The Windmill Factory was asked to do an art installation for a black-tie fundraiser at the MIT Media Lab.
Jon Morris asked Robert Bose of the BalloonChain to collaborate on a balloon vortex in the large atrium, using the experimental RF technology that LumiGeek developed for the Balloon Chain
Not only did they install a balloon vortex with a circular array of fans, they created a 7×7 grid of balloons to form a low-resolution floating video screen.
The Bullduino was an custom board based on the opensource Arduino Uno specification, but shaped like the Red Bull logo. It served as the invitation to the second annual Red Bull Creation contest.
Applicants to the contest had to create something with the Bullduino and post a YouTube video. Team Instructable’s “Romance Pants” belt buckle was a top entry, where unzipping the jeans caused lights to dim, music to swell, and candles to be set ablaze! See below for a collection of contest entries done with the Bullduino.
After the qualifier, sixteen finalists were chosen to compete in the 72-hour build-a-thon, but in 2012 they worked in their own makerspaces and streamed video throughout the duration. All of the streams were then integrated into a 72-hour straight show, hosted by Tyler Hanson and Mike Senese.
LumiGeek co-founder, Joe Martin, was commissioned to build a larger-than-life 16-segment display with an alpha-numeric keypad for a 62-foot tall vending machine.
The massive structure doubled as a stage for the Doritos hospitality lounge and hosted acts such as Snoop Dogg and Ghostland Observatory.
Laughing Squid wrote a great article on some early technology by the LumiGeek founders.
Note that the iPhone application is no longer available for download by the general public. An iPad version is available to play with at the Treasure Island Music Festival and through special arrangement with the artist.
This exquisite art car was commissioned by Christopher Bentley and designed by Sean Orlando.
An iPad mounted into the dashboard of the con-tower controls eight different zones of RGB lighting on the vehicle, as well a banks preset color schemes.
The iPad uses a serial cable to communicate with JoeJoe Martin’s circuitry. This system was partial inspiration for the LumiGeek 4xRGB LED Strip shield. Pat Barry’s iPad application has since evolved into a framework to communicate with various LumiGeek products.
Oakland-based sculptor, Michael Christian, has a long history of collaboration with LumiGeek co-founder, Joe Martin.
The towering kinetic sculptures, Candelaphytes, stand over 30′ tall with 32 individually addressed sections of color-changing LED strip. Video-based patterns are played from an SD card through a custom system designed by Martin.
This project was some of the inspiration for LumiGeek’s 4xRGB Strip shield, with hopes that providing access to this technology would inspire future artists to experiment with dynamic lighting.
LumiGeek co-founders, Joe Martin and John Taylor, put their heads together in 2011 to come up with a truly unique way to launch the Red Bull Creation hackerspace challenge.
The duo created a custom circuit board with a series of puzzles and riddles to point recipients towards the event website. At first, the board only blinked morse code that hinted at a password for an encrypted ZIP file that mounted over USB. From there, more and more clues revealed themselves as they poked and prodded deeper into the mysterious package.
The folks at the i3-Detroit hackerspace did a very thorough tear-down of the puzzle board:
This sculpture debuted and Burning Man 2010 and has since found a semi-permanent home on the Great Lawn on Treasure Island in San Francisco.
There are over 30 DMX-controlled LED floodlights. In the interactive mode, an iPad application by Pat Barry allows participants to “finger paint” on the screen and light up the sculpture in real-time.
