If you’re reading this page, then it’s obvious that you’ve cracked the Easter Egg on your Innovation School kits, uncovered the QR code, and followed the link that brings you here.
Well done !! Now that you’ve built and assembled your Innovation School kits, we wanted to get you started with hacking your projects. We’ve thought of a few ideas, presented below, but feel free to improve on these, or even better – come up with and awesome idea of your own and let us know. Experiment with the objects, materials and tools you have and consider this as your first foray in the world of “making, breaking and creating”.
Phone Projector
This is a simple project to experiment with light and optics. We turn your Innovation School kit box in to a dark room, use a Fresnel lens to collimate the image from a phone and use a piece of acrylic mirror to project some of that light to the ceiling. Consider this experiment as more of a pattern and colors projector rather than something that can project crisp images (it can’t).
A Fresnel lens is a type of composite compact lens which reduces the amount of material required compared to a conventional lens by dividing the lens into a set of concentric annular sections. You are most likely to find them in an OHP (over-head projector – a term only old folks might remember), in light houses and aerodrome beacons and as a reversing aid stuck to the rear window of a car to help see better.
Images projected using the Fresnel lens are usually blurry, but the lens can be used to display colourful light patterns instead of videos or images. The maximum size of the projection will not be too large. Make sure the room is very dark for the visuals to be visible.
Materials required:
- Maker box
- Fresnel lens
- Acrylic Mirror
- Black paint
- Black chart paper / extra cardboard
- Masking tape / Glue gun
Build Process:
- Paint the insides of the container and the lid completely black (This will help obtain a sharper image).
- Cut out the front face of the container.
- Then, cut out a circle of 80mm diameter from the Fresnel lens sheet.
- Finally, cut out a circle of 75mm diameter from the center of the front face that was cut out.
- Stick the Fresnel lens on top of the cut-out on the black painted side.
- Use black chart paper or painted cardboard pieces to make an extrusion for the lens face.
Place the acrylic mirror at the back of the box at a 45 deg angle. - Place the lid on the container and cut a rectangular window on the lid exactly above the mirror. The window should be just a little smaller than your phone screen.
- Place the phone with a bright visual playing and at max brightness – place it on the rectangular cut.
- Adjust the distance of the lens from the mirror and the distance of the complete projector from the wall to adjust the focus and size of the image.
- Use this in a dark room on a plain, white wall.
Starry Lampshade
Turn your kit box in to a starry lampshade. You can take a print of the night sky, mark out the stars that make up the major constellations, and then use that as a template to punch sharp holes in a piece of cardboard obtained from the kit box. Then light it up using some LED strips, and Viola !!
Materials required:
- Innovation school large kit box
- Masking tape
- Box knife
- Pointed needle, compass or board pins (or similar sharp pointed object)
- Led strips
- 9V battery with connector and wires
Build process:
- Take the lid of the maker box and cut out the sides.
- Score it from one side at one-inch intervals to facilitate bending. Use the back, blunt edge of a box knife to help with the scoring marks.
- Poke holes throughout the sheet.
- Cut a circle from the rest of the cardboard with a circumference equal to the length of the perforated sheet.
- Take a stick, with a height that is one inch more than the width of the perforated sheet.
- Wrap the LED light strip around the stick
- Bend the perforated sheet into a cylinder and attach the disk to the top. Cut a hole in the middle of the disk to allow the stick to pass through.
- Place the light stick inside, with one end sticking out from the disk on top.
- Attach the battery to the strip and place the lamp in a dark room.
Tensegrity Table
Tensegrity, tension integrity or floating compression is a structural principle based on a system of isolated components under compression inside a network of continuous tension, and arranged in such a way that the compressed members (usually bars or struts) do not touch each other while the pre-stressed tensioned members (usually cables or tendons) delineate the system spatially. AKA – build a table that appears to float !
Materials required:
- Maker box
- Nylon strings or any strong thread
- masking tape or glue gun
Build process:
- Cut the sides of the lid.
- Cut the remaining sheets into two halves- this will become your base and your tabletop.
- Use the cut sides of the lid and cut two scalene triangles from them. Cut the pointed tips off, as shown in the image.
- Attach the triangles onto the two boards, they should appear slanting.
- Make holes on the four corners of both boards.
- Tie strings from each corner of one board to the corresponding corner of the second board. Make sure all the strings are of the same exact height after tying.
- Tie a string going straight between the two slant pieces as shown in the image. The table top should start floating.
Kaleidoscope Projector
The Kaleidoscope projector creates a nice visual effect. The projections can be easily made using any light source like your phone flashlight. The projection can be manipulated by creating a translucent filter using beads / buttons / coloured paper etc. inside the kaleidoscope. The projections can be appropriately sized when projected on a wall as well.
Materials required:
- Maker box
- Acrylic mirror – 3 rectangular pieces
- Ice cream sticks
- Fresnel Lens
- Black paint
Build procedure:
- Tape the three mirrors into a pyramid-tube with the reflective side facing inside. This is your kaleidoscope.
- Tape four ice cream sticks to the tube to create a stand.
- Cut a circle of 75mm diameter onto the front face of the container.
- Cut a circle of 80mm diameter on the Fresnel lens.
- Stick the lens on the circular window in the box.
- Paint the insides of the box and lid black.
- Place your kaleidoscope behind the lens and your phone flashlight behind the kaleidoscope.
- Close the lid and adjust the distance of the projector from the wall to get your desired projection.
- You can create filter disks with translucent materials and place it between the light source and the kaleidoscope to get interesting colour patterns.
If you end up hacking your projects and kit boxes based on the ideas above, we would love to hear back from you with your experience and do share photographs of your work.
