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These are amazing value for very little dollars.
click to buy frogs

They record and store 30 seconds of sound when you press the left button. They play back the sound when you walk past them triggering the light sensor in the eye.

This has endless possibilities. Children talk to the frog and he talks back. Teenagers can set the frog up where it won't be noticed and play practical jokes when people trigger the phrase they've recorded. A friend and I set up several of these frogs in a big cloth pyramid in a shopping mall art exhibition of Interactive Sculptures, with a different sound for every direction. My favourite was "hey you!".

The insides come out easily to be made into a new talking object, whether you want your garden gnomes to talk, or a movie poster to be interactive - anything can talk!

I imported a whole bunch, and have sold or given away almost all of them. If I imported more of them, would you buy them?

Its time to update to the latest version of Movable Type. Things may be a little wonky here until its finished.

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Here's a close up view of the ice cream van and the scenery going past it on Nikki's box of wonder at the Interactive sculpture exhibition in Ashfield Mall.

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Nikki built a box that did amazing things for the interactive sculpture workshop run by Ian Burns http://www.ianburns.net and exhibited at Ashfield Mall. Nikki's box emitted a stream of bubbles while the scenery of Sydney rolled past a toy ice cream van. She has a peep-hole that revealed a miniature celebrity disco, and a marble run that opened a draw to reveal a fortune card. There's even a water feature on the side.

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Neil built a group of things from another world for the interactive sculpture workshop run by Ian Burns http://www.ianburns.net and exhibited at Ashfield Mall.The aliens sensed a shadow from the wands and then vibrated around the table
You can hear Neil describing the workshop and his sculptures in this interview.

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Final videoof how Liz built a self-playing foosball table from found objects for the interactive sculpture workshop run by Ian Burns http://www.ianburns.net and exhibited at Ashfield Mall.
You can hear Liz describe the workshop and her sculpture in the interview.

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Liz built a self-playing foosball table from found objects for the interactive sculpture workshop run by Ian Burns http://www.ianburns.net and exhibited at Ashfield Mall.

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Liz built a self-playing foosball table from found objects for the interactive sculpture workshop run by Ian Burns http://www.ianburns.net and exhibited at Ashfield Mall.

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Liz built a self-playing foosball table for the interactive sculpture workshop run by Ian Burns http://www.ianburns.net and exhibited at Ashfield mall during the World Cup soccer tournament.

You can hear Liz talking about her sculpture in the interview.

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Julie created a sculpture of a doll that breathes through a diaphragm as its heart visibly beats faster and faster, as part of the Interactive sculpture workshop run by Ian Burns with Ashfield Council. The video shows her sculpture being exhibited in Ashfield Mall.

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Julie created from an old waving Santa, a doll who breathes and has a bright beating heart that you can hear and see. The interaction has a surprise ending.

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Bharti combined electronic interaction with her love of quilting for an interactive quilt. Light sensors made from light dependent resistors trigger LEDs and birdsong. From the Interactive Sculpture workshop exhibition in Ashfield mall.You can hear her interviewed about her quilt and the workshop.

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Bharti created an interactive electronic quilt at the Interactive sculpture workshop and showed it at the exhibition in Ashfield mall. You can hear her interviewed about her quilt and the workshop.

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Angela's moving wheely bin again, from the Interactive sculpture exhibition at Ashfield mall, organised through a workshop run by artist-in-residence Ian Burns.
http://www.ianburns.net

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Angela's wheely bin, complete with "Ashfield council" label, reacts to people as they approach it. It either moves towards them or away. Angela's "bin bomb" was part of the Interactive sculpture exhibition at Ashfield mall. Angela completed a 6 week workshop with artist in residence Ian Burns. http://ianburns.net
Her bin is powered by a remote control car, which is driven by a $6 CPU programmed in BASIC, reading light dependent resistors to detect the shadow of approaching people.

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An overview of the Interactive Sculpture exhibition in Ashfield Mall. Ian Burns ran a workshop sponsored by AShfield council where he taught and facilitated the building of interactive sculptures from found objects by local residents http://www.ianburns.net
You can see other videos and the photo gallery, and hear the interviews.

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Last week I visited Dorkbot Sydney at their Serial Space headquarters in Chipendale to see people doing strange things with electricity. Dorkbot has branches in cities all over the world. Technological artist Fred Rodrigues has created a musical instrument out of power tools, computer and an electronic keyboard.

I spoke with Fred Rodrigues at the Dorkbot meeting and recorded some of his demonstration and performance.

Fred's recent projects include sims-interactive.com, heavymetalworkorchestra.com, and anyplaceprojects.com, as well as some electronic engineering work on both incarnations of dj smallcocks vinyl arcade. Fred Rodrigues is also a director of serialspace.org

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International artist Ian Burns ran a six week workshop in interactive sculpture as artist-in-residence with Ashfield Council. I participated in the workshop and interviewed Ian Burns and the other artists on the day of the exhibition of our artwork in Ashfield Mall. You can see the videos and photo gallery elsewhere on the site.



Liz's sculpture
Julie with her breathing doll
Neil with his aliens
Bharti with her quilt
Ian Burns on the left, with most of the worskshop

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Robin blows on the giant match, which senses her breath, and lights the candles and shakes the springs! Robin created the Interactive Sculpture at Ian Burn's Artist-in-residence workshop. The video is from the Exhibition at Ashfield Mall 26th June 2010.

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This video was taken as an experiment using a spy pen video camera which was sitting in my shirt pocket. The event was an Augmented Reality meeting at the Sculpture By The Sea display at Bondi Beach on 2009-11-15. @BetchaBoy and @nambor feature in the conversation.

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The eyes really do follow you around the room, when the light is from a single source! Shadows are detected by light dependent resistors which tell a CPU to move the motor that pushes the eyes on meccanno mechanisms.

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Julie was warned her interactive sculpture might scare little children, but the opposite was the case!

More videos of the exhibition to come.

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