Eggstatic – stroboscopic Easter Egg patterns
I just realised it was Easter thanks to Facebook. It’s not that big a holiday out here in South East Asia, possibly it is because it is the hottest part of the year and all chocolate just melts with minutes. But more likely it is because the whole Easter egg/ rabbit thing is pagan and the internet was really crap back then, so no one really got into it.
Which is a shame, as I would have loved a day off designing complicated devices and designs for eggs. These are really cool. I can sum up with: Eggs + computing skills + robot + camera/strobe + imagination = cool Easter eggs. Check out the video below.
Youtube description:
Various patterns are generated in Matlab using mathematical equations similar to ones describing Spirograph (or harmonograph) and Phyllotaxis. The patterns are calculated in such a way that when rotated under a stroboscopic light of suitable frequency or when recorded by a camera, they start to animate. It is kind of zoetrope— early device for animation. Eggs were painted using EggBot (designed by Bruce Shapiro as open hardware and available as a kit from http://www.evilmadscientist.com/). To draw on eggs, we used standard permanent markers and an electro kistka with bee wax followed by dying. Eggs are rotated at a constant speed, special for each pattern, by a brushless motor. No computer graphics tricks are used in the video.
Author: Jiri Zemanek (Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Department of Control Engineering, http://aa4cc.dce.fel.cvut.cz/)
Here is the clip. Happy Easter pagans!
