Tag: Sand

Originally created as places for monks to meditate on Buddha’s teachings, Zen gardens have been miniaturized and available in desktop versions for quite some time now. Just not in interplanetary form, like this Mars Zen Garden available from Uncommon Goods.

You know summer is here when LEGO minifigs can be found hanging out at the beach. After all, they like some fun in the sun and sand too. Robert Carlson of 5MadMovieMakers and some friends to built this awesome LEGO Sand Roller Coaster, and it is a joy to watch in action.

Skryf is a unique robotic vehicle built by artist Gijs van Bon. As it moves slowly along the ground, it writes temporary messages using sand. The text will gradually fade away because it is exposed to weather and no one will ever know that it was there.

This is Beachbot, the world’s first autonomous sand art robot. It was developed by ETH Zurich and the Zurich division of Disney Research. Basically, it’s a Disney Mutant Robot Turtle – further proof that Disney wants to take over the world with cuteness.

Japan’s arcades will soon have a game that requires a more hands-on approach. Sega’s Eederu Sunaba is an augmented reality game that uses sensors and projectors to display virtual landscapes and animals on a sandbox. The landscapes and animals instantly appear based on what you build with the sand.

The scenes of Pandora in Avatar are still some of the most impressive naturalistic CGI worlds to ever grace the screen. Between the floating islands, the greenery, the waterfalls, and the exotic flora and fauna, it was really a visual spectacle.

Everything’s bottled or canned these days. Even unusual stuff like air, unicorn meat, inflatable beach balls, and sand. Yep, you read that right: sand. It seems pretty crazy at first, but it makes sense, if you think about it.

Scientists and researchers continue to emulate animals when designing and building robots, since animals know what they are doing. For instance, if you want a robot that can crawl over sand really fast(Just because) you should check out sea turtles.

I always wondered how the Tusken Raiders passed the time in the desert. Between raiding travelers and shooting at pod racers, they probably had a little time on their hands. Perhaps they make sculptures like this nifty sand Astromech droid.

The Stone Spray robot was created as a 3D printer to produce architecture out of soil. While technically speaking, this robot wasn’t designed to create art, the results of its efforts and the research project sure look like some interesting sculptural works.

Spotted at SIGGRAPH 2010, this interactive art display might just look like a pile of sand, but stick your hands in it, and a variety of creepy crawly insects come to life. Thankfully, these nasty many-legged creatures aren’t real.

I’ve never really had the patience to create an elaborate sand sculpture. At best, I’ve created simple little castles. However, these sculptures are anything but simple. Check out these amazing ephemeral Star Wars sculptures created in sand.