Today’s invention is a flexible, cheap way to make large-scale written notices.
Units such as those on the left of the diagram can be attached to a pegboard-type background in a variety of layouts (including that of the seven-segment arrangement shown on the right).
A wire, cable or tube is looped around these units, either through the hidden or visible side of each.
This allows words to be spelled out using a continuous section of high contrast rope etc. (much more convenient than searching in a box of preformed characters for that missing ‘X’).
This allows for machine-readable, regular text…especially using a glowing cable and a dark background.
Well This idea came last in the Geekdad/Ponoko final 10. http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/08/ponokosparkfun-competition-vote-for-the-winner-now/
I can’t believe
a) that I lost out to a pizza-leveller
b) that Conde Nast seem to have closed the poll ahead of their deadline
…and before I could mobilise my vast Twitter following (109) -gnash!