The Eraser: illustrating the passage of time and the importance of living in the moment #ArtTuesday
Check out this cool project from artist Shawn Soh that shows the movement of time.
In this digital age, we are living in a bombardment of moments layered upon other moments. The invention of smartphones and their applications have encouraged an obsessive culture of enshrining moments virtually; this reflects on society’s inability to handle technology and along with it, its social repercussions.
For example, a common sight we see today:
A couple tinkering on their iPhone on a romantic date
Tourists Instagram-ing sights instead of taking it in
Lonebirds scrolling on Facebook to fill in silent gaps in a house party
That 60 seconds of awkward waiting as your friend frantically snaps pictures of your food when it arrives in a restaurant…
With that as a starting point, Persiis Hajiyanni and I wanted to make something that made a comment on society today. We used the metaphor of “Snapchat” as it showcases moments with an expiry date. We felt expiration dates are important because it asks humans to reflect on the value of information by showing the movement of time: our present never staying still; it vanishes in a constant instance, and is erased to become a permanent past. Having an expiration date on information might also encourage people to leave their virtual worlds and live in the moment.
Together with the help of Ryan Smaglik, an electronic engineer, we created an interactive analog Snapchat with an Arduino, thermal printer and hair straightener.
Mini Thermal Receipt Printer: Add a mini printer to any microcontroller project with this very cute thermal printer. Thermal printers are also known as receipt printers, they’re what you get when you go to the ATM or grocery store. Now you can embed a little printer of your own into an enclosure. This printer is ideal for interfacing with a microcontroller, you simply need a 3.3V-5V TTL serial output from your microcontroller to print text, barcodes, bitmap graphics, even a QR code! Read more.
Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!