While many pieces of kinetic art are installations unaffordable to any but the largest institutions and corporations, I wanted to highlight a few artists and companies that have very creative offerings that can be purchased. I cover a wide affordability range, from $50 all the way to $20,000.

Or if you have a few million to spare, I’ve also highlighted a number of bespoke design firms and designers around the world who can help you deck out your villa or decorate your massive garden… or at least serve as inspiration for your own unique kinetic steampunk and electronic creations.

Leveraging a bit of the electromechanical experience I’ve garnered on past projects, and scratching that ever-present itch to do some interesting programming, I’ve worked thru much of the design and math for a “ring” messageboard or clock. This steampunk-esque design builds on the principles of a combination lock, can be extended to a message board of arbitrary length, and yet can be set with just a single precision-controlled motor. Read on for the what, how-to, and wherefore!

Taking some time to refocus on a few personal projects that allow me to scratch my analytical itches, I’ll delve into the inspiration, math, engineering, and artistry behind a potential kinetic art sculpture, based on a BMW Museum installation in Munich, Germany.

My personal projects are often one-of-a-kind combinations of electronics and craftsmanship. In this post, I describe the steps in taking a “word clock” from rough idea to finished product, with many of the messy intermediate steps and lessons learned exposed.

The story of a hyper-local steampunk flight tracker, with a software-defined ADS-B radio, lots of custom software, some beautiful walnut veneer (and solid walnut) custom cases, and hours and hours of love. All this to drive a “splitflap display”, one of those nifty-but-noisy messageboards you occasionally see in transportation hubs, like San Francisco’s Ferry Building or airports and train stations across the world.

Vain Rumpfed Flirtgill! Frothy Fly-bitten Lout! This creation combines 1950s era cutting edge technology - the single-pane display, a competitor to the Nixie-tube - with an Arduino in a simple oak box to generate those, and 998 other, Shakespeare-inspired insults.

I love incorporating old technologies in bespoke designs, so let’s check out a few old display technologies. You’ve probably heard of the Nixie tube (or seen it in one of my creations), but have you heard of the one plane display? And you may have seen flip dot or split pane displays on a bus or at a ferry terminal, even though both are electromechanical display technologies of yore, yet available in new form factors. These are just a few of the ingenious devices that would allow display of complex information, and fit perfectly in a “Steampunk” aesthetic. And as an added bonus, check out the display made out of 6400 spools of thread!

San Francisco has an amazing maker community with a strong visual bent , as seen at an event co-hosted by The Midway, Pier 70 Partners, and Marpi. From an unexpectedly beautiful laser-lit fog, to a TV (or art display) with pixels mounted a few rotating arms, to an art installation featuring the exposed structural elements of Pier 70, come with me on a journey through a few of the highlights.

LED bulbs have taken over, available for around a dollar per bulb at the big box stores, all the way up to a few tens of dollars at Restoration Hardware. And, as you’d expect, there are wide differences in the characteristics of those bulbs. But how did we get to point where choosing a light bulb became more complicated than just wattage & size? This article outlines what attributes really matter in choosing an LED bulb so that you can understand the jargon and marketing hype, decide whether that $1 bulb is good enough for you, and see where even a top of the line bulb falls short of our incandescent expectations.

How did we get to this point where it

My failed journey in recreating Bruce Shapiro’s amazing Sisyphus “kinetic art” table took me deep into geometric patterns - and introduced me to the art and science of mazes, which I then tweaked to apply to circular mazes. Want a maze that will stump your kids for hours in that cross-country road trip, or with enough intricacy to expand to a wall-sized print? Then this is your article.