Bot Surfing IV: Make Way For Iron Man

 

Photo: eBay seller

Not strictly a bot, but this IronMan “robot costume” is pretty high-tech, as Halloween costumes go.

And at $3,200 and with specs like these, it’s clearly one for afficiandos:

This robot costume is standard with the painted body parts, gloves, underbody suit and a voice box that amplifies the performers voice 6 times the normal human voice. This robot costumes are built like aircraft from 100% durable lightweight composites including fiberglass and vacuum-formed plastics. The secret is that using composites Robot Costumes USA produces robot costumes that only weigh 35lbs which is no more than a hiking backpack. Our robots also have a three stage Dupont automotive paint job with two layers of clear-coat. Our robot costumes can take all kinds of abuse and is able to get wet if it rains. Just wash and wax it like a car.

And check this out –a site dedicated to robot costumes.

How To Reveal Two Great Art Works In One

 

1. Take a famous painting like Patch of Grass by Van Gogh.

Figure 1. (a) Vincent van Gogh, Patch of Grass, Paris, Apr−June 1887, oil on canvas, 30 cm × 40 cm. The red frame indicates the field of view in images b and c (rotated 90° counter-clockwise). (b) X-ray radiation transmission radiograph (XRR), paint sample location indicated in the blue frame (Figure 4). (c) Infrared reflectograph (IRR).

2. Add a little synchrotron radiation induced X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (zap it with an intense X-ray bundle for two days).

X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrography works on the principle that a strong X-Ray pulse affects each atom in the target in different ways allowing scientists to track specific chemicals on different layers. Graph: Amptek.Com

3. Use that information to track every type of atom (and pigment type) in the canvas (e.g. mercury or lead, common ingredients in paint in Van Gogh’s time). And…

4. Presto! You can reveal older works that have been painted over. (In this case, the portrait of a woman that looks like a rough sketch for the artist’s (more) famous Potato Eaters painting.)

 

University of Antwerp/Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron Researchers used X-rays from a particle accelerator to reconstruct the portrait of a woman Vincent van Gogh had painted over before composing his landscape "Patch of Grass," completed in 1887. Conventional X-rays used in previous analyses had produced only rough outlines of the portrait. The image, unveiled in a scientific journal published this week, bears a striking resemblance to a series of somber portraits the artist produced in the Dutch town of Nuenen, where he composed “The Potato Eaters,” completed in 1885 and regarded as his first major work.

An international research team, including members from Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) and the University of Antwerp (Belgium), has successfully applied this technique for the first time, and it’s not surprising that they chose Van Gogh: