Canberra, Australia/Glowing Cube

The Glowing Cube (properly called "Illumicube") is a piece of art in Civic, the civic centre of Canberra, Australia. It is conveniently located where cars may wait to pick up geohashers.

During daylight hours, the cube does not generally glow. At night, it glows - originally in multiple colours, then solidly green, then solidly red, now usually blue and purple, but flashing other colours. (it is behind traffic lights so it may be that green was decided to be a poor choice of glow).

Google maps knows of the Glowing Cube.

Historical Notes

Wed 20 Jun 1951 in -35,149: -35.2832513, 149.1364575 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

The closest a geohash has landed to the current Glowing Cube location itself was in June 1951. This date is interesting in that it was before the construction of the Glowing Cube, and is also early enough to break the meetup graticule template.

On this occasion, the geohash landed about 430 metres from the future site of the Glowing Cube.

History of the Cube

The Cube was originally donated to Canberra by the ACTEW (ACT Electricity & Water) corporation in the early 1980s(?), and was located on the west of the Canberra Centre along Ainslie Avenue. Originally it flashed in response to sound - "Speak to me and I will colour your voice".

In the early 2000's the sound activation system was disabled due nearby inner-city residents (wowsers) who complained about the noise of cars driving by and honking, and drunks yelling at the Cube. It was changed to simply flash randomly. In late 2006(?) the Cube was removed to make way for a new war memorial monument.

In late 2007(?) after refurbishment it was placed in its current location to the east of the Canberra Center. It is now setup to respond to movement, has a more easily changeable LED lighting system inside, and as of writing (July 2008) is solid red.

Pictures

• The Glowing Cube
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  The cube glows at night.

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  Geohashers meet here in the daylight.

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• The Glowing Cube - Range of colours
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