swami makes some lumia

[dsli_jon]

Hey Sir Jem!...

I'd love to see the real thing sometime, there's only a few thousand miles between us, but that would make it worth the trip.

Just name the date, m8! ... I hope to get over that way, some day... but 'keepin the oven-stoked', here, keeps me shoveling pretty-much 24/7...

We could do with a Laserium here in the UK. The only Planetarium I know is in London, great shame

Indeed... Laserium played there, in the past, for something like 13 yrs (!)... quite-well received, as I understand... Truly-sad to see such a 'rich heritage' go the way of the dodo bird... ... I read it's gonna-be '4D Marvel superheros', from here on out... * yawn *...

More pix, Sir Swami!!!
cheers..
j

[Jem]

Yeah, it's so sad Jon, makes me wanna weep for the future generations. This quote just about sums up everything that is wrong with our society today...

“Tussauds has decided that people are more interested in Big Brother, The X Factor and Heat magazine than in anything educational.”

Kids *ARE* interested in science, it's just a case of getting them motivated. Sadly, health and safety has killed a lot fo the fun in classrooms. There are still some inspirational teachers around, but their job is made incredibly difficult by the reams of paperwork and risk assessments that (apparently) need to be carried out before good experiments can take place.

I was talking to a teacher recently who had spent over 12 months applying to get an experiment passed. This was to let off a small rocket in the school playground. It was nothing particularly spectacular, it was to demonstrate thrust and the power of chemistry (they were to build the rocket and mixed the chemicals themselves). Now, bear in mind that people let off rockets every Guy Fawkes night without any HSE measures. Anyway, he eventually got the experiment passed for the last day of term. Suffice to say that the kids were amazed, they were also motivated to want to do more. So, the next year, the teacher again applied to do the same experiment. He was told that none of the previous paperwork submissions would be valid and he would have to start the whole process over again . He told them to stuff it.

On a similar note, I was talking to a friend's lad the other day, he's 17. I was telling him that I was going to be making something on the lathe this weekend. He actually asked me what a lathe was. That set us talking about metalwork in general, he didn't even know what a forge or an anvil was. Apparently no metalwork is taught in school now, it all comes under the banner of 'resistive materials'. Makes my blood boil .

On the other hand, there is still hope. I see people like Daniel Briggs, Laser Ben, Krazer and Diachi (to name only a few) on this forum, this convinces me that all hope is not lost.

However, I do still worry about where our next generation of scientists and inventors are going to come from.

Jem

P.S., sorry for de-railing the thread

[Robin]

This is what happens when the light goes to your head and is resonantly coupled to imagination.

Outstanding work. Inspiring words.

[swamidog]

it's hard to take good footage of my lumia eggbeater, but here's some cell phone footage.

[Doc]

Wow Jon! Those are absolutely awesome videos. I'd love to see the real thing sometime, there's only a few thousand miles between us, but that would make it worth the trip.

We could do with a Laserium here in the UK. The only Planetarium I know is in London, great shame.

Cheers

Jem

They used to do a Laserium show there up until the mid 80's, I attended a show around 81, set to a Floyd soundtrack - It is still imprinted on my mind as one of the most amazing things I ever laid my eyes on and it's what really fired me up about lasers.

[Doc]

Also, sorry Swami, that thing is engineering art

[masterpj]

That would be you, Sir.

And this has been confirmed by the Irish Wombat (Paddy O'Guinness) that lives in my left sock.

LOL soforene your complete randomness keeps amazing me :P
I like it.


Swamidog that lumia look really nice.

[Vidal Wolf]

Years ago when i got my first He-Ne one of the second things I did with it was to shine it thru the glassware and crystal vases in the house. I shined the laser thru all the ripply glasses in the house. I found one I really liked and mounted it to the motor spindle of a mirror ball rotator. it was cool to watch but after a while I got bored. The beam kept slowly repeating the same pattern over and over. I made a moving lever and attached a mirror then mounted it to a motor to slowly sweep the beam up and down the rotating glass so the pattern never looked the same.
It was always sweeping across differnt portions of the *lumia glass* and as far as I could tell, it never repeated itself. I had light dimmers on both motors so it was as random as it could get.
Just an idea to keep the ol lumia from being a *one horse wonder* or *stuck record*

[swamidog]

Vidal Wolf,

that's a good plan. i get around the problem by rotating one wheel slower than the other one. eventually the patterns will repeat, but it is a *very* slow cycle since the wheels are rotating at <.5 rpm.

Years ago when i got my first He-Ne one of the second things I did with it was to shine it thru the glassware and crystal vases in the house. I shined the laser thru all the ripply glasses in the house. I found one I really liked and mounted it to the motor spindle of a mirror ball rotator. it was cool to watch but after a while I got bored. The beam kept slowly repeating the same pattern over and over. I made a moving lever and attached a mirror then mounted it to a motor to slowly sweep the beam up and down the rotating glass so the pattern never looked the same.
It was always sweeping across differnt portions of the *lumia glass* and as far as I could tell, it never repeated itself. I had light dimmers on both motors so it was as random as it could get.
Just an idea to keep the ol lumia from being a *one horse wonder* or *stuck record*

[megaton]

Nice Lumia PJ Swami

I made myself a Poors man Lumia PJ (on wood).
But I put in the Modulation 3, 100k Pots with a 5 Volts PSU and in parallel a Photocell (resistive).
Put it in a Black box each, and a pilot lamp from a color organ (3 channel), with a cheap amp. an a Mike.
And now my Lumia goes with the Music.

Cheers
Ed