Open Optics talk at KOALA 2015

Here is the talk I delivered at KOALA 2015 Conference on Optics, Atoms and Laser Applications.

The talk was a tutorial introducing open source tools and also examples of what has been done with open optical instruments from the community and by our group.

Cardboard coffee table

As we are moving in January I couldn't justify buying a new coffee table so I decided to make one out of cardboard boxes. The design comes roughly from Chairigami www.chairigami.com

I found it remarkably sturdy, it can easily hold books and cups however it not strong enough to put my feet on.

Rob's motion activated leaving present

Robert Carter is a good friend from ScienceIT he has helped with my different projects in the lab and outreach from zooming user interfaces to interactive websites for the year of light. Rob is moving out of ScienceIT so a group of colleagues from ScienceIT, Computer science and the Photon Factory came together to design a going away present. Rob likes hacking together art so we came up with something that he would be able to play with.

The case is 3D printed using an inkjet printer with a raspberry pi 2 attached to a 7" touch screen that just slots right in. The case is a Koch fractal which is intersected by the screen. 

An audio fractal was used to colour the outside of the case.

Two ultrasonic sensors on the side of the case detect whether someone is close and a series of recorded thank you messages cycle through.

Leaving gift from Science

A video posted by Robert Carter (@vdu23) on Nov 10, 2015 at 4:23pm PST

It also doubles as a theremin with the left distance sensor giving the volume and the right changing the pitch. The software was written in processing and interfaced to an arduino sending the serial data to the raspberry pi.

Leaving gift from Science

A video posted by Robert Carter (@vdu23) on Nov 10, 2015 at 5:20pm PST

All the best Rob we are going to miss your creativity, enthusiasm and know how in Science.