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Posts Tagged ‘Modification’

Beast of a Bicycle! Mechanical Modification With a Spider-Like Walk

30 Jun

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

strandbeest bike 1

This bizarre new take on the Strandbeest bicycle isn’t going to get you from point A to point B much faster than a casual stroll, but it’s fun to watch, with the rear mechanical mechanism ‘walking’ in spider-like motions. Borrowing from the wind-powered kinetic sculptures pioneered by Dutch artist and engineer Theo Jansen, this new creation by Californian collective Carv is half bike, half beast with a front wheel, three functional legs and over 450 handmade components. The designers started with a simple blueprint of Theo Jansen’s rod-linking technique, which he describes as “skeletons which are able to walk on the wind.”

strandbeest bike 2

strandbeest bike 4

It took Carv a whole seven months to develop and build the bike, with the assembly of the rods alone taking three days. Whereas Jansen’s walking sculptures use sails and wind to generate movement, the bike uses pedal power. The designers used a single-speed bike from Walmart as the base and added the rear linkage. Get the technical details here.

An earlier version of the ‘walking bicycle’ by Hanno Smits also uses pedal power, but takes out both wheels, opting for a full walking mechanism that seems to navigate a little more smoothly. The Panterragaffe, a third version, is a two-person pedal-powered walking machine conceived as a public performance piece.

strandbeest opt

It’s hard to deny that Jansen’s original sculptures are just plain cooler and more interesting, though, no matter how many hybrid knock-offs people try to make. Still tempted to try it, or just want to know more about how they work? Jansen sells a few books as well as DVDs and miniature ‘beasts’ on the Strandbeest website.

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[ By SA Rogers in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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Posted in Creativity

 

Fisher Price Camera Tripod Modification – It’s Never Too Early Tutorial

24 Dec

This summer I took my 3 year old son to Big Sur for his first camping trip to show him the Milky Way. Remarkably he held on to this experience beyond expectation and he’s been talking about the Milky Way ever since. On top of that he’s really developed an interest in photography and cameras. I’m not sure how that happened, perhaps it is something in the water supply.  Fast forward to last week when he caught sight of my Joby tripod. I gave it to him to play with thinking it’d be one of the few items he could bend and try to destroy that wouldn’t worry myself or his mother. To my surprise he immediately dug up his retro Fisher-Price toy camera and proceeded to put it on the Joby tripod. The kicker is that he was telling me he was photographing the Milky Way. This would be a short story if it wasn’t for the fact that every day since he’s been setting up his camera and tripod all around the house to photograph different things at all times of the day.

If my little guy is going to get serious about make believe photography I felt it was my parental duty to make sure that he was going to develop good habits. To put it bluntly no one in my household is going to take sub-par make believe photos and to avert that we needed a secure way to fasten his camera to the Joby tripod. When I explained the dilemma to my son he was eager to take me up on my offer to modify his camera.

Here for your entertainment is the Fisher-Price camera tripod modification:

(Have a great Christmas!)

The Fisher-Price rubberband mount wasn’t cutting it. For simple shots sure it worked, but….

The rubberband mount worked well enough for level shots,

but not for all shots.

Any non-level use of the camera resulted in camera instability.

We were pumped to fix the problem and even more so

because we weren’t using toy drills.

Just before we started the modification.

Things would never be the same again.

To create a stable mount we had to drill a hole in the bottom

of the camera to install the Joby base plate.

Looks good lets try it out

Making sure that the base plate was installed as

level as possible we put it to the test.

Our first test was a positive one, but what does the photographer think?

My little photographer was quite content with the new

tripod mount. Now he’s on his way to good make believe

photography technique.

Copyright Jim M. Goldstein, All Rights Reserved

Fisher Price Camera Tripod Modification – It’s Never Too Early Tutorial

The post Fisher Price Camera Tripod Modification – It’s Never Too Early Tutorial appeared first on JMG-Galleries – Landscape, Nature & Travel Photography.

       

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Posted in Equipment

 

Modification of Canon 450D or 1000D DSLR Camera for Astro Imaging and Infrared Photography

19 Jan

Video of modification process of the Canon 450D or 1000D DSLR cameras for astro or infrared imaging. The video speed was increased to keep it under ten minutes. For complete detailed modification instructions online, see: ghonis2.ho8.com Opening your camera will void the Canon warranty.
Video Rating: 4 / 5