Rocklin Mini Maker Faire 2018

Posted on October 3, 2018 by Maker Block

15 Second Drawings

My daughter, TinkerGirl, and I are going to be demonstrating our 15 second drawings at the Rocklin Mini Maker Faire this Saturday. We’re pretty stoked about this since it will be our first time as Makers at this Mini Maker Faire. We’ll be the ones wandering around with a DIY dry erase board.

If you’re wondering what the heck “15 second drawings” even means… it’s just what it sounds like. Both of us will each draw whatever you want in 15 seconds. Whatever you want, no matter how complicated or absurd, drawing before your eyes in just 15 seconds.

Or, we can teach you how to draw anything in 15 seconds. Or compete against us or perhaps challenge a friend (or enemy?!) to a 15 second drawing.

You want to learn more?!

Regex: Back reference and Self reference in Regular Expressions

Posted on July 28, 2018 by Maker Block

This is going to be a very short and niche post.

Sometimes I have to use regular expression or “regex” searches to parse a bunch of text, but I can’t remember how to use the search function to find a particular sequence of character and then reuse those found characters in the text I’m trying to replace it with. In Notepad++, this would be done as follows:

Search string: (7//*[0-9]*[0-9])\r\n
- This will find all entries with “7/3” or “7/14” or similar digits with a line return afterwards
Replace string: \1/2018;
- This will replace those entries with “7/3/2018;” and “7/14/2018;”, respectively

The trick here is that the first set of search information is collected together within a set of parenthesis, which are then referenced back by the “\1”. If you forget the parenthesis, the “\1” term won’t “know” what it’s supposed to be repeating.

Like I said, very niche.

[SOLVED] Google Pixel stuck in a boot loop after update and full storage

Posted on July 14, 2018 by Maker Block

If your Google Pixel is stuck displaying the “G” and forever looping through a boot screen, Google’s support will tell you there is no hope and you’ll either have to do a complete factory reset and data wipe of your phone or send it in so they can do it for you. However, if you are adventurous or have nothing to lose, there may still be hope.

I’m not saying this will work for you, or that you should even try what worked for me. But, if you’re as desperate as I was, you would try absolutely anything to get your photos back.1

While out of town on vacation, away from WiFi and cell carrier internet access, I took a lot of photos and a few short videos. My phone, a lowly Google Pixel with just 32GB2 of storage ran out of space. It claimed it was at “100%” usage of storage with only a few dozen megabytes of space left. I leaped into action, right there on the beach, deleting some large documents and ZIP files I had downloaded and then asked the Google Photos app to “Free Up Space.” Pats on the back! Job well done!

Except the Pixel had other ideas. I reached into my pocket later to pull out the phone and take a picture to discover that it was on the white boot screen with the colorful Google “G” logo and a light gray “progress” bar undulating underneath it. I thought this might be due to the phone overheat and put the phone away. When I pulled it out later, I found the phone was still showing the same white boot screen. I don’t know what caused this problem. I don’t know if it was the Android system update from a few days ago, the storage being mostly full, possibly being too warm from being in my pocket, or what.

I tried everything I could think of and everything I could find to no avail:

I was unable to boot the phone into anything resembling active status, not even the last measure of “Safe Mode.”
I could boot the phone into “Recovery Mode” which looks like the Google Android robot lying on its back with a front panel open and some text underneath. However, attempts to “Start”, “Reboot”, and use “Recovery Mode” were all unsuccessful.
I tried following the recommendations of the mysterious “Techno Bill” on the Pixel Google Groups to install ADB and Fastboot and then apply a Rescue OTA to the Pixel.
- If nothing else, this one possibility gave me hope that I could still interact with my phone, somewhat. I was careful to try out the specific OTA3 for my phone. As you navigate the various menus in the Recovery screens for Android, you’ll need to take note of the version of Android you’ve got – so you can place the same version over it.
- As best as I understand this fix, you’re basically overwriting a possibly damaged or corrupted operating system with a shiny new factory fresh version – and that doing so leaves your data intact.
The thing that gave me the most hope was this post by Mac_DG on Reddit. Basically, they said, “If you can get there [the Google recovery screen], and it’s a software problem everything is fixable.”
I even spent 43 minutes4 chatting5 with Google’s Pixel support team member, Marlene. She was sympathetic, but assured me in no uncertain terms that my data was lost forever. My options were to send my phone to Google or take it to a repair facility for a diagnostic.

Finally, after much searching, I found this thread on Google’s product forum where someone named Jintoku described an identical problem to mine – and someone named Kara Alexander described an identical problem … and a solution suggested by Samuel Cooksey! If you think you’ve got the same problem – nearly full storage, frozen or looping “G” screen, and unable to enter Safe Mode, it is absolutely worth your time scrolling through this thread to see if this solution may work for you. It is also worthwhile reading through Jintoku’s conversation with Google’s representatives to see how hard they tried not to do a factory reset on the phone – and just how certain the Google representative was that this was the only possible solution short of outright replacement of the phone.

I will not duplicate the efforts of Techno Bill, Jintoku, Kara Alexander, Samuel Cooksey, and Mac_DG by repeating everything they’ve already said. Rather, you may use any of the above links from my search to follow along and, hopefully, set you on the correct path. If you would prefer a condensed guide, with links, I hope this will help:

Follow Techno Bill’s guide on installing ADB and Fastboot.
1. If you’re on Windows, you either need to follow Techno Bill’s guide on updating your computer’s “Path” or, if you’re a little more comfortable doing so, you can skip steps 1-8 and instead open the command prompt and type
  1. “SET PATH=%PATH%;c:\adb”
  2. The benefit of doing it this way is that you don’t have to permanently add this path to your operating system, it’s a lot faster and easier than Techno Bill’s method, and you don’t have to restart your computer
Download the Developer Beta Preview OTA for your phone6 .
1. It almost goes without saying that with words like “Developer”, “Beta”, and “Preview” in the title, this version of the Android operating system isn’t for the faint of heart. If you don’t know what you’re doing or, like me, don’t have anything to lose, you shouldn’t be trying this.
Follow Techno Bill’s guide to “sideload” the Rescue OTA to the Pixel.

If this blog post, that I write as my phone is running the Photos application right now to back up my vacation photos, saves even one person’s data, I will be an incredibly happy person.

After all, what’s the worst damage I could do? In a worst case scenario, the phone would still be unresponsive or bricked permanently [↩]
!!! [↩]
I believe this refers to an “over the air” operating system update [↩]
I was emailed the chat logs after the session ended [↩]
Since I had no phone, natch [↩]
Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL [↩]

How to Back Up Files from Google Drive with a Supervised User

Posted on May 28, 2018 by Maker Block

Google, why have you failed me?

Google suddenly discontinued/crippled their Google Supervised User program in January of 2018. This was a fantastic program which allowed parents to set up a Google account for a child on a Chromebook and monitor and control access to the internet. Unfortunately, the “manage user page” redirects you a page “Supervised Users can’t be created or edited.” Sure, there’s Google Family Link – but that only works for Android and mobile devices.

This means the Chromebook we bought for our daughter and which she’s been using for about a year now, is borderline useless. How useless?

Imagine using a modern computer (or even a phone or tablet!) without the ability to copy, cut and paste. No being able to visit any new sites, since I can’t edit her access to whitelist the website. You can’t copy, move, or drag-and-drop the files from Google Drive to the internal microSD card or a flash drive.

And, as I discovered today, no being able to download files out of the Supervised User’s Google Drive account, since Google’s ability to zip the files is crippled.1 Since my daughter’s account had hundreds of files, it was beginning to look like my only option was to download each file individually, one after the other.

If you find yourself in a similar predicament, here’s how you can back up your Supervised User’s account out of Google Drive:

Create a new empty folder with a catchy name like “20180528 Backup”
Select all other files in their Google Drive
Tap the trackpad with two fingers2 and select “Move”
Move all the files into your newly created folder
Select the newly created folder
Tap the trackpad with two fingers3 and select “Share”
Share that folder from the Supervised User with yourself (probably by typing in your email)4
Open up Google Drive in your web browser on a completely different, non-Chromebook device
Click on the icon that looks like two people and is labeled, “Shared with me”
You should see the previously named folder under the documents recently shared with you
Right click on the folder and click on “Download.” It will take some time as Google zips the folder and all the documents in all the sub-folders into a file
When prompted, save the file to your computer

I got through this with the usual trial and error. I really hope it’s helpful to someone else some day.

You can download a single file at a time – but not more than one at a time [↩]
This is the Chromebook version of a “right click” [↩]
Again, the Chromebook “right click” [↩]
You may get a warning that you won’t receive a confirmation email – don’t worry about it [↩]

Maker Faire 2018 – 3D Printing for Home Improvement

Posted on May 20, 2018 by Maker Block

If you’re here checking out my site after my presentation, you can check out all the slides from my presentation above. If you’d like more information about the individual things in the slides, I posted an update for most of them over on Hackaday. If you’ve still got some questions, feel free to leave a comment below, hit me up on twitter, email me directly.

Hacked Tap Light Enclosure

Posted on February 6, 2018 by Maker Block

Just seeing a post and pile of code about a project isn’t always that interesting. The nifty thing about this project is also one of the problems. They’re cosmetically identical – so you can only tell which one you’ve got by activating it. :)

I couldn’t be more pleased with the way this project came out. I basically took my daughter’s setup based off an Adafruit Circuit Playground, built a more specialized (and louder!) version into a breadboard using an Adafruit Trinket, and then ported the entire design into an ATTiny85. The only thing I would change about it would be to add a socket for the ATTiny to make it easier to modify down the line.

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Cheapest Easiest Easy Button Hack EVER

Posted on February 4, 2018 by Maker Block

But… could it be even EASIER?!

I’ve always liked the idea of the Staples Easy Button. Not so much a button that says “That was easy,” but the idea of having an enormous button on my desktop that would do… anything at all. Official “Staples Easy Buttons” used to sell for about $20 and are now only about $7. But, this is still a lot to pay for a big button that I’d want to gut anyhow. Recently I figured out a way to build a big useful button, very inexpensively.

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The secret sauce is … a tap light! You can buy a pack of 4 big (10cm diameter) tap lights for under $4 and they’ll ship free as a “Prime add-on.” For less than $1 each, you get a three AA battery holder, toggle on/off switch, a bright LED, all neatly organized into a big plastic button. This button also has another “feature” which is missing from many other pricier options. The dome over the light is white – which means you can put any color LED or, as I did, an Adafruit Neopixel inside and the dome will change color accordingly!

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Here are some pictures of the disassembled tap light so you can see if it would work for you. I had originally bought these so that I could put a light right next to my newest 3D printer.1 2 3

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There’s actually quite a bit of room inside the tap light for a small project. I was able to pack a Neopixel, a small buzzer, an ATTiny85, and a rat’s nest of wires. I expect this project to take a lot of abuse at Maker Faire, so I applied a liberal amount of hot glue inside to hold the wires down and out of the path of the springs, switch, case, and the likely path of the button dome.

Once reassembled, there really isn’t any way to tell the button was hacked. It looks identical to three other tap lights. I just love that I was able to make use of the battery holder and existing switch inside the project. The 4.5V supplied by the batteries is perfect for powering my ATTiny85 and lone Neopixel. If you’ve got a junk drawer, you could probably build something very similar for about $2-3.4 As it is, I “splurged” by using $1 worth of Neopixel because I was being lazy and didn’t want to either wire up three sets of LED’s or track down three resistors to go with an RGB LED. Even so, this is an incredibly cost-effective project enclosure.

15 Second Timer-Buzzer

In case it’s of interest to you, this project is the newest iteration of our 15 Second Timer-Buzzer from my daughter’s 15 Second Drawings project for Maker Faire Bay Area 2017. The prior version used an Adafruit Circuit Playground, a 100mm Red Button, and a LiPo battery and probably cost around $40 or so. 5

All of the code is on Github. Basically, the buzzer flashes amber three times with a very short tone in between flashes, then turns green for 14 seconds, amber for one more second, and then turns red and buzzes angrily to let you know time is up. I had written most of the code to work on an ATTiny45… until the code ballooned to a whopping 4560 bytes and I had to switch to an ATTiny85.6 If I had to build this over again, I’d solder in an 8-pin DIP socket for the ATTiny rather than mutilating the chip and hot gluing it directly to the inside. ;)

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I have a power strip next to it, but it’s fully utilized, I only need a little bit of light sometimes, and I was getting tired of holding a flashlight on it at night [↩]
In my tradition of naming my 3D printers after characters from Futurama, my Monoprice Mini Delta is named “Roberto.” [↩]
My prior 3D printers are Bender the MakerBot Cupcake CNC, Flexo the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic, and HedonismBot the Replicator 1 Dual [↩]
I figure about $1 for an ATTiny85 and $1 for the button. Most people can find a way to scrounge an RGB LED or a few different LED’s, an old buzzer or piezoelectric disc, and some bits of wire [↩]
Not counting the gelato we ate, of course [↩]
What a waste!!! [↩]

Organizing

Posted on September 24, 2017 by Maker Block

Everyone utilizes their own method of organization, notetaking, and motivation. Some use “Getting Things Done,” others go with “Inbox Zero,” or the “43 folders,” there’s Jerry Seinfeld’s “Don’t Break the Chain,” and a new one called the “Bullet Journal.”

I’ve tried some of these methods, combinations of these methods, and here’s what I’ve come up with for my own life.

E-Mail
1. Reply quickly.
  1. As Tony Soprano once said, “more important than the particular decision is that it happen in a timely fashion.” My number one rule of email management is simply this – reply immediately to anything that deserves a reply. Any timely response, even a non-optimal one, is better than a polished late response.
  2. If you can’t get a quick response out because some action is required…
2. Act or Delegate, even to yourself. If there’s something to be done, do it already. From now on, you live in a world of “to done’s” not “to do’s.” If you can’t do it, then figure out what needs to happen first and work on that. If someone else needs to do it, ask them to take care of it and let you know when they’re done. If you need to do something else, copy yourself on the email and ask yourself to do it. Your own email will arrive in your inbox and you’ll need to…
3. Start a draft. If the matter really requires more information than you have at your fingertips or isn’t urgent, start a draft.
4. Turn drafts into emails. Every day turn drafts into emails and send them out. Since my job has become roughly 80-90% email, this is how I manage it all.
5. Ignore unimportant emails. Most of your emails are unimportant. Ignore them, mark read, move on.
Web Surfing
1. Tabs. Tabs are the enemy. They will rob you of your productivity. If you open a tab, read it, enjoy it, and close it or decide it is information you want to retain. If it is truly important and something you’ll need to refer to all the time, bookmark it. But, remember…
2. Bookmarks. Bookmarks are the enemy. These are kept to an absolute minimum and only for sites you really visit all the time. Otherwise, that information you wanted to keep will be lost in difficult to search bookmarks forever.
3. Everything else. If you find a web page, tweet, or some other information that you want to keep or reference in the future, share it or make a note.
Sharing
1. If you share information you help a friend and preserve the information in your sent folder, twitter stream, etc. Otherwise, make a note. The thing with notes is…
Notes
1. There are only two kinds of notes in the world. Information that is of temporary use and information that is of permanent use.
2. Temporary notes. Write these on whatever you have lying around. Discard when done.
3. Permanent notes. A permanent note really comes down to how you want to treat information. I like information either in an electronic searchable format or I want it written down so I can reflect on it or refer to it later. A permanent electronic note goes into Google Keep or an email to myself, in outine format, listing things in no particular order, with a few keywords in the subject line and body of the email near the link. When I need to find it again, I just search in Google Keep or for emails from me and specific keywords. A permanent written note goes in my…
Notebook
1. The problem with the Bullet Journal method is that it requires setup, discipline, and maintenance. If you screw those up, the notebook and all the lovely page numbers and organization systems become a burden, a hassle or, worse, useless.1
2. There are so many great things about keeping a notebook. It’s a quick and easy way to record interesting and useful information. While my handwriting is horrible, but I’m pretty decent at drawing and sketching. A notebook for me is something where I can brainstorm, start drafting an idea I can return to later, or where I can record information for posterity. I tend to work out ideas on scraps of paper before recording that data in a more permanent format by committing it to my notebook. Sometimes this means copying information by hand or, my personal favorite, literally cutting and pasting information into the notebook. The worst thing is probably that it isn’t particularly searchable.
3. Title and Date. Every entry in the notebook starts on a fresh page with the date at the top right corner and a helpful title at the top of the page. The date does more than provide you with context.
4. Cross Referencing. The dates at the top of the page function as your page numbers. When you need to refer to a page in the past, rather than referencing a page number, just reference the date of the prior page. When you write a cross reference down to a prior page, note the future date on the prior page.
5. DIY Flags. I placed several pieces of duct tape inside the front cover of the notebook. On top of that, I put several small 1/2″ x 1″ pieces of duct tape. These can be peeled off easily and folded over a page for a sturdy bookmark. More on this later.

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Well, this is my theory. I don’t actually know since I haven’t actually tried the Bullet Journal method… [↩]

How to Use a Vacuum Former

Posted on May 7, 2017 by Maker Block

This is the second post in a short series about vacuum formers. You can start with the first post about how to make your own inexpensive and easy to use vacuum former or skip to the bottom of this post with a list of all of the posts in this series.

Theory
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1. I discussed the theory behind a vacuum former in the prior post. This post is really about how to actually use a vacuum former in conjunction with a heat source.
Parts
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1. “Buck”
  1. The things you’re going to create molds of with your vacuum former are called the “bucks.”
2. Wire coat hanger
  1. The coat hanger will be bent out of shape and won’t be usable for hanging clothes after this. A coat hanger from your local dry cleaner would do just fine.
  2. The good news is that this is the only thing, besides the consumable plastic plates, that you can’t put back into its ordinary service as soon as you’re done vacuum forming.
3. 4 or more binder clips
  1. Pretty much any size binder clips would work, as long as they can get around the thick gauge wire of the coat hanger. I only had four on hand, (which is probably the minimum necessary) but the more the better. As you heat the plastic, it will contract and deform. The more clips you have, the more circular you can keep the plastic as you lay it on top of the object.
4. Oven mitt
  1. I used a cotton oven mitt that has a silicone rubber grip. This is probably overkill, but better safe than sorry.
  2. Everything you’ll be touching with the oven mitt will be cool to the touch within about a minute of taking it out of the toaster oven. I’m pretty sure a thin towel which has been folded over several times would work just fine.
5. Toaster oven
  1. Preferably one that can do small round pizzas. If you’re out shopping for one, try and find one that will fit the 10″ diameter plastic plates. You can find a cheap toaster oven for about $30 on Amazon and about $15-20 on Craigslist. If you’re short of funds, I’m pretty sure garage sales or Goodwill would have a bargain.
  2. Out of an abundance of caution, I was using my toaster oven outside on the off-chance that heating the plastic was giving off some undesirable fumes. I’m also utilizing a used toaster oven donated by my brother. I’m pretty sure the process of heating a few pieces of plastic in the toaster oven don’t make it unsafe for cooking food, but again, I’m erring on the side of caution here.
  3. There’s nothing special about the toaster oven; it’s nothing more than a convenient and cheap heat source. If you were a more daring sort you could probably use your standard kitchen oven. I suppose in a pinch you could also use a cheap heat gun, but I haven’t tried this yet.
6. Pliers (Optional)
  1. I got these out to help shape the coat hanger. In the end, I didn’t use it very much and it probably wasn’t necessary.
Consumables
Round plastic plates, 10 – 1/4″
1. Round plastic plates (~10″ diameter, without dividers?)
2. These are just the bulk plastic plates we had left over from Party City. Next time I’m there, I’ll check and see just what kind of plastic they’re made of. Their website suggests they carry plastic plates with diameters from 9″ to 10.25″ to 10.5″. The plates I had were 10.25″ and they worked out really well. You can probably find a pack of 50 plates for less than $10. You might be able to do even better by hitting up a dollar store.
Make the Plate Holder
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1. Using your hands or a pair of pliers, bend the coat hanger as pictured. The goal is to get it to fit around the underside of the rim of the plate.
Clip the Plate to the Plate Holder
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1. Using four or more small binder clips, clip the coat hanger to the paper plate. Put two clips on either side of where the coat hanger handle meets the plate. Put the other two clips approximately 180 degrees from the first two clips. If you have more than four binder clips, they would be helpful since the plastic will pull away from the frame as it heats up. (I only had four on hand)
Turn on the Toaster Oven
1. Remove all the racks, except for the bottom drip tray, from the inside of the toaster oven.
2. When it’s empty, turn it all the way up.
Ready the Vacuum Former
1. Set up your vacuum former as close to your heat source as is practicable. You want to be able to transfer the molten plastic plate to the vacuum former as quickly as possible so that it doesn’t cool down in transit.
Prepare Buck and Turn on Vacuum Former
Vacuum former at the ready
1. Organize the bucks (the things you want to mold) on top of the vacuum former, then turn on the vacuum.
2. You may notice the vacuum pushes or pulls some of the objects out of the way. Just rearrange them as necessary. I try to place things so that they’re surrounded by the holes in the top of the vacuum former.
3. Basically, you want the vacuum pulling on the hot plastic plate, but not sucking air freely from around it. If the holes in the top of the vacuum former are spaced out way outside the perimeter of the plate, you’ll want to cover those holes up with some tape. Regular masking tape worked just fine for me.
Heat and Vacuum!
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1. Put on your oven mitt, open the toaster oven, and hold the plate in the oven near the top heating element.
2. The plates I used went through several physical changes before they were ready. First they softened a little, then they actually flattened all the way out, then then pulled away from the wire frame, then, finally, the plastic got very droopy. This whole process took less than a minute with the oven at full power.
3. Once the plastic is nice and droopy, pull the frame out and place it on top of the vacuum former.
4. The vacuum should pull the hot plastic around your objects. After a few seconds the plastic should no longer be flexible and warm. Once it’s cool, turn off the vacuum.

That’s it!

Bucket Vacuum Former

How to Make a Vacuum Former

Posted on February 19, 2017 by Maker Block

First, a huge thank you to Airship Noir and their Maker Faire Kansas City 2016 project, “Make Your Own Vacuum Formed Steampunk Goggles.” They were kind enough to post pictures and instructions about how they made an incredibly cheap, but effective, vacuum former.

Inspired by their project, I wanted to pay-it-forward and help others build their own vacuum former. Here’s how I built mine:

Theory
1. A “vacuum former” is a device which allows you to create thin plastic molds of objects by heating a sheet of rigid plastic until it is very malleable, placing it over an object, and applying a suction to pull the flexible plastic around the object.
2. The plastic shell can be used for a variety of purposes such as actual tools, creating reusable molds, or just a simple form fitting shell for another project.
3. This set of instructions will teach you how to create a suction device for use with a heat source of your choice.
Parts
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1. Home Depot “Bucket Head” ($23)
  1. I had no idea this thing existed until I saw Airship Noir’s post. It’s basically a vacuum that clamps onto a bucket, turning it into a cheap low-power shop vac. I believe “Bucket Head” is the Home Depot branding for this, but that you can find alternates under the title of “Power Head.”
2. 5 Gallon Bucket ($5)
  1. I bought a Home Depot brand bucket for this exact task. Although I have other 5 gallon buckets, it was worth the $5 to me to make sure I had something that would easily attach and detach from the vacuum top.
3. 1/2″ wooden dowel, 4′ in length ($2)
  1. My own design uses 3D printed parts, a length of a 1/2″ wooden dowel, and a little hot glue. However, you can substitute whatever you have on hand. The Airship Noir vacuum former used wood shims, some nuts and bolts, and PVC pipe.
Tools
1. Chisel
2. Drill and 1/8″ drill bit
3. Hot glue gun / hot glue
4. Ruler
5. Pen / pencil
6. Hacksaw
7. Sharpie
8. Masking tape
3D Print Parts
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1. You can download all the 3D printable parts from Thingiverse.
2. Print one vacuum cork. This will just be placed into the vacuum where the hose would normally go. This will cause the vacuum to suck air through the bottom of the bucket.
3. Print two dowel caps. These will go on either end of a short length of wooden dowel, to keep the “float” inside the vacuum from falling into the vacuum.
4. Print three bucket attachments and three “toes.” These will be used, with wooden dowels to elevate the bucket off the ground.
5. Print the PDF of a 1″ grid on paper. This is actually a 1/2″ grid, with bold lines forming the 1″ grid. I searched for more information about optimal hole size and placement, but didn’t find anything dispositive. I think as long as you get close, you’ll be fine.
Cut Wooden Dowels
1. Use the hacksaw to cut three pieces of wooden dowel to approximately 8″ each. These will become the feet for the bucket.
2. Cut a fourth piece of wooden dowel to approximately 6″. This will be used to keep the vacuum float from falling into the vacuum, when the bucket is turned upside down.
Prepare the Bucket
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1. Turn the bucket upside down and, carefully, use a chisel to remove as much of the raised areas at the bottom of the bucket. Working slowly and carefully, it took me about 30 minutes to move the rim at the bottom of the bucket and all the little raised areas.
Add Feet to the Bucket
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1. When the “Bucket Head” attachment is on the bucket, the top will be rounded. However, we’re going to need to turn the entire thing upside down to use the bottom of the bucket as the surface of our vacuum former. This means we’ll need to raise the vacuum top of the bucket off the ground so that it can stand flat – and so we can access the power switch.
2. I designed the three bucket attachment parts so that they will slide snugly into the rim under the bucket. The rim has approximately 24 little fins under the rim. Place each of the three feet equally around the bucket – approximately 8 fins apart. Mark the outline of the part on the bucket with a Sharpie, remove the part, add hot glue, and slide the part back into place.
3. Add a little hot glue to the end of each of the three 8″ wooden dowels, then some hot glue to the inside of the “toes,” then slide the gluey end of the dowel into the feet. You should end up with three short “drumsticks.”
4. Don’t glue these into the attachments at the bucket sides. The attachment and bucket feet parts were designed to be as minimally obtrusive to the function of the bucket as possible. If placed properly, they shouldn’t interfere with the handle or bucket usage. The newly formed feet can be placed into the holes in the bucket attachments when you’re ready to start vacuum forming – and placed back inside the bucket for easy storage.
Drill Holes
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1. Print the PDF of 1″ ruled grid paper from the Thingiverse page, courtesy of Kent State. Center the paper on the bucket, then tape it down.
2. Drill 1/8″ holes 1″ apart along the grid.
3. A word about these holes. The more holes you drill, the more holes you might have to cover up when making parts later. However, the more holes you drill now, the bigger the parts you can make later. It’s a little bit of a trade off.
4. Once the holes are drilled, use the chisel to remove the burrs off the bottom of the bucket. You don’t need to remove the burrs from the inside of the bucket, but I did to keep the inside of the bucket as clean and useful as possible.
Raise the Float
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1. Underneath the vacuum top there is a plastic cage surrounded by the filter, held in place by a big rubber band. Remove the rubber band and filter and you’ll see a little plastic cup that is designed to act as a “float” inside the cage. If you turn the vacuum upside down, the float will fall against the vacuum – and would prevent it from working.
2. Holding the vacuum upright, insert the 6″ length of wooden dowel through the plastic cage and above the float, pushing it against the bottom of the cage. Use the plastic dowel caps to hold the ends of the dowel in place so it won’t slip out or rattle.
Completed bucket vacuum former!

Put it All Together
1. Place the Bucket Head on the bucket. You may need to rotate the Bucket Head slightly to make sure you can insert the feet into the plastic parts glued to the sides of the bucket.
2. Insert the feet into the holes in the bucket attachment parts.
3. Invert the bucket and you’re done!

I’ll do another post soon about how to actually use the device. If you’ve read the Airship Noir post, you know the basic steps are to place things on the bottom of the bucket, heat a plastic plate with a toaster oven, and lower the heated plate over the things you want to mold while the vacuum is one.

Bucket Vacuum Former

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And I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords

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