamo, probably. Customer projects Do I want something like this? You bet: More random interesting stuff Roomba & Gumstix

Elderly ads

eg http://www.wfmu.org/flashplayer.php?show=15752&archive=21535 01:16:24

Suggested modification to transport device

(Via Twankle & Glisten) Other news: I started drawing stuff, talked to a couple of engineers, and am looking forward to meeting a French organ man, basically to see if he can do me some kidneys)

Paper roll punching

I’ve been genuinely surprised by how many people are still using paper rolls to control their organs, and how many organs are still being produced for this technology. The means used to bridge the gap between electronic composition and paper device control are interesting–they remind me of what I think happened in (Italian?) textiles in…

Castlewood busker organ

Rather taken with Castlewood = 20 note (which notes?) (MIDI file on site). 375mm (15″) wide x 300mm (12″) high x 290mm (11.5″) deep – ie wee bit bigger than my Dell opened up. Photos of kit & construction. 2008/6/16 complete kit price 1420AUS = 860EUR, possibly plus 3.2% European tariff. US 810€inc PP Profile…

Hans Grüsel’s Kränkenkabinet

The redundant (heavy-metal) umlaut and the missing t in Kränkenkabinet seem like reasonable grounds for wondering whether “Hansel Urnst Grüsel” has ever been further east than New Jersey, never mind Neubrandenburg, and the stage show is similarly fantastic. Check out the video of Tea for two at the end of this post (the MP3 audio…