#beachspectres — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #beachspectres, aggregated by home.social.
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I did a new #BeachSpectres video, a bit more professional than the shoddy portrait video I did at the start of the project.
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Entering my "I promise this makes sense" era.
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I've got the paints out!
A crucial part of #BeachSpectres will be working out where to put the tiles. We're going to use the substitution system, which means we have to imagine a large metatile before breaking it down to eventually get to a single Spectre tile on the sand.Rather than wearing out my back and knees using the big stampers, I thought I'd practice with a little 3d printed stamper and some paint.
The first attempt didn't go well - it's really hard to line up the splodgey paint accurately - but this second go is decent.
I first made a level 1 metatile and cut that out, then used it as a reference to build up 8 level-1s into a level 2 metatile. The next, harder, step will be to imagine a level 3 metatile, and drill down to work out what tiles are adjacent to what I've already got here.
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I thought I'd have a go at recording a timelapse as I assembled the Spectre stampers I lasercut yesterday.
So in case it interests anyone, here's two hours sped up to five minutes of maths becoming physical.
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I'm in the maker space waiting for the laser cutter to make #BeachSpectres stampers. Distract me with maths so I don't cause any mischief with the other tools.
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I've just published #BeachSpectres update 5. I talk a bit about the most recent prototype for the stamper - I think we might nearly be there!
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@Taneb I've actually been thinking about this for #BeachSpectres!
I think that if you were given elements in the right structure for the substitution tiling, you could write CSS to position them correctly.
I don't think you could just take an infinite list of elements and have CSS position them to match the Penrose tiling. -
Well, I've laid out 6 metatiles, and they fitted together OK. This is encouraging, but I'm sure it's going to be even more complicated to do the next iteration.
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I'm enormously happy to finally be able to announce the date of the #BeachSpectres project: 6th and 7th June, 2026. #WhitleyBay beach, UK.
If you can make it to the beach and join in with the tiling effort, I'll be very happy to see you and glad of the help!
Lots more information about what we're trying to do is at https://beachspectres.com/
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Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!
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Maybe this?
It's only 6 layers, not the 7 I got the previous way, but thanks to advice from @nervous_jesse I'm much more confident it'll hold together.
Each layer is 7 pieces, but adjacent layers are cut at alternating corners so there are overlaps. There are holes for dowels at each of the corners, to hold it all together.Now I need to work out how to buy some plywood and get it into the makerspace, or ask for another one from their stock.
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Another #BeachSpectres update: I've had another go at using the laser cutter to make a layered Spectre. I've also realised something interesting about the construction of the shape.
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I've made a website for the #BeachSpectres project: https://beachspectres.com/
I'll post updates there as well as here and on @aperiodical
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I'm making some progress with the #BeachSpectres project.
I've 3D printed a whole Spectre at the size I want for the final cutter, and this week for #MathsWeekEngland I'm going into three primary schools and asking kids to stamp out some tessellations 😬
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These are the pieces I need to make one spectre monotile. The good thing about them is that I can stack them together quite tightly when cutting out on a laser cutter, or each piece will fit on the bed of a 3D printer.
I still haven't decided whether laser cutting or 3D printing will be best. My gut feeling is that laser cutting will be quicker, so I should try that first.
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#BeachSpectres update 2: it's all joining together!
I've spent some time in Inkscape and worked out that I can cut up the monotile into just a few, repeating pieces. I hope I can get the joins to be strong enough.
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#BeachSpectres update: I'm taking it very seriously.
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It's #TilingTuesday so I thought I'd do a quick update on how the planning for the #BeachSpectres #MEGAGrant project is going: