Logo: Mars crossed by stylized torchship.

Home of science fiction author Doug Franklin

Fluorite Crystal Pyramid

Artifact: Fluorite Crystal Pyramid

Fluorite Crystal Pyramid

The Fluorite Crystal Pyramid illuminates a fluorite crystal with four RGB mini neopixels set into a supporting girdle. The neopixels are controlled by an Adafruit Trinket Pro 5V microcontroller. Four pushbuttons around the edges control how the neopixels cycle through different levels of light and color. The switches are colored to match the gates of a the Kalachakra mandala: black, red, yellow, white. 

This prototype used free-hand bent wires to connect the electronic elements, after the wooden framework was constructed. If I were to iterate upon it, I would model it in Fusion 360 and 3D print a jig to make it easier to build. This would also allow me to lay out the components in advance and precisely bend the wires in the style of electronics artist Mohit Bhoite. You should check out his exquisite work here on his Instagram page!

I am looking forward to getting back into the Arduino code for this piece to improve its interactivity. 

Corsi-Rosenthal Box

Artifact: Corsi-Rosenthal Box

Corsi-Rosenthal Box

Disclaimer: this is not my design! This is the brilliant brain child of Jim Rosenthal and Richard Corsi, who distributed plans across the interwebs shortly after it became apparent that SARS-CoV-2 was an airborne pathogen. I merely fabricated this box of COVID Christmas cheer to minimize the viral load in our house. After valiantly avoiding COVID-19 all the way until Christmas of 2023, my lovely wife got tagged during (we think) a dental cleaning. She went hardcore Plague Mary as soon as she felt symptoms, masking all day long except to eat and drink, sleeping in a different room. The full deal.

And we ran this bad boy 24 hours a day. Here you see it in our humble utility room. It was too loud to bring out into the main house, but we only have about 1200 square feet, and NOBODY ELSE got sick. They only cost about $100 and maybe an hour of time to build. It’s not a big ask of money or time. So if you find yourself in a similar situation, and want to avoid a house full of sick people, bash one of these together and encourage your infectious loved one to mask as much as they can bear. 

Visit https://cleanaircrew.org/box-fan-filters/ for full instructions. See teaser from their website below. It’s stupid simple. 

Blaster

Artifact: Blaster

Blaster Far UVC air sterilizer

The Blaster is a semi-portable 20 watt 222 nanometer (nm) Far Ultra Violet C (Far UVC) air sterilizer. This unit can easily sweep a small room of airborne viruses like SARS-CoV-2. It can be powered off a 20W wall transformer or a 24V Cobalt battery for portable use.

Phaser

Artifact: Phaser

Personal Health Air Sterilizer

The Personal Health Air Sterilizer (aka Phaser) is a wearable 222 nanometer (nm) Far Ultraviolet Violet C (Far UVC) air sterilizer. 222nm light has the unique property of being able to inactivate airborne viruses without causing damage to your skin or eyes. 

Airship

Artifact: Airship

Aranet4 and Airship

We loved the rugged reliability of the Aranet4, but we were very interested in making a wearable sensor. The Airship is based on a Sensirion SCD-41 photo-acoustic sensor about the size of a sugar cube paired with a LilyGo dev board and a small lithium polymer battery. The LilyGo has an attractive RGB screen and built-in Bluetooth. The whole unit is about 1/3 the size of an Aranet4.

Airhounds App

Artifact: Airhounds App

We wrote an app! 

Back when COVID-19 was a thing, Airhounds wrote an IOS app to pull CO2 readings from an Aranet4 sensor and run them through an algorithm that estimated your probability of infection by a handful of different airborne diseases.