Have you ever heard of codebending? I hadn’t. Apparently it’s the physical patching together of little bits of computer code, using jacks and patch cables, and then bending the resulting code-cum-sound. Nifty. And you’ve got to love this modular codebending console, called the illucia. It’s a gorgeous piece of geeky tech-art. And any code can be bent. Video games can play other video games. Music synthesizers can control word processors. Feedback loops turn everyday software tropes into generative art. Simple AI is patchable. Anything controls (and can be controlled by) anything; in codebending, every system becomes an instrument with a unique voice, ready to control, and to be controlled.
Did I mention how gorgeous the console is? Illucia: A modular codebending instrument 
This is an experiment with Kinect and Processing. People in front of it are posing like Han Solo and get frozen in 3D. We are already exporting the 3D models for 3D printing. So stay tuned. The software will be open source soon if anyone is interested.
[Thanks, Michael!]  Don’t forget that the drawing for two copies of Chris Nodder’s book, The Little Book of Bike Boo Boos, ends tonight at Midnight PDT. To be eligible, go to the giveaway post and leave a bike-related question or answer.
The comments on the post are great, with Chris and other bike know-it-alls helping out the newbies. It’s a great crowdsourced collection of bike-basics Q&A. 
The first thing Meredith Scheff ever made was, and I quote, “probably a mess!” She quickly moved onto creating things much more worthwhile. Her North Star Skirt was one of the most interesting projects at Maker Faire last year. Meredith defies description as a comic book-writing-soft circuit-designing-soldering-sewing-creative force. Meredith will be displaying her projects at Maker Faire Bay Area, May 21 & 22. There you can meet her, and her razor sharp wit! Subscribe to the MAKE Podcast in iTunes, download the m4v video directly, or watch it on YouTube and Vimeo. 
Shamus built this cool guitar using a flea-market aluminum roasting pan as the resonator body. Sounds good! Play the embedded vid to hear it sing at 1:50, or rewind to hear the build deets. [Thanks, Alan Dove!] More:
Dave Johnson’s magnet machine has a lot of fascinating details: This machine manipulates small spherical rare earth magnets. slicing one at a time from the end of a long chain, moving it around a bit, then dropping it back to re-connect at the tail end of the chain. It also demonstrates a little snippet of science called eddy currents. Watch how slowly the magnet falls through the aluminum tube compared to falling through air: the falling magnet generates an electrical current in the tube, and that current in turn generates a magnetic field that opposes the movement of the magnet, slowing it down dramatically. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddy_current if you want more.
[Via Dug North's The Automata Blog] 
The Peggy 2 kit is an updated version of the original Peggy light-emitting pegboard display. Version 2 adds simple animation capability and Arduino compatibility. Like its predecessor, the open-source Peggy 2 provides a quick and efficient way to drive up to 625 LEDs.
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