Some of you may have seen this in popular science. But Joshua Kinberg for his thesis created a bike that can spray paint messages from the internet as well as upload pictures and locations of messages. He plans to use it to protest the republican convention in NYC.


1. Nokia 3650 cellphone receives a text message sent from Kinberg's site. If the rider wants to print it, he sends it via Bluetooth to a Powerbook.
2. AppleScript and Perl code translate each letter into a 5-by-5 dot-matrix pattern and send binary code to a black box containing a BASIC stamp microcontroller.
3. Code is translated into high- or low-voltage signals, and sent via homemade serial cable to five relay switches housed in a custom-made Plexiglas box
4. Relays fire electromagnetic solenoids, powered by a 12-V gel cell battery
5. Solenoid pistons trigger nozzles on inverted spray-chalk aerosol cans to blast out a dot. The rate of fire adjusts automatically based on the rider's speed
6. GPS device captures the position of the sprayed message, and the webcam snaps a pic; both are uploaded through the cellphone's GPRS to a blog
http://i.timeinc.net/popsci/flat_files/computer/comp0804smsbike_675x418.jpg

it is a pretty cool application of tech. He has two sites

this (http://www.bikesagainstbush.com) site is going to be used during the convention

his other site (http://a.parsons.edu/~jk/thesis/) is related to the thesis and has more information

some have already suggested messages to be sprayed in New York here are my two favorites (one of which is mine):

When Clinton lied, nobody died

Bush pro-life? over 900 dead in Iraq