My original idea for this project was to use a Santa mask and have him shooting lasers out his eyes. A Christmas decoration that is a little weird, a little different. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a Santa mask before Christmas. So I shelved the idea.
Recently I decided to finish it off with one of those polystyrene heads you can get in art stores.
I made a couple of holes from the back of the head to the eyes. Hooked up a couple of laser modules and connected it to a 5 Volt power source.
I was going for a slightly creepy look, with just a pinch of inspiration from the Terminator movies. Did I succeed? You can decide for yourself.
I used Blu-Tack to hold the laser modules where I wanted them. I then adjusted them so that the two laser dots remained about 6cm apart when aiming at a target at least 5m away.
Finally I put some sunglasses on it.
The first version of the laser eyes project was complete.
I posted the pictures to Facebook and Twitter. I got a couple of likes but the response was pretty much *crickets*.
Maybe the pictures weren’t making it clear that lasers were shooting out its eyes. It was obvious to me, I made the thing.
I made a short video and posted it to Twitter and Facebook.
Again, almost no response.
There are a lot of things I could have done to get a better response. But the interest just wasn’t there. This isn’t a bad thing. I made a rough prototype, quickly and with minimal effort. I also found out quickly that it didn’t generate the interest that I expected it to.
Apparently it’s very common for people to start a new business, putting a heap of time and money into their great idea. Only to discover that after months and thousands of dollars no-one wants their product. Not that I ever expected to make money with the laser eyes project. If it had of generated more interest I would continue working on it, improving it. But as it stands, it goes back on the shelf and I’ll work on more exciting projects.
Maybe I’ll revisit this one when Halloween comes around.
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