Category Archives: Creativity

Creativity

A Safer Way To Make DIY Fractal Wood Burner

I guess you’ve seen this or heard about it by now. In April 2022 a Wisconsin couple was electrocuted attempting a popular but dangerous wood-burning technique ‘fractal burning art’.

Fractal burning DIY videos can be found in abundance online but few of them pay much attention to safety.

Some fractal burning art is crafted by professionals with experience as electricians and access to proper equipment. But a lot of people who attempt the technique take apart microwave ovens for the transformer or car batteries to use as power sources.

The “fractal burning” technique creates lightning-like etchings by using jumper cables and disassembled microwave oven parts to run high-voltage electricity through a piece of wood soaked in a chemical solution, usually saltwater. It yields patterns known as Lichtenberg figures, named after the physicist Georg Lichtenberg, who discovered them in 1777 as he was experimenting with static electricity.

The technique is gaining popularity through viral videos on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, but woodworking experts caution that it is extremely dangerous and can be deadly.

Tanya Rodriguez, 44, and James Carolfi, 52, were found dead in a house fire on April 6. Their bodies were in the garage of their home in Marathon County, Wisconsin.

The couple had died before the fire started, and the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office initially described the cause of their deaths and the fire as “suspicious.” The mysterious circumstances prompted weeks of arson and homicide investigation, Wisconsin Public Radio reported.

The sheriff’s office, fire marshals and the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory found that Rodriguez and Carolfi died by accidental electrocution when they attempted the dangerous wood-burning technique. The couple used a disassembled microwave oven for a power supply. Authorities believe the equipment that caused the electrocutions also caused the fire, which started in the garage before it spread, the sheriff’s office said in a statement last week.

“Foul play has been ruled out, and the deaths are found to be accidental in nature and believed to be caused by electrocution from fractal wood burning,” Chief Deputy Chad Billeb said at a news conference Thursday.

At least 33 people have died from fractal burning attempts since 2016, according to the American Association of Woodturners, including an experienced electrician.

If you are considering trying the technique make sure to prepare. Here is a video where Robert Murray-Smith from The World of Thinking and Tinkering (TNT) shows how some simple add-ons can make this art technique a lot safer.

If you know anyone who is curious about this art technique please share this information with them. It could help save lives.

 

Geoff.

 

Sources:

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/viral/wisconsin-couple-electrocuted-attempting-viral-wood-burning-art-techni-rcna26109

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/viral/wisconsin-couple-electrocuted-attempting-viral-wood-burning-art-techni-rcna26109

The World of Thinking and Tinkering – https://www.youtube.com/c/RobertMurray

Camera Lucida
Creativity, Recycling

How to make a camera lucida from an old LCD projector and draw amazing scenes

 

A camera lucida is an optical device used as a drawing aid by artists and microscopists.

In this video Robert Murray Smith shows how you can make your own for next to nothing by recycling an old LCD projector.

The camera lucida performs an optical superimposition of the subject being viewed upon the surface upon which the artist is drawing. The artist sees both scene and drawing surface simultaneously, as in a photographic double exposure. This allows the artist to duplicate key points of the scene on the drawing surface, thus aiding in the accurate rendering of perspective.

 

brain circuit
Battery DIY, Creativity, Life Hacks, Tips and Tricks

How to increase your creativity

 

Have you ever wondered where creativity comes from? Or how it can be increased and improved? Have you ever seen a new breakthrough invention and thought ‘why didn’t I think of that?’

Have a watch and see this youtuber explain how he gets inspired to build new things. Robert explains a process of gaining new knowledge that you can apply to making inventions, building things that have never been made before, reusing things in unique ways to save loads of money and discovering unique solutions to old problems using new materials.

What is creativity?

The dictionary describes creativity as…

“the use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness”

Ideas for what to do in lock down

When you start exploring how things work and you are always thinking ‘how can this be applied to current problems?’ you soon realise there is no end to the things you can try. By the act of exploring, thinking and trying you’ll discover new knowledge. It’s in the doing that you’ll find this knowledge.

So many times I’ve had a good idea, a unique way of solving some problem and I asked a friend what they thought about the idea and they said “if that worked, somebody would have already thought about it and tried it and they would already have a patent on it”.

And yet I, still continue to discover new knowledge by exploring, thinking and trying. So many new materials and devices have been invented in the past 50 years. There is so much potential waiting to be explored by applying these new things to old problems and also to new problems that have arisen recently.

No new knowledge here – Robert Murray Smith.