Reach Out And Touch The World

dougw

2 Dec 2020

Greeting cards are a simple symbolic way to convey a world of feelings to someone you can't be with.

They are even more important and powerful in the social distancing era.

I figure it is worth putting a little extra effort into creating the ultimate multi-media greeting card.

This ultimate greeting card has a flame to bring warm wishes and remind us of sitting around the fireside with friends.

It has a dazzling light show to lift our spirits and delight us.

It has a little Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Rossini to augment the mood and evoke fond memories.

And it has a fascinating machine to bring intriguing animation to the classic static greeting card and remind us that technology can be fun.

I hope it takes your mind briefly off your problems, and lets you enjoy reflecting on good times, good friends and the interesting possibilities the future may hold.

Happy holidays everyone.

I had been working on another project involving a Stirling engine and it struck me that the engine would make a good platform for several entertaining applications, including a persistence-of-vision visual display on the flywheel. I remembered that some spinners use a similar concept so I went out and bought some examples to see if they might work with this engine. It turns out they actually can fit, although they are exceedingly close to being too big. The camera doesn't do a perfect job of capturing the persistence of vision effect as seen by the human eye, but it does a pretty good job.

Below is a little explanation of the build.