Tag Archives: geiger

Come see my Glowy Geiger Chimes at the 2013 Maker Faire Bay Area!

It’s that time of the year again! The 2013 Maker Faire Bay Area is next weekend (May 18-19th) in San Mateo, California.

I haven’t had time to post about it, but over the past few weeks I’ve been busy working on a special project for the Maker Faire this year.

This year I am bringing a new and improved version of the “Geiger counter-powered ambient music thing” that I threw together at the last minute last year (and never really came up with a good name for). In that project, I connected five of my open source Geiger Counter kits to an Arduino that sent MIDI commands to a Sparkfun Music Instrument Shield. When each Geiger counter was triggered by background radiation or one of the weakly radioactive sources nearby, the Arduino would send a command to the shield to play a musical note.

This year I’m bringing a new and improved version that uses a new piece of hardware that I designed specifically for the Faire – the Geiger Pad.

Each Geiger Pad contains a fully functional Geiger Counter based on my Geiger counter kit. The output of the Geiger counter is connected to a cluster of 14 very bright 5mm UV LEDs. On top of the Pad is a petri dish filled with uranium marbles. Each time the Geiger counter detects that a gamma ray was emitted by the marbles, it flashes the UV LEDs. Since the uranium marbles fluoresce green under UV light, this produces a brilliant green glow.

Today (yes, once again at the last minute) I finally got all the pieces together and working. If you come to the Faire you’ll be able to see it in person, but I also posted a short video on flickr:

The Maker Faire website lists me in Expo Hall, but it’s more likely that I’ll be somewhere in the dark area of Fiesta Hall instead. Check the Maker Faire website later in the week for more details.

See you at the Faire!

Glowy Geiger Chimes at makerfaire.com

Star Jar, a Geiger counter triggered LED decoration

UK artist Nikki Pugh posted this video of her Star Jar, a Geiger counter triggered LED decoration for the holidays. This project is based on her holiday light display from last year. This version incorporates fading transitions is completely powered by the mains.

The light changes are triggered by a MightyOhm Geiger counter kit which detects background radiation and cosmic rays.

If you’re interested to learn how this project was made, check out the instructable.

Star Jar from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Improved Geiger Counter Assembly Instructions

Based on your feedback, I made a few improvements to my Geiger Counter assembly instructions, including the addition of the very handy assembly drawing shown above.

This and a new full page Bill of Materials should mean less time hunting for which part goes where and more fun building the kit!

If you don’t have a kit, you can purchase one here.  If you do, you can head straight to the new and improved assembly instructions.