For foofers

[athelind]

Knowing your love of bicycles, nifty Exploratorium-style Stupid Science Tricks -- and your loathing of pointless flashy lights and accessories -- I figured that Hokey Spokes would blow your Cognitive dissonance circuit breakers.

LED spokes that display images via persistence of vision! Are they cool? Or are they lame? AUGH!

Comments

[n.livejournal.com]

My god, I want some.

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Gay

[tugrik.livejournal.com]

Back in 2000, revar and I made our own versions of these using PIC microcontrollers and lots of soldering. They worked pretty good and would spell things out as we rode around out at BurningMan.

In 2001 (or was it 2002?) burners discovered the 'hokeyspokes' and spent way too much money. Every single follower-type out there had them. They're pretty lame. They look quite good on mildly-long-exposure photographs where the wheels are spinning and the bike isn't moving. But actual in-motion? ...enh. Bike wheels don't really spin enough for proper persistance-of-vision. It also doesn't help that the wheel is going forwards while it's rotating, giving you an inverted wave pattern instead of a nice round disc.

Overall: Cheap Plastic Crud with blinkenlights. Harmless, but rather pointless.

[taral.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it be possible to compensate for the forward motion to a certain extent?

[kreggan.livejournal.com]

Not only that, but also take advantage of it by doing a moving animation.. :>

[collie13.livejournal.com]

Don't know how it'd look in real life, but the photo is pretty.

[kolchis.livejournal.com]

They Totally Say...

OOOOH, LOOOKA ME, EVERYBODY! LOOKA ME, LOOOKA ME!

[arakaraath.livejournal.com]

They look so cheezy 80s that I'd want some for my bike. Like having one of those plastic clappers that make you sound like you have a motor.

On the other hand, motorists can see you a mile away, and be mezmorised by the pretty pattern and collide with the nearest tree/pole/parked vehicle...

[arakaraath.livejournal.com]

Looking at the photo again, why does the rider look like a plastic action figure? Perhaps its actually a lightup wheel Action Man?