Awesome Fiber Optics

What you’re looking at is a unique round display that creates images using fiber optics. Maker James Brown of Ancient shows how he built the gizmo using a dollar-store fiber optic wand that he connected fiber-by-fiber to a grid of LEDs. The real magic is the logic that detects the position of each dot on the circular screen and maps it to the grid.

It’s easy to find LED grids that can be programmed to display animations. So this build by Dr. Tõnis Gadgets that uses fiber optics to direct light into a smaller matrix seems unnecessarily complicated. It still looks cool, like something out of the engineering lab in a science fiction movie. The display was inspired by Elliotmade’s fiber optic display from Instructables.

The Action Lab shows off the unusual optical properties of Ulexite, a mineral that looks semi-opaque but shows objects it’s placed on top of. Also known as “television stone,” the rock transfers light through tiny tubes that act like organic fiber optics. You can find chunks of the stuff on Etsy if you want to try it yourself.