After a little bit of brain storming and research on what others had done, I decided upon a purple furry bike, lit with blue EL wire.  I began with a standard bike, and started with some simple modifications at my local bike shop:

• Switching the standard seat to a banana seat
• Adding a sissy bar to the back
• Adding a basket
• Swapping my standard black tires with purple tires

I wanted the banana seat and sissy bar so I could fit a second person on the back of the bike.  I also liked the sissy bar because it made the bike appear bigger and gave it a fun look.  Unfortunately the banana seat turned out to be horribly uncomfortable (even after I added 3 layers of egg crate padding to the top), in hindsight I would have gone without it.   The basket I needed to carry things around, and also to house the batteries/drivers for the el wire.  I didn’t even think/know about the purple tires until I saw them at the bike shop, but as soon as I saw them I knew I wanted them.

Once the bike had all the pieces in place I began covering it with this long purple fur that I bought on ebay.  The process is fairly simple, and doesn’t require much more than the fur and a glue gun.  I learned how to do it in this excellent video provided by Halcyon.

After furring the bike I added three Hokey Spokes to each wheel.  Hokey Spokes are LED blades you attach to the spokes of your wheels.  They blades wirelessly sync with each other to display different patterns that create POV images when the wheels are in motion.  The effect is pretty cool, and can be seen in the video of my bike.  There are a few different companies offering LED blades for your bicycle that create POV images.  Each has their ups and downs.  Having never seen any of the products in person I went with Hokey Spokes because of their low cost, and ability to sync.  However, out on the playa I saw someone with Monkey Lights which were much much brighter, I might try them next year.  For those interested, I’ve listed the different companies that provide LED blades at the bottom of this post.

The next step was adding the EL Wire.  I ended up using quite a bit more than I expected, roughly 65 feet of wire on the main part of the bike, and 20 feet for the front forks and handle bars.   To attach the wire I simply wrapped it around the bike, holding it into place in a few key places using zip ties.  In hindsight I probably would have used purple duct tape instead of the zip ties, as the zip ties are a bit unsightly.  I used separate strands of el wire for the handle bars and front forks so the wire wouldn’t tug while I was turning. This ended up working out well because the main driver I was using (even though rated for 100 ft) started to dim the wire a bit when powering more than 50-60 ft.   So I ended up using 2 drivers paired with 2 battery packs each holding 8 AAs.   I made a little compartment to hold the drivers/batteries using a tiny cooler that zipped open and close, and attached the compartment to the inside of the basket.

Are you disappointed I didn’t dance for you???  As you can see we what put cards at the bottom with instructions on what to do if your ball lands in a particular slot.  We made some before the party but also left out a marker and some blanks so people could make them on the fly.

At this point you’re probably thinking, “Sweet video of you playing plinko by yourself, you probably didn’t even have a party, who would want to hang out with you nerds?”   Which is a valid concern, I’d probably be thinking the same thing, I’m still trying to figure out why anyone would want to be around me .  However we do have some evidence.   We brought back the photo booth that Flowerhorn posted about a few months back.  Pretty much the same setup as before, but this time we replaced the tie dye backdrop with a wall covered in poster board.   In addition to all the props, we left out a bunch of markers for people to draw on the wall and create the backdrop as the party progressed.  It turned out to be a really fun idea.  To capture it all, I made this video montage of all the photos (uncut, every photo taken, in order).

It was a great way to sum up the vibe of the party, I have a feeling the photo booth will be making its way back into our next one.

So with this longstanding interest, you could imagine my excitement a couple years back find this instructable for an LED Jellyfish Costume.

The instructable was written by a member named deadinsect, and remains my favorite instructable to date.  I originally made my own Jellyfish helmet for Halloween in 2008, but later decided it would be fun to start taking it with with me festivals and shows.  I’ve probably worn it to around a dozen or so shows and as you can imagine it always garners a great deal of attention.   I even met another Jellyfish who had implemented the same instructable at Phish’s Festival 8.  I also made a little miniature jellyfish following the same process described in the instructable, just using a smaller bowl and EL Wire.

If anyone plans on building their own Jellyfish helmet and needs some advice, please feel free to contact me.  I can tell you where I found certain materials, or help with any questions you might have regarding the construction process.  Just leave a comment here, or shoot me an email.  And if anyone else out there has already built their own jellyfish costume or has seen one at a show/festival, please contact me, I’d love to hear from you

Links

• Jellyfish Helmet Instructable by deadinsect
• Video of deadinsect’s original jellyfish helmet
• Video of my eletro-jellyfish-man costume (Halloween 2008)
• Video of some jellies other’s made following the instructable

At a standstill this wasn’t anything special, but when the circle was spun it had the effect of showing whoever was staring into it rapid flashes of their own reflection followed by whatever was on the other side of the circle.  Again not so easy to explain, luckily I shot a quick video on my iPhone of Flowerhorn and I each standing on either side of the circle and messing around.  Check it out.

Its hard to fully appreciate the effect on video but you get the idea.  I’m thinking about making a miniature one to keep around the house…

Doc and I decided to throw a party for both our birthdays. Actually we were going to throw a party either way but why not say it was for our birthdays since they fell pretty close…Sorry for Partying. We are always trying to come up with some fun stuff for our parties and we had a good list brewing: kegs, ice luge, jungle juice, beer pong, flip cup, disco ball with lasers, and jello shots. We were at a bar and they had a photo booth that you would see at a mall and it was fun. It gave me the idea to build our own photo booth for our party. The result was a great party with some AMAZING pics…. Check out my Instructable on how to make it

What I ended up doing was buying an old tux from a thrift store and outlining the jacket with blue EL Wire.  At the same store I was able to find a pretty snazzy blue ruffled shirt to wear with it.  I had already ordered an LED walking cane online, so the final touch was my
hat.

The disco ball hat was an idea I’d been toying around with for a while.  It was a pretty simple idea.  I basically just attached a tiny motorized disco ball to the top of a hat.  To make things a little more interesting added an EL Badge to the front with musical notes, and I covered the hat with silver glitter.   Check out the video below.

Note that the lasers aren’t part of the hat; I just added them to show some of the cool things you could do with it.  I had thought about permanently adding lasers or LEDs but in the end, I liked the simplicity.  If you are interested in detailed instructions on how to make one, check out this insctructable I wrote for it.

Sea of Dream turned out to be a lot of fun.  Really great music and good vibes all around.  I’ll probably go back next year, and would definitely recommend checking it out to anyone who has the opportunity.

If anyone’s got a question about the outfit or Sea of Dreams, be sure to leave a comment, or send me an email, doc@docstoyland.com.

In my opinion, anything worth wearing that often is worth lighting up.  So I decided that lighting up my backpack was going to be my first EL Wire project.

To learn how best to sew the wire into my backpack I followed an instructable on sewing EL Wire into garments.   The most important thing I learned from the instructable was the importance of having a plan, and mapping out where the EL Wire would go before sewing it in.  I actually attached all of the wire to the backpack with pins before I began sewing.

All and all, I was pretty pleased with the way it turned out.  The back pack always receives a lot of compliments whenever I wear it and it also makes it easy for my friends to find me in a crowd.  If I were to do it over again (which I probably will), I would have added more wire to the center of the backpack, as apposed to just along the edges.  I also would have used two different colored wires side by aside, to make the effect more pronounced.

Please post any questions or comments you may have.  Or email me doc@docstoyland.com.  I’d love to hear about similar projects people have worked on.