Quirk Factory

Virgin Mary Projector

Head Quirk — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:16:12 PST

The Virgin Mary Projector is essentially a miniature low-power projector built into a tube. This project was inspired by various sightings of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in New Jersey in the early 1990s. Why wait for a sighting when you can create one yourself in the safety of your own home?

Infrared Bazooka

Head Quirk — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:15:54 PST

Infrared Bazooka was inspired by a need to remotely control a rogue television which is far away. The Infrared Bazooka is basically an infrared repeater combined with an infrared amplifier.

Purgatory

Head Quirk — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 19:21:38 PST

Purgatory is a set of cartoons done with Mike Cucka for the the Johns Hopkins Newsletter in 1985. They were fairly esoteric and hence not well-liked by the newsletter editor at the time. That makes them more enjoyable to me.

Purgatory

Head Quirk — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:17:22 PST

The Kiss is a claymation (clay animation) movie completed in 1993 with Mike Cucka. It was originally filmed on Super8 8mm film and transferred to video in 2007. It features a couple engaged in ... a kiss.

Purgatory

Head Quirk — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:17:18 PST

Blue Clay is a claymation (clay animation) movie completed in 1993 with Mike Cucka. It was originally filmed on Super8 8mm film and transferred to video in 2007. It features some abstract clay transformations.

Shaft Encoder

Head Quirk — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:16:08 PST

This shaft encoder article describes a project to build a home-made (DIY) rotary encoder (shaft encoder) for a robotics project.

Butt-On Parody of Head-On Commercial

Head Quirk — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:14:58 PST

Butt-On is a video parody of the infamous Head-On placebo/non-product drug commercial that drones on and on and on. You can view the Butt-On parody on youtube.

Best Companies Parody

Head Quirk — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:16:44 PST

Best Companies is a parody of the annual Fortune Magazine survey of the Best Companies to Work For. It is a parody of the front cover of the 2003 edition.

Environmentally Unfriendly Mug

Head Quirk — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:15:37 PDT

At work, they gave us "environmentallly friendly" green mugs made out of corn plastic. This inspired me to make my own Environmentally Unfriendly Mug

Ass Key Button

Head Quirk — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:44:05 PDT

I had a task to evangelize internationalization (i18n) in our engineering organization at work, so I created these No Ass Key ("No ASCII") buttons.

Gray Code Circles

Head Quirk — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:15:42 PST

This article on Gray Code Circles describes what I learned about Gray Code and Single-Track Gray Code while building a rotary encoder for a robotics project.

Jesus in a Nutshell

Head Quirk — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:16:24 PST

Jesus in a Nutshell is a parody of the (excellent) "Java in a Nutshell" O'Reilly book.

Cheap Wood Truss

Head Quirk — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:19:00 PST

Cheap Wood Truss is a description of an eight foot wood truss I built for $10US. It is triangular and measures one foot (12 inches) on a side and weighs 12 pounds. It's surprisingly strong for the cost of materials.

Single Track Absolute Encoder

Head Quirk — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:17:40 PST

Single-Track Absolute Encoder is a do-it-yourself (DIY) absolute shaft encoder (rotary encoder) utilizing a single-track Gray encoding. It can be used to measure angular movement (for joints in robotic constructions, for example).