[hackerspaces] Cool projects for TEDx talk wanted

[Jan Lieven]

On Tue, 30 Oct 2012 01:39:47 -0700
Mitch Altman <maltman23 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Anyone have any project (or know of any project), that has a photo
> that would impress non-hackerspace folks, and help the world take
> notice of hackerspaces?  If so, please send me a photo I can use, and
> a short description of the project.

A member of das Labor[1] made a rotating LED display. It's a bit old by
now (It was displayed it at 27C3), but still pretty cool.
There is a video[2] on youtube and some pictures can be found
here[3] as well as here[4].

Some technical details:
  Propeller:
   244 LEDs -> 512 pixels in diameter
   Xilinx Spartan FPGA
  Possible video source:
   DVI
   VGA
  Supported resolutions:
    640 X 480  max 100 Hz
    800 X 600  max 100 Hz
   1024 X 768  max 100 Hz
   1280 X 1024 max 60 Hz

The data transfer is realized via magnetic induction just like a
transformer with the difference that the secondary winding is rotating.
The Data is send packet wise. One such packet consists of 512 Byte
payload, 6 Byte magic number (used to check if the propeller is in
sync) and 2 Byte checksum. 

[1] https://das-labor.org
[2] http://youtu.be/k-I3tt8SvKA
[3] http://is.gd/rYmbTj
[4] https://das-labor.org/wiki/Borg_Ventilator
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