update: after hearing that the qr code didn’t scan properly on all phones, I made a black and white version that should be easier to scan! second update: most people are reporting that it works with certain QR code readers (presumably those with better error correction)
I made a QR code out of wine corks. I painstakingly placed the 25×25 grid (and then added a frame) so that the QR code uses over 625 corks. Each of them placed by hand wine side up or wine side down to represent the black or white of the QR code. Yes, pruning is so boring that I’d rather sit in and play an overly complicated game of wine cork dominos. 🙂
What is this? Why did I make a qr code out of wine corks?
A QR Code is like a two dimensional bar code. Most smartphones have applications that can scan these and interpret the data. Frequently, as in the case of this QR code, it will be a link to a website. In this case, it links you to the website where iPhone users can download an app called Wine Demon.
Normally QR codes look sort of boring. This is the original QR code that I decided to replicate: 
I’ve been working on doing artistic designs and patterns with corks for a while and this seemed like a perfect application for it.
Why link to Wine Demon?
I thought about making a QR code that linked to this very website or my other blog, Love That Languedoc, but on a whim I decided to link to Wine Demon. Actually, I’ve been meaning to announce some big news on the blog. I’m taking a sabbatical from O’Vineyards to continue my wine education and hunt out new business opportunities in California. This is a surprising move and a lot of people are harrassing me for details, but I cannot say yet. However, this QR code is a small hint.
That said, even if I had second thoughts about what to link to… it took me two hours to line up the 600+ corks and I don’t feel like redoing it any time soon. 🙂
Attribution – Creative Commons – Share alike
Please please please share this image and this idea with all of your friends. But please also mention me. If you use this particular QR code or if you decide to make your own QR code out of wine corks, I would greatly appreciate a small attribution for the concept. Just link to ovineyards.com and you will make my day. 🙂
Making the wine cork QR code
Basically, this QR code is a 25×25 grid where each square is either white or black. I drew out the grid on paper and then used a single cork for each square in the grid.
It turns out that the squares in the corners are the most important part. When a smart phone scans those corners successfully, it knows it’s looking at a QR code and then it can make a lot of assumptions to correct for errors. But if it doesn’t get those corner squares, then it won’t know to run the error-correcting calculations. So make sure the squares are perfect. Also, I ended up putting a frame of white corks around the whole thing, mostly to make the squares stand out more for the phone reader. This made a big difference and I recommend it to anybody trying to replicate this project.
Here are some photos of the process.
