00603 A growing list

... of things to make.

I never said all these would be original.

except maybe once.



Wind powered stone polisher
Flying saucer
Shirt/jacket
Sketchup film
The pound note pad
Salt/pepper bowl
Backgammon board
Pocket money display
Camera remote
Ir camera remote
Radio
Drill/router bit store
Ice cube tray
DND sign
Crushed hand to put under rock
Hand/head buried in sand
A blackboard
Line follower
Kub
Carrom striker
Vu meter
The comic
Papier mâché
Solder timer on a power brick
Easel
Coasters
Breadstick tree from wood or other
Spinning optical illusion
Film scanner light
Caffenol
It's time to blog alert
Oil painting
Matrix led for POV camera shots
Catnip
Spin the bottle type chooser
Electromagnet ball release
Wind powered generator
Pen cnc
Solar charging iPod amp
Light box
Storage boxes
556 music thing
Wind powered thing for handlebars
Full bridge
Pun street model
Tool roll
Lamps on a mirror
New wallet
Pencil shaving art
Ballon modelling
Brushbot
Bread bin
Smoke bomb
The wire stripper
Sparebot walking stick handle
Bike repair stand
Cell animation
Filming light
Standing table
Steadicam rig
Fountain pen
Rubber band gun
Sailing boat
Flyswatter
Canon

00516 Next up

Just in case I shuffle off my mortal coil before these all make it to completion, I'm publishing this list in the hope that someone will carry on this great work.

NO, NOT NOW! WAIT 'TILL I'VE SHUFFLE OFF MY MORTAL COIL!

Right, here we go:

The tunebox
Patchwork quilt
Car with motor
Train and train track
Bookends
Pendant necklace
Saddle bag
Flying saucer
Spaceship
Tank
Cast an army
Map
Beach stamps
Finger puppets
RFID or proximity wallet security device
Light stand
Soft box carbon frame
The pound note pad
Seaplane
Lasercut dominoes
Wedges?
Tangrams
Card game
Beambot
Marble run
Plinths for models
Sandcastle
Resistor calculator
Carrom
Delta Kite
Graffiti
Radio
Chocolates
Candles
Mosaic
Wind powered stone polisher
Plunger & detonator for crackers
Pre-amp for mic
Wind up aeroplane
PC case mod
DND sign
Engine for stick boat

That's not totally it, but I think it's a good start.

Now maybe if I shuffle a little over here. WHOAAAAAAH!

00466 Upcoming

Like a small child gazing longingly at a sweet jar in the full and loathsome knowledge that it's contents will incrementally reduce, dwindle and disappear, I'm posting this knowing that, brimming though this offering may appear, it will surely prove wanting before the week is out.

Never mind. I remain confident that the tangential mental infection that this project has engendered, will spread and thrive, yielding rich pickings in the not too distant future.

Here are the contenders yea far:

The Behemoth
An eggsecution
Business card stamp and cards
Range of greetings cards
Flatpack stuff
Puppets
Soundtrack for a short film
A short film
Strobe for high speed captures
Framed poster
Glass sculpture
Copper pipe sculpture
Lamp with a 3W LED
Blah blah book
Sketchup models
Make something based on someone else's suggestion
Transcript of a philosophical discussion on the subject of perception
The fly hunter - a sparebot
Other printed goods, postcards
Wind powered stone polisher
Rockets from a mould
The ruthless and violent invasion of a benign sovereign nation, followed by the subjugation of its peoples by the crushing boot of an oppressive occupation and subsequent pillaging of its natural resources
A nice (and I mean really nice) cup of tea

That should cover it for a while

00448 Signature

Although this needs a little work, the idea is sound. A tiny glazed window, with which you can frame any text or image.

I'm thinking of selling the idea to T&C, who asked for a board to be made for them with their initials on it.

It's so awesome when it's sanded back level with the wood that it's inset into.

00447 !

WIP - for the "sparebots banger/landmine sound activated flash" arrangement that I've been working on for five seconds.

It's a well beaten path, but you've got to start somewhere.

00436 conspiracies and ideas

I can almost feel the trickle of ideas running down the gullies in my mind, just like a small stream that you find in the woods which you wished was a bit bigger because you know that it would be more impressive and memorable that way.

In no particular order, the shapes and colours of the water that flow slowly through my consciousness can be interpreted as follows ( if there's anyone out there willing to take these up, just do it):

A hole punch for leaves in the shape of tiny people' silhouettes, so that you can leave a little trail wherever you go.

Thingy for joining cartons together to make huge temporary sculptures, so that you can have something a little more inspirational in your house than a pile of waxy paper waiting to be recycled.

Cable drum which leaves messages on the sand - I've seen this before, but there so much more that could be done with it.

There are a couple of other personal bits that are just on my list of things I have to make, such as picture frames for pooh sticks, rake art, eggs and tiny planes (which I am now referring to as natural curiosities, for some reason). Also picture books, more boxes for sparebots, and some other goinks and dooh-dahs.

With that out of the way, here' a thing:

So I'm on the path to making an amp with a speaker, set in a nice wooden box which also works as an iPhone charger and dock. Now, I've looked around extensively for hints on how to get around the new 3G and 4G iPhone wierdnesses when it comes to charging and it seems that it's a little more complicated than just providing power and ground to the unit. Anyhoo, I found a video tutorial about how to wire the thing to work and I starred (bookmarked) it in google reader - and all trace of it has disappeared! It's not on the awesome Make Blog where I saw it and there's no mention of it's deletion anywhere on the site. I'm really not conspiracy theorist, but it all sounds very much like a conspiracy. OMG! I AM A CONSPIRACY THEORIST!!! Aieeeeeeeee!
Wait a minute, who are you anyway? I have no idea who's reading this. I have to get out of here. I MUST FIND A PLACE TO HIDE!

I'll sit in the shed - it's where I normally go when this happens.

00405 It's all in the mind

It's all rattling around in there and if you stick a tube in my ear and look down it, you'll see loads of drawings.

Eventually it seeps out through my hands. Bit by bit.

So this is really just a list of manual secretions:

Coffee table becomes dining table
Ottoman becomes coffee table and cushion
Moulded stuff around USB flash drive
Decoupage
Glass shark in a box
Rocket with wood and copper pipe
Wood, glass and plastic mix table
Jar full of heads
Glass cast in resin
Frames with lights behind pointing at the wall
Rockets out of valves
Tea light holders - mdf
Light socket stuff - frames, lights
Glass game boards with photocopied sheets underneath the glass
Picture frame - metaframe
Solar stone polisher
Wind powered stone polisher
Beambots
Robot/beambots for sand drawing
Bone breadsticks
"Daisy chain" breadsticks
Sparebot bookends
Cable drum beach relief kit
Balloon and parachte camera rig - balloon popped with pin via microcontroller

If I get run over tomorrow I can only hope that someone out there will continue the good work.

00401 The doors

I can't seem to get an adequate image of them, but believe me when I say that I have finally put tiny doors inside boxes.

That's right, tiny doors.

Inside boxes.

What's that you say? "They said it couldn't be done".

No.

They never said that.

What they said was, "You really shouldn't do that".

But I did it anyway.

Next on my list is to stop the voices.

After that it's back to the bots in the boxes.

In other news, I can feel a resurgence of "Robots that draw in the sand". Just you wait 'till I get my hands on two similarly sized drill motors and a motorbike battery.

Actually, probably best not to wait.

Summer's coming and that means beach, which means, rakes and pooh sticks. Probably some KAP too

In the other news that isn't that, I'll mostly be continuing with making a slideshow of small cakes, some of which will have letters, faces, random and fractal patterns, or all of the above.

As you do.

00390 Shelved ideas

I had these ideas, but I haven't actually shelved them yet.

However, I have inherited a spectacularly large wood pile from teh recent disembowelment of Jonah's Scout hut (that's not a euphemism).

Anyhoo, they certainly won't end up looking like this:

Problem is, Sketchup just doesn't live in the real world and the way they stay on the wall won't just be because they just ARE there.

Having said that, it's filters rock something aweful (that's like "aweful" from the olde dayes)

00374 Holga

Aieeeeeee. I've been Flickring too much and accidentally bought a Holga from Ebay.

"A plastic lensed camera" you say?

"Yes", I say.

"Pish and tosh", says you.

"Indeed", says I, " I thrive on pish and maintain an extensive sellar stocked only with the finest tosh".

00349 Blah, blah, blah

Quite literally an excerpt from my new forthcoming book:

Blah blah blah blah blah blah . blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah . blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

‘Blah blah blah,blah blah blah.

‘Blah blah blah blah blah blah; blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah? Blah

‘Blah, blah. Blah

‘Blah! Blah blah blah blah? Blah.

‘Blah -blah blah blah blah ,blah blah blah , blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

‘Blah blah blah blah ,blah blah blah. Blah.

‘Blah blah, blah, blah blah blah —‘

‘Blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah; blah blah blah blah blah blah . blah blah blah blah, blah -

blah blah blah blah, blah. Blah, blah blah, blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah. Blah.

Blah blah blah blah , blah blah blah blah blah blah blah , blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah; blah blah blah blah blah blah blah . blah blah blah blah blah; blah blah blah blah, blah blah, blah blah blah blah. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.


It's really hot stuff, as you can tell, although anyone can see that it needs quite a bit of work on the editing front. Still, when it's done it'll be quite unique.

By the way it's called "Blah blah blah blah blah blah" - catchy, eh?

00346 Rake patterns for the Gallery

Gen at the Gallery has asked me to look into a collaborative rake pattern event with a view to running team building workshops. Sounds good to me.

So I'm thinking up ideas for us to try out when meet up for the trail. Now, I don't really like the idea of circles, but they're as good a place as any to start:

Meriel had this really cool idea about having a game of snake. If it works out, I'll post up the results.

We'll be able to cover alot of the beach, considering five rakes are better than one and ten are better than five.

00289 More stuff I might get round to

So I've done the book (but not completed the finer details) and I've made the pinhole camera, so what's next?

Well I think I'll definitely tackle the USB LED desk lamp - it's got a lot of pointless design possibilities.

Then there's "winkle time-lapse", it's kind of self explanatory, but needs some research (I've done one take of it, but I can see that there's a lot more I need to know about training winkles to do what you want).

A new KAP rig is definitely on the cards, seeing as I can only capture images in portrait format and the rig will only tilt up so much. Don't even get me started about the whole Rig-with-the-microprocessor-and-IR-LED thing, I just don't want to talk about it. Except to say that I blew the last (reasonably expensive) Gentled LED and I'm wondering how much more money I'll throw down that particular plughole.

Puppets - I've got polystyrene balls on the way and I'll be looking into clothes, body structures, joints and molding techniques.

Woodwork courses start again soon, so I'll plough on with the backgammon board (I've got to get closure on some of these projects, otherwise I'll un-motivate myself). I'll be trying to utilise their laser engraver as much as possible (maybe I'll do some cool stenciling) and I'll try to look into uncovering the mystery of the laser cutting possibilities of their equipment by chasing the guy they got it from to see if he has the mystery part which will make the laser super powerful.

I also had a wacky idea for a time-lapse sculpture somewhere. It's be this steel structure thingy with multiple platforms for placing all sorts of different makes of camera. Each platform would be pointing at a place of interest and the idea is that you put your camera on it every once in a while and collect some pictures to be made into a time-lapse. It'd have to work in harmony with a web based application to process the images and display them all online. Hey, it's just an idea. Oh, and the platforms would all be colour coded so that you can remember which one you used. It'd work with mobile phone cameras too. Man, that'd be cool. And it'd probably be in the shape of a camera, or something like that. Or maybe lots of arrows pointing out from a central point.

Strobist kit arrives soon - that'll open up a few possibilities I should wager.

00278 Cameras, strobes & lenses

I don't usually post up links just for the hell of it, but Strobist has really got me thinking that I might like to start taking image capture a little more seriously - if only because years working on film sets never really taught me about the magical world of "painting with light". This seems to be a good place to start and the "101" he's got going is making me think of buying a strobe, stand and 'brella. The only downside is that I like my photos to be a little more spontaneous and however you slice it, you're going to have to put a bit more time onto setting up before shooting. On the other hand Mr Strobist does point out that there are more important things than lighting and that an open mind is key.

Two nice phrases I never came across before (perhaps I need to get out more):

"To a hammer, everything looks like a nail" - about keeping an open mind

and

"Slow is smooth and smooth is fast" - on the benefits of repetitive practice in setting up.

Love it, Strobist.

Which leads me onto cameras. D300 or D700. Like I can chose which one. It seems that there's a debate running as to whether there's a debate to be had. It's simple, either you fall into one camp or the other, or you fall into both (or none). Oh. hang on, that's not simple at all.
Fotunately fiscal pressures leave me with no choice anyway, so that's handy

00268 Make

The eggs, the pooh sticks, the rake art, the KAP group and the robot that will one day draw in sand have now all appeared in the MAKE blog. I so love their magazine, what a nice vibe to think we are all singing from the same made-up hymn sheet.

Next up will be trying to trigger a Nikon D50 from a PICAXE chip - harder than it looks, as I'm finding out. The result will be (hopefully), some really neat time-lapse photography and possibly even the burst KAP rig (where the camera takes a sequence of images really quickly when I press a button). The collest thing about the time-lapse thing and the PICAXE could be the possibility of having a tracking panning camera doing fully moving time-lapse - a sort of time-lapse motion control. Come to think of it, repeated time lapse moves would look really neat running next to each other.

BTW, I found a couple of old eggs that I hadn't posted:

Although technically speaking there is no egg in the last one.

00248 More ideas ...

... to do with time that I now don't seem to have.

More laser cut board games - as there may be a chance that we can return to the woodworking class for an extra term. Maybe I should finish the first lot.

Polystyrene robots - I'm sure there's a way to make things move using really simple electronics and import them into a flatpack cardboard or polystyrene body, so that they can be reduced to a light kit form. Smacks a little of a commercial venture, so perhaps I won't go there.

Beach things book from Blurb - After the success of the kids book (pictures to follow after Gran's birthday) I'll be steaming ahead with the publication of a beach things book. There'll be rake art, eggs and pooh sticks. I can't wait.

Floor sweeper robot - I'm still interested in a sand drawing robot, but maybe I can get myself motivated by making a simple wheeled robot for the living area. The idea is that it drags a small "V" shaped brush behind it and picks up the cat fluff. I think it'll come down to how well I can program it to change direction when it hits something - oh, and whether or not I can build one. This instructable has given me hope. Which reminds me, I must make a water mortar.

00226 The best laid plans ...

So after deliberating for weeks on the design of the board I was going to make during the course of my evening classes, I was faced with the revelation that the school in which we were attending the classes was undergoing a minor spring clean, the result of which was that 40 laminated table legs were now available for anyone who was interested. Barry, the course tutor, suggested that someone might like to think about a bar stool project.
So I did the Sketchup thing:



Funny thing, really, seeing as we need two custom sizes bar stools for the island. Anyway, long story short, this will be the new project and THEN I'll do the backgammon set.

Should I be pleased? The funny thing is that I SHOULD be, but I can't help dwelling on the weeks I spent obsessing over something trivial.

Oh, did I forget to post up the legs available? They're really nice:



Oh, and the other thing that I forgot to add was that all of these ideas for the stool were based on a design by Alvar Aalto

00211 RC car mod

An idea I've been entertaining recently (in my parlour with cucumber sandwiches) is to make a "robot sand drawing vehicle".

Now it was looking like a fully robotic (i.e. with embedded microcontroller) vehicle was going to be very expensive and complicated to make. However I've stumbled upon this article by a guy called Jason Striegel, in which he describes how to mod a cheap RC car to take a microcontroller.

The idea here is to create a programmable vehicle that will draw in the sand, either with one or more pre-programmed patterns, or taking an input from a digital image (say a drawing from a Palm Pilot) and copying it on a large scale. The image copying thing would be cool, although it sounds a little daunting to implement. We'll see.

00162 Backgammon board

Backgammon board in sketchup

I've recently found Google's free 3D design tool sketchup and it's renewed my enthusiasm for making a backgammon board.
I've been looking at several ways to make the backgammon design on the board itself and although I might make several, I'll probably do the first one as a decoupage project, if only because I want to try it out.

00136 Maybe

Maybe I'll get round to:

Making a backgammon board - JY has told me in no uncertain terms that he wants one. He knows I deliver. In around 1998 he gave me his Ford Gran Torino to repaint. He got it back in around 2002. Fortunately the storage posed no problem as it was only about 7 inches long.

Solar powered boat - I've got some epoxy lyig around and I'd love to use the solar panel kit that Meriel got me for my Birthday to power it. More research needed into release compounds for glass fibre molds as well as waterproofing methods for boat drive shafts.

Maxi Dopero - The material is all selected (out of the scraps I had) and I've just got to sell afew games on Ebay to make up the funds.

Carom board - I'll probably just buy this in from here or more likely from here or here

KAP camera - Another purchase. If I'm desparate, I'll end up with a Nikon Coolpix 8400, if not it'll be the D50