“Sniffles the Frost-Breathing Dragon” Paper Toy

Last Updated on Monday, 12 March 2012 02:55 Written by Liz McLean Knight Tuesday, 6 March 2012 11:29

We’ve added a free paper toy, “Sniffles, The Frost-Breathing Dragon.” Instead of breathing fire like other dragons, he breathes frost–he freezes whatever he breathes on. As you’d expect, the cold has given him a perpetually runny nose, so his sidekick is a Box of Kleenex. You can either add him to your cart or download from the page.

Hobnox launches another fun flash music toy, Nudge

Last Updated on Friday, 22 October 2010 01:16 Written by Liz McLean Knight Thursday, 10 September 2009 08:12

Check out another fun flash audio toy from Hobnox, the creators of the Audiotool (that I’ve written about before) called Nudge. The above is my little creation. (You have to hit the triangle at the bottom right 2x to turn off playback)

Nudge is a virtual-instrument widget designed for self-expressive online music making & sharing. It’s fun and simple to use and you don’t need to know a single thing about producing music to make your own individual songs in minutes!

Brought to you by the developers of the Audiotool, nudge is yet another example of the pioneering work of the team dedicated to creating the best online music production tools.

Joshua Schnable have me the heads up and he did his own remix:

If you thought Tonematrix was cool, check out the Audiotool

Last Updated on Friday, 22 October 2010 02:09 Written by Liz McLean Knight Monday, 27 April 2009 01:50

Play with it here:
Hobnox: Audiotool

Virtual Monome: ToneMatrix

Last Updated on Friday, 22 October 2010 02:09 Written by Liz McLean Knight Monday, 13 April 2009 05:53

Here’s a cute and fun little virtual Monome with pretty sounds: ToneMatrix.

Barbie says, “Math is hard”

Last Updated on Friday, 22 October 2010 02:27 Written by Liz McLean Knight Tuesday, 18 September 2007 11:06

In high school there were just as many girls as guys in my AP Biology and Organic Chemistry classes, but fewer hanging out and talking BBS smack at Computer Club. In college the Intro to Computer Science class was pretty balanced, but CS II showed the first signs of a noticeable gender imbalance, skewing toward guys having the majority. I’d go home after classes and log a few hours on Quake, and noticed that my opponents tended to be all men. Usenet newsgroups that focused on cryptography, open source computing, and similar subjects also seemed to have a higher number of male names than female. These days, I show up at electronic music workshops or log into similar forums and am usually one of two or three other girls there. And there’s only a handful of recognized women electronic musicians in the field as opposed to the countless men. Seeing as we’re supposed to be a pretty egalitarian culture, that’s weird, right?

Girls and young women are less likely than boys and young men to agree with the statements “I like mathematics” and “I like science,” in a national survey:

• 40% of girls and 31% of boys said that math is their least favorite subject
• 21% of girls and 17% of boys said that science is their least favorite subject *

Mandelbot: Your new paper robot friend

Last Updated on Friday, 22 October 2010 02:31 Written by Liz McLean Knight Monday, 13 August 2007 08:19

Here’s a paper toy robot that I designed for Fractalspin.com, Mandelbot. Just download the PDF (email address required), print it out on cardstock or heavy paper, cut him out with an X-acto knife and then glue or tape him together.

He’s also featured on the back of a 5.5 x 8.5″ postcard featuring items from Fractalspin, although the gloss coating means you’d have to use super glue or a similar adhesive to get him to stick together (printer’s error *shrug*), and it will look nicer if you lightly score the fold lines before putting it together.

Musical soccer ball

Last Updated on Friday, 22 October 2010 02:32 Written by Liz McLean Knight Saturday, 28 July 2007 09:08

The Sound Ball is a soccer ball that makes different sorts of sounds based on whether it’s thrown, kicked or spun. Check out this video of widely different audiences interacting with it. There’s a particularly amusing clip of a kid with soccer skills bouncing it around and catching it with his knees.

The SoundBall is a foam ball with a motion sensor inside, which communicates wirelessly with a computer, so that sounds and music can be created through dance and/or play. The project was developed in pursuit of Aleksei’s interest in new interfaces that interpret physical motion sonically, giving dancers and other performers the opportunity to interact musically in real time with traditional instrumentalists.

CNet speculated that it’s an Arduino or Parallax board inside the ball and sending data via bluetooth to Cycling ’74 Max/MSP running on a computer somewhere.

It’s a concept piece by Aleksei stevens, a Brooklyn, NY-based composer, lapto jockey, and professor of digital audio and performance. Check out his Mypace page where you can here his music: Aleskei Stevens’ Myspace page. [via]