Optics project: soda box no-film "camera" with simple lens

Hi -

Our intrepid four-year old has been collecting paper towel tubes, refrigerator soda boxes, and magnifying glasses. What to do?

Try making a primitive no-film camera demonstrator with a lens-on-a-tube! You can see really bright, colorful images of the TV screen, stuff in the house, and all sorts of stuff outside.

Project: Soda-box "camera obscura" with lens

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This is the second optics "Learn it Yourself" project, following the pinhole camera in a teabox:

Fastest Pinhole Camera Obscura Project... Ever?

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G-Fav

Coin toss fractal in Mathematica [edit]

Hello -

It's well-known but surprising that you can create beautiful images of fractals with a coin toss (okay, dice) and paper & pencil:

(Drawn by computer)

• Label corners of a triangle {1, 2, 3}.
• Draw a dot at a corner (or anywhere?)
• While not tired:
• - Generate random integer N = [1,3].
• - Draw a dot halfway between the last dot and corner N.

Click for code

(Click to embiggen. It's pretty!)

[Edit - Thanks, Matthias! It works for squares, too, using the method he describes in the comments.]

(Matthias: Yeah, it works in 3-space, too:)

Gregg

3M's autostereo illumination film

3M developed technology that should improve certain types of autostereoscopic displays:

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Vikuiti1/BrandProducts/communication/newsletter/?WT.mc_id=ECB_Optical_eNewsApril2010

g-fav

Get Excited and Make Things...

...the t-shirt:

http://feedstore.muledesign.com/product/get-excited-and-make-things

(h/t the Swipely Blog...)

G-Fav