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Show HN: I spent 6 years building a ridiculous wooden pixel display

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I built the world's most impractical 1000-pixel display and anyone in the world can draw on it. It draws a single pixel at a time and takes 30-60 minutes to complete a single image. Anyone can participate in the project by voting for the next image to be drawn, and submitting images.

https://kilopx.com/

Awesome project! I built a somewhat similar 30-pixel display: https://www.chrisfenton.com/the-pixelweaver/

Mine was entirely mechanical (driven by punch cards and a hand-crank), and changed all of the pixels in parallel, but a lot of the mechanism development looked extremely familiar to me.

1 day agoby fentonc

Really cool! I just watched it finish "cat saying 'hi'". It doesn't look like any new posts have shown up on @kilopx.com on Bluesky for the last 9 days though.

A few suggestions for improvements:

- After completing a submission, move the "pen" out of the way as much as possible to get a clean photo of the completed art before moving onto the next submission.

- On the website, show attribution for the currently in-progress submission.

- On the website, have a "history" gallery for completed submissions. It looks like pending submissions have permalinks that say "Timelapse will be available after this is drawn", but there's no way to discover permalinks for completed submissions (or the in-progress one).

1 day agoby re

A refresh rate of 370 microhertz gives "Calm Technology" a whole new meaning. I love it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calm_technology

1 day agoby theletterf

This has to be the the most expensive cost per pixel display I've ever seen. And I've never loved a display more. This is absurd in the best possible way

1 day agoby aarondf

As an experiment, I just spray painted 66 magnet spheres in half, to make a physical display in 5 minutes. I manually rotated the sphere into position and it holds the image.

https://gist.github.com/unrealwill/b8f585758880009113805bd95...

Small spherical magnets are quite cheap.

There is hope of physically moving them if you put each sphere into a 3d-printed countersink hole over some metal sheet (so that the magnet is hold in place against the plastic), moving a electro-magnet head over you can rotate the magnet, like a scaled-up version of a 2d magnetic tape.

You may even create a Ising model if you put magnets too close to each other.

20 hours agoby GistNoesis

It’s great to see someone doing something just for the love of doing it. We so often get wrapped up in reaching a goal we forget the journey is what matters most. The curiosity and will to learn new things. I think this project reflects this quite well, and bravo on this amazing achievement. It’s seriously badass.

18 hours agoby bubblebeard

Another idea: have the cubes point an edge straight forward (instead of a face). Then if each cube has two adjacent dark sides and two adjacent light sides, one could setup two ‘simultaneous’ images: one viewed from the left at 45° and another viewed from the right. (Each pixel would have four possibilities.)

1 day agoby xpe

This is very cool. I might have the skills to replicate this but would never be able to accomplish it. My brain is warped .. to get motivated, I need the end result to be of some tangible value. Pure fun doesn't work for me, sadly. I am also unable to go and learn something just for the sake of learning.

Just an aside, an I realize efficiency is NOT a metric for your fabulous display .. here is another interesting mechanism. Maybe one could build a 10K or 100K display with this?:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-flap_display

3 hours agoby CommenterPerson

Very cool. I loved reading your write-up. It reminded me of something I'd read in a steampunk novel once. I had to Google it to get the details. It's the kinotrope from Gibson & Sterling's Difference Engine.

I found a blog post about it and someone who made one with a servo for each pixel. Now that would be expensive!

https://differencing.blogspot.com/2010/04/kinotrope-clackers...

1 day agoby TrnsltLife

There's a full colour one of these in the entrance hallway inside the Berlin Technikmuseum, near the Zuse exhibit - there are 12800 cubes, each with 4 colours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfWFLnsy6QA

1 day agoby mappu

Speaking of "alternatives to e-ink for a zero-power-use-when-not-updating dot-matrix display"...

Has there ever been designed a "display" that is just a thermal printer hidden in one end of a box, and a take-up spool + tensioning spring hidden on the other end, such that the "display" is then a continuous thermal paper "scroll" stretched across the box behind [UV-protective!] glass, that can be "refreshed" by printing a new full-width image to the thermal printer?

1 day agoby derefr

I keep trying to imagine "faster" variations.

What about some system to shoot wooden spheres into a tube or channel for each scan line, selectively feeding different color spheres. Some combination of gravity or pneumatics to drive it. So a scan line would flush out one end and refill from the other. Then scale it up to a stadium size unit with bowling ball pixels.

I guess a challenging part would be proper timing to recycling the colors back into their appropriate supply channels. And also introducing some kind of damping to quiet it down and reduce the wear and tear on the pixels.

On the other extreme, you could go active matrix and have blocks that simply rotate in place to show different face colors based on some solenoid/servo action.

1 day agoby saltcured

You could order the presentation of a set of images by some distance metric :)

- naively: Levenshtein

- better: real world edit time based on a model of the display : probably dominated by XY travel distance

1 day agoby xpe

There was a fish project on here a few days ago that also had to deal with uh... adverserial images and it was (mostly?) solved by training a neural net to detect those.

1 day agoby cinntaile

This is pretty cool as-is, but I can't help but try to think up ways to increase the speed. (Not the point, I know.) I feel like it should be able to do a whole column pretty quickly with some optimizations. If the device that turns a block could do so without needing x-axis alignment to change, then you could do a whole column pretty quickly. Or perhaps it'd be better to do rows instead of columns, since the y-axis alignment shouldn't need to change with the current device. As for the block-turning device itself, I think some sort of thing that rotates would speed things up since you wouldn't need to reset, I think. I bet a manufacturing automation specialist could get this thing cruising...

BTW I love that you initially went with a very direct e-ink analog with the balls!

1 day agoby joemi

Opening the site and immediately seeing it drawing a frame from Bad Apple was amusing, I suspect someone will attempt to automate submissions of frames from that video at some point.

21 hours agoby mister_mort

I'm working on something similar, but 3D and faster motion: PinThing / TAP (Tangible Actuated Pins) [1]

"Motorized pin art display" is what i'm going for...

The problem with passion projects: Progress is never as much or as fast as I want, though! Hard to find the people who want to throw money at things like this and/or buy them. And anything mechanical gets complicated and expensive very quickly. But it's so much fun and a great way to learn and apply so many new skills: laser cutting, 3D printing, CNC milling, circuit design, embedded programming, etc.

[1]: https://youtu.be/tx4W3ZDA_Vg

1 day agoby hugs

You have four sides to each pixel cube, have you considered black, white and two grey levels?

1 day agoby crimony

Reminded me of NYU's Wooden Mirror Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb6eFGbwPeA

1 day agoby paulorlando

https://benholmen.com/assets/images/kilopixel/assembling-tim...

Legends say this is how MicroLEDs are made, one pixel at a time. That's why they are so expensive.

23 hours agoby yupyupyups

Absolutely wild this came up today. Just last night I was fiddling with my kids 'magnetic ball board', bought at SF MoMA, and thinking that it could be turned into a cool display by loading a small magnet on the 3-d printer gantry.

20 hours agoby curiosity42

Very neat to see! I've been wanting to make one for ~15 years, one approach to making one would be inspired by a wooden binary counter where each 'pixel' has a gravity latch that rolls out when on one side and triggers a flip for the next adjacent pixel: https://youtu.be/zELAfmp3fXY

Also worth noting this art project: http://breakfastny.com/dot-screen

19 hours agoby seltzered_

It's the 'camera' from the book Project Hail Mary!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary

11 hours agoby johnorourke

Mumbo Jumbo built a similar concept on Hermitcraft using trap doors. There is a revolution going on called "buildstone", using redstone to create aesthetics

Mumbot 2.0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUzU8HnjBI4&t=1108s

Grian made an animated waterfall with dispensers, snow particles, and potioned arrows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGPS8hURZks

23 hours agoby verdverm

Amazing.

Could turn this into a 4 color display at the cost of drawing speed?

1 day agoby eclipticplane

Very nice!

> I have a mechanism to quickly delete problem submissions.

Did you build a male genitalia swastika classifier like the fish guy? (What a sentence)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44719222

1 day agoby yunusabd

This is awesome! Just so you know, you are legally obligated to do Bad Apple when interest dies down.

1 day agoby explodingwaffle

Super cool and congrats for getting it done. You should be proud, even just for persisting all these years.

Also, I'm surprised "All your base are belong to us!" hasn't been submitted yet!

1 day agoby rudasn

I wonder how hard it would be to get two consecutive images that are pixel-wise inverses of each other in the queue; maximum rendering time!

21 hours agoby aidenn0

There's always something new and novel in each mechanical display projects. Love reading these!

19 hours agoby wraptile

Really cool and it would totally work for a restaurant/coffee shop.

1 day agoby mosdl

Incredible write-up and a hugely ambitious project. Thanks for sharing!

1 day agoby joetannenbaum

Why is the pen in front and not behind the display? It would allow for a clear view; now it is obstructed.

10 hours agoby dandaka

Hah, cool, I had an idea for a similar project (although I'm not crazy enough to make 1000 pixels, or a robot to turn them for me). But I got as far as making a JavaScript simulation and realised I couldn't be bothered manually turning the beads https://incoherency.co.uk/beadboard/

1 day agoby jstanley

This is cool. I wonder, as you were iterating on the design and development, why didn't you start with a very small grid (10x10) to validate or test different options for their practicality and operation before scaling up to the 1000 pixel versions? It might have saved a lot of time and money, but maybe small scale tests aren't sufficient to work out the kinks?

1 day agoby rexreed

Wow. Impressive. I would never have guessed you'd use a Vanna White / Wheel of Fortune turning method.

1 day agoby xnx

When you commit, you really commit. What an incredibly cool project.

I need to go find some corgi art to upload next!

1 day agoby alexandersix_

https://everyware.kr/home/portfolio/r/

1 day agoby grliga

Reminds me of this https://youtu.be/ludHTR3xyLI?si=3F1ZfKMoyWmZkJDf 0:44

1 day agoby ahmed_ssh

This is really exciting. The world of non-electronic computer interfaces has a ton of potential, so I love seeing people build them and write up their experiences.

Congrats OP!

1 day agoby jamestimmins

This is fantastic, great job! I loved reading about the process, and it's the sort of pointless thing I really enjoy seeing done to perfection.

1 day agoby stavros

Ben, the arm seems to be misaligned, it is punching into the shelfes!

16 hours agoby enopod_

This used to exist! I remember a video about this large analog billboard in Amsterdam (?).

Unfortunately I can't find the video. Will edit if I do (or anybody else finds it first).

1 day agoby boredpudding

This has been a fun project to follow. Great job, Ben! Hope I'll see one of these in a coffee shop, mall, or airport one day.

1 day agoby tlaverdure

That's absolutely useless and that's great!

16 hours agoby dan00

Apparently I can't watch tge feed without logging in, that's kind of annoying.

1 day agoby shiandow

Oh hey, I know you IRL from the PHP meetups! I've been watching this develop on Bluesky!

Super cool project.

1 day agoby donatj

It may be "ridiculous" but the fact remains that you are (clearly) awesome.

1 day agoby yubblegum

I wish everything in the world was like this.

18 hours agoby dripdrapdroop

Super cool project! I see the map on the wall.. where in Wisconsin are ya?

1 day agoby dpe82

This is great, but you can get even more impractical: build a framebuffer!

1 day agoby cgriswald

it's mandatory to play bad apple on it.

22 hours agoby mrheosuper

But can it run doom?

1 day agoby 0x696C6961

This is so great

How is it volume wise while it's working? Manageable or painful?

1 day agoby ashleyhindle

This is awesome, Ben!

1 day agoby joshmanders

Sounds like a huge waste of time.

9 hours agoby GypsyKing716

Best practical application of glue stick ever!

1 day agoby CodeWriter23

this is so cool! add some Mark Rober build type music montage and this is a viral video on YT

1 day agoby bobafett-9902

this is what I come to hacker news for. this. so awesome

1 day agoby fitsumbelay

Such a cool project, Ben!

1 day agoby mjwhansen

https://digitalartarchive.siggraph.org/artwork/daniel-rozin-...

1 day agoby paulgerhardt

Rad. The occasional crazy project like this is what keeps me on HN.

1 day agoby christophilus

I don't see a live view on kilopx.com? That's a bit disappointing.

Edit: Oops there is, it was an issue on my side.

14 hours agoby wkat4242

Incredibly cool, but how is there not a single video on the page!?

19 hours agoby ltbarcly3

I have to confess I only skimmed it, but it seems that if the choice is to rotate an object, then using a simple flap on an axis would be both cheaper and likely faster (less mass to move). I realize that efficiency was not a goal, but it does align with the pricing issue.

22 hours agoby pstuart

It reminds me of this

In Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar," the "Interstellar library" refers to the tesseract, a 5-dimensional space within a black hole, visualized as a bookshelf. This structure is not a physical library but rather a construct created by future humans, allowing Cooper to interact with the past and relay gravity data to his daughter, Murph.

1 day agoby _giorgio_

Come on

22 hours agoby zakirullah49

Evil triumphs when good people lean into their hobbies.

1 day agoby antithesizer