Hasta La Gadget!

Italian sound designer and producer Guiseppe Acito wanted to kick off his newly established blog with some fanfare. Naturally, that meant constructing a band from Lego Bionicle toys driven by an Arduino Uno and controlled by an iPad MIDI sequencer app called Nord Beat. Dubbed the Toa Mata Band, the musical group makes its tunes by beating on assorted drum pads, percussion instruments, synthesizers and even a Nintendo DS. Acito has published the ensemble’s very first music video, and it seems like there are more to come as it carries an “episode one” label. Hit the jump for the footage — which really starts cookin’ around the 1:15 mark — or hit the third source link for glamour shots of Toa Mata members and the whole setup.

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Via: Make

Source: Opificio Sonico (1, translated), (2, YouTube), (3, Flickr)

Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia has been a labor of love. Still unfinished over 130 years since construction started, Antoni Gaudi’s designs have been given a boost through advanced software more typically used in aeronautical projects. CBS’ 60 Minutes took a look at the recent development of the huge church, a building where every detail of its facade attempts to detail the story of the bible. While the architect had crafted elaborate plaster models of the finished designs, these were unfortunately destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. Building continued, but slowed after the second facade was finished, as the construction workers and designers had no idea how to follow the original plans for the rest of the building. This was where architect Mark Burrey and others were brought in to reverse engineer Gaudi’s models, which were now piles of shards. Using advanced design software typically used in auto and airplane design, they were able to figure our how to model the advanced shapes and surfaces that Gaudi’s avant garde plans demanded and building continued. You can watch the full story of the Sagrada Familia’s continued development after the break — with no extraterrestrial interference.

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Via: The Verge

Source: CBS News

For decades, tourists have gaped at San Francisco’s brightly colored Golden Gate Bridge, often overlooking the Oakland-connected Bay Bridge’s less flashy looks. Luckily, the old bridge is being gussied up for onlookers — Artist Leo Villareal has kitted out the 1.8-mile span with over 25,000 computer controlled LEDs. “My inspiration comes from the motion of the bridge,” the artist explained, describing how he designed the display. “I’m interpreting all the kinetic activity around the bridge: the traffic, the motion of water, the sky — it’s such a rich environment to draw upon.” “The Bay Lights” project will illuminate the bridge for the next two years, silently shining carefully programmed patterns of light across the water of the bay. Sound gorgeous? Consider it just one more reason to visit the City by the Bay.

[Thanks, Charles]

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Via: NY Times

Source: The Bay Lights

Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.

Now that green design is entering the mainstream, we’re beginning to see the design community tackle larger, more ambitious projects using eco-friendly techniques. Case in point: This week, San Francisco transformed the Bay Bridge into the world’s largest light sculpture by outfitting it with 25,000 LED lights. Because the lights are so energy-efficient, it will cost just $15 per night to run the installation. In Hamburg, workers are putting the finishing touches on the world’s first algae-powered building, which is set to open this month at the International Building Exhibition. A company in Tokyo recently demonstrated a new skyscraper deconstruction technique that harvests energy from the demolition process and salvages almost every piece of the building for reuse. And in Copenhagen, work has begun on a combined ski resort and waste-to-energy plant, which will convert the city’s trash into energy that powers the resort.

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Most folks are familiar with the International Space Station (ISS). However, what you may not know is that the national lab on board the ISS is available to anyone to conduct research, provided that research is deemed worthy enough to make the trip into orbit. The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) is a non-profit tasked by NASA to find and promote those worthy proposals, and it’s teamed up with the MassChallenge startup accelerator to find the next great entrepreneurial space research project — and they want YOU, dear readers to hit them with your ideas. Want to know more? Join us after the break to find out what it takes to get your research in orbit.

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Source: MassChallenge, CASIS