Michael created a dog-shirt equipped with persistence-of-vision LEDs controlled by a LilyPad soft Arduino, and programmed it to output the text of my novel Makers as his pooch ran gleefully around the park at night. Then he photographed it and sent it to me, and my head exploded with delight.

Mounting 5 LEDs on a moving object creates one of the cheapest and largest displays: Persistence of Vision. It’s been done on bicycle wheels, fans and other rotating objects.

In this project i am sewing a Lilypad wearable Arduino board and five LEDs with conductive thread on my dog’s shirt. She’s a Miniature Pinscher running very fast for fun. In curves fast enough for Persitence of Vision. And she likes running in large circles in the park! Light writing.

My Dog Light Writing “Makers”

Last week, my wife Alice and I stopped into MakerBot Industries, the DIY 3D printing company in Brooklyn, and got our heads scanned. The MakerBotters covered us in cornstarch (so that the laser-scanner could resolve our hair and eyebrows) and waved this crazy, six-degrees-of-freedom laser-scanning wand around us until we had been turned into polygons. Now our heads are online in Thingiverse, along with many others who happened to pass through MakerBot’s doors while they had the scanner on the premises (it was a loaner). It’s no Stephen Colbert head, but it’s mine, and I’m (cautiously) excited about what the world ends up doing with it!

New York Notables « MakerBot Industries