NiklasRoy
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Good luck tilting this massive pinball machine
If you're in Wolfsburg in the near future, you could do a lot worse than to head over to the Phaeno museum, which is currently playing host to one enormous pinball machine. The outfit teamed up with the Pacific Pinball Museum for an exhibit on the game. At the same time, they commissioned artist and maker Niklas Roy to build a customized machine that would comfortably sit on one of the center's famously steep walls. The result is Galactic Dimension, a pinball machine with a playing surface that's nearly 10 x 20 feet.
Electronic Instant Camera at least gets the 'electronic' and 'camera' parts right (video)
It's hard to imagine in this era of instant electronic gratification, but patience used to be a virtue, and sitting still for three or so minutes while a magic box printed up an image of our likenesses probably didn't seem like all that much of a chore. Niklas Roy, who gave the world a set of robotic curtains last year, is offering up the arguably mistitled Electronic Instant Camera, a throwback to those days, requiring its subjects to sit still as it prints their black and white image onto receipt paper. Due to its paltry internal storage (1KB), the camera can only remember a single line at a time, dumping the previous as it captures the next. Perhaps you can use the time it takes to get through a shot for a little self-reflection -- or you can just watch a YouTube video, like the one after the break.
Robotic curtain tries to guard your privacy, save on fabric (video)
Of all the things that could potentially be roboticized, we can't say a curtain would be high on our list -- but then again, we're not hardware hacker Niklas Roy. In an attempt to create a "little piece of privacy," Niklas developed this curtain that can watch passers-by outside (with the aid of a surveillance camera) and automatically follow them along the window to block their view inside. Of course, as Niklas notes, a sentient curtain does also have the unfortunate side effect of actually attracting the very passers-by it's trying to guard against -- such are the perils of innovation. Head on past the break to check it out in action, and hit up the source link below for all the necessary details to build your own.
