Resin Art Kalliroscope
Get one here-- many colors and shapes to choose from:
From Etsy OpalFlowCrafts: BUY NOW: Resin Art Kalliroscope
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Resin Art Kalliroscope: visualizing fluid flow— a slight tilt of the hand speeds the bubble through the rheoscopic fluid producing a wake of turbulence made visible by the tiny flake crystals of mica catching the light. This fidget version of the kalliroscope is constructed of artistically colored and poured resin and includes a small magnet that can also be manipulated from below.
Tetrahedron Specular Hologram
Get this hologram brass spin top here:
From Etsy: BUY NOW: Tetrahedron Hologram Top
See other: specular holograms in my collection
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Learn more about (and how to make) specular holograms via this video by Steve Mould
Tetrahedron Specular Hologram: complex 3D images of rotating tetrahedrons arise from a surprisingly simple pattern of engraved circles. This brass disk has been machined with set of evenly spaced circles where the center of each circle falls on a triangle. The etched circular grooves reflect a point source of light as glints, and each eye sees a slightly different pattern such that, via stereopsis, the shiny points appear to float above or below the surface. Two tetrahedrons appear for each point light source used.
Piezoelectric PZT Cell
This classroom demo in avaqilable here: WINSCO Piezo Demo
Here is a fun kit that uses a piezo ignghter to make small explosions:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Piezo Popper Kit
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Piezoelectric PZT Cell: encased in acrylic is a cylinder of ceramic PZT material which when suddenly compressed generates more than 30kV allowing a spark to jump across a 1cm gap. This vintage 1970s demonstration (still available) uses a lever and cam mechanism to compress the piezo ceramic which is connected via conductors to the spark gap. The piezoelectric effect is the ability of certain materials to generate electric charge when deformed under mechanical stress. Lead (Pb) Zirconate Titanate (PZT) is the world’s most widely used for making sparks- you probably own a piece in your lighter wands or on your barbecue or stove where a spring mechanism is used to strike the piezo cell.
Turner's Cube
Get this well made small version here:
From Etsy: BUY NOW: Turner's Cube
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Turner’s Cube: made from a single piece of aluminum this piece of metalworking art has a long tradition in the training of apprentice machinists. Amazingly this can be made, or “turned”, on a lathe.
Everscape 3D Photo
Upload a photo to produce your own:
From Everscape: BUY NOW: Turn Your 2D Photo into a Beautiful 3D Memento
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Everscape Perspective: 17 flat images combine to produce a 3D illusion of structure and depth encased in glass. The amazing algorithm used by the Everscape process can detect the depth of field of any regular photo and then determine foreground images from background to produce the stacked ordering of layers. The 3D scape seen here is from an image I sent them of my mountain bike on a favorite trail near Red Rock Canyon in Nevada- featuring Joshua trees and incredible views of the dramatic sandstone cliffs. Swipe to see the device under rotation revealing the layers and custom caption on the back. The 3D Everscape image is 6” x 4” and heavy with layers that add up to about 2” of dense glass- a very fun application of the math/physics of anamorphosis and perspective.
Fine Art Kaleidoscopes by Tomoo Hosono:
From Nellie Bly: Hosono Precision Kaleidoscopes
Check out this: afffordable yet amazing tapered mirror teleidoscope
See more Kaleidoscopes in my collection.
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Two Mirror Kaleidoscope: this unassuming stainless steel cylinder holds within one of the most beautiful kaleidoscopic mandalas I’ve seen. The colors seen come from polarizing filters and thin films encased in oil, and the two mirrors are precisely aligned at a 60 degree angle to produce the sixfold symmetry.
RGB Lightpipe Bracelet
Get a blank bracelet here:
From Amazon: BUY NOW: Color Changing RGB Bracelet
Personalized bracelets avialable here: BUY NOW: Color Changing Personalized Bracelet
Get this diffraction grating here to explore light source spectra:
From Amazon: BUY NOW: 500 line/mm diffraction grating
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RGB Lightpipe Rave Bracelet: three LEDs (red, green,blue) combine to make an entire pallet of colors that are transmitted through the translucent band via internal reflection and refraction like a fiber optic cable. A diffraction grating reveals the variety of colors produced is simply a mixture of red, green, and blue (note that white = R+B+G), the same way pixels on your phone or laptop use RGB mixing to produce color images. The bracelet can be personalized and has a magnetic clasp- fun physics for your next rave!
Manganese Dendritic Fractal Crystals
Similar specimens avialable here: Nature's art!
From Etsy: BUY NOW: Dendritic Manganese Specimen
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Manganese Dendritic Limestone: more fractal patterns found in Nature- and few are in as pure a fractal form as these manganese dendrite inclusions which grow within the thin cracks and layers of limestone formations. These crystals look so much like impressed plant life that they are sometimes called pseudo fossils. The fractal dimension of these delicately branched structures is about D=1.8 as estimated by the famous “box counting” algorithm.
Balancing Seabird
Get this carved wooden bird here:
From Etsy: BUY NOW: Balance Seagull
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Balancing Seabird: this bird balances on its tail rather than its beak in this variation of the famous physics toy. The weight of the elongated wings creates a center of mass below the bird’s tail- making a system in stable equilibrium. No magnets used or needed! This hand carved and painted bird comes with this optimal display stand. Inexpensive physics fun!
Hula Hoop Top
Often avaiable from this shop:
From Etsy: BUY NOW: Specialty Top Shop
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Hula Hoop Top: a stack of wooden rings are dropped on to the shaft of a spinning top resulting in surprisingly organized motion as the rings position themselves with a bit of lag as a function of height. This interesting behavior results from the transfer of rotation kinetic energy from the top to the rings, where the rings do not rotate about their symmetry axis. One of more than 100 unique spinning tops in my collection, received as gift from my friend and fellow collector Tim Rowett, and a product of KreiselArt (Ulrich Büker).
Thumbler Gyroscopic Desk toy
Avilable here:
From Top Secret Toys: BUY NOW: Thumbler gyro toy
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Gyroscopic Desk Toy: a new unique take on spinning tops and gyroscope type toys where the spin rate is induced by forced precession- that is, by swirling the device by hand at just the right rate. The top of the enclosed top is constrained to move in a circular trough that keeps it at the required precession angle. The physics is similar to the “Dyna Bee” wrist exercisers, but much easier to engage and spin up, and with a unique motion path. The toy is also equipped with LEDs that turn on with a centripetal switch and then create interesting patterns (that are hard to capture due to frame rate issues). A creation of physicist/inventor Gregory Ojakangas.
Praesentia: Felipe Pantone
Learn more about this limited edition book here:
Praesentia: Felipe Pantone
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Praesentia: a monograph showcasing the evolution of artist Felipe Pantone in 308 pages of images and descriptive text. Pantone is an innovator of neo op art and dynamic art forms involving a unique saturated color pallet, and his book, with its precision designed acrylic slipcover, is itself a piece of fine kinetic art. The exterior of this hardcover exhibits Mioré effects which create waves of shimmer and motion as the book moves within the case, or as the angle of illumination is altered as seen here under rotation. I purchased this book last Friday from the gift shop of the @controlgallery during the opening reception of Kosmos, his first ever show in Los Angeles.
Invisible Ink and UV LED Pen
This item came to me in my Winter 2022 Curiosity Box subsciption:
Get (or give!) a Curiosity Box subscription here: JOIN NOW: The Curiosity Box
Get this amazing and inexpensive version of the Spirograph here:
From Amazon: BUY NOW: Spirograph Animator
Get a similar pen and UV light here:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW UV Pen
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Invisible Ink and UV Pen: this pen utilizes a clear ink that when dry is barely noticeable, but contains fluorescent compounds that reveals its presence under long wave ultraviolet light. This cool pen with UV LED light came in my @thecuriositybox yesterday where I applied it to make some hypotrochoid roulette curves with this pocket Spirograph set.
Mag Flip Inverted Pendulum Fidget
Available from this fine vendor:
From Etsy: BUY NOW: Mag Flip Desk Toy
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Mag Flip Inverted Pendulum Fidget: three embedded neodymium magnets provide tactile repulsive forces in this simple but intriguing system. Pressing down on one side increases the magnetic potential energy that will then send the pendulum into frantic motion until the kinetic energy is damped out after a series of oscillations. This fidget can also be used as a random coin flip with respect to which side it will land.
Rainbow Obsidian
Available here:
From Etsy: BUY NOW: Rainbow Obsidian Carvings
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Rainbow Obsidian: natural volcanic glass with multicolored iridescent layers. When cut and polished at just the right angle with respect to the layers, a pattern of concentric hearts is revealed! The color and iridescent sparkle is due to light interacting with different concentrations of nanoparticle crystals of the mineral hedenbergite in the glass. This carved piece is from a famous quarry near Jalisco Mexico.
Filpbook Astronomy
Find used copies of this book here:
From Amazon: BUY NOW: Dynamic Astronomy with Flipbook Animations
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Flipbook Astronomy: often static images are insufficient to explain complex motion, and before there was YouTube, animations of astronomical concepts were hard to come by- except for this 1971 astronomy textbook! The author of this text included eight flipbook animations in the margins. Swipe to see three animations 1) what the Big Dipper will look like after 100,000 years “time lapse”, 2) the path of Jupiter in the sky over the course of one year, and 3) the motion of the Earth and Moon over a one month period as their center of mass orbits the Sun. An excellent textbook for its time: Dynamic Astronomy by Robert T Dixon, Prentice Hall. The psychophysics of flipbooks: when the image flash rate is above the flicker fusion frequency (approximately 16Hz) we perceive fluid motion- the basis for all movies and TV.