There was a “The Walking Dead” marathon on last night. Watched the whole thing in one sitting. :)
I like zombie movies. And, apparently zombie TV shows too. Who knew?
Author: Maker Block
Real conversation from work yesterday
Co-worker: <Demands Christmas present for some flippant remark I made.> Wait, do you celebrate Christmas?
MakerBlock: Well, I don’t have any Christmas stuff up in my office, so… I suppose not. Well, I do have a picture of an Easter Bunny. But, that’s because I believe in bunnies. I believe in bunnies but not Easter, teeth but not fairies, and claws but not Santas.
Aren’t you glad we don’t work together? You would have to put up with this kind of nonsense all the time.
Why would anyone want a vortex manipulator?
Answer: It’s a lot more convenient than strapping a TARDIS to your wrist.
Ever since seeing the season 5 finale of Doctor Who I’ve wanted my own printed vortex manipulator. I have a feeling Nick Starno’s pocket watch case for the MakerBot Watch would be a good place to start.
Just another random thing in my list of stuff I want to make.
500?!?!
Wow. I just noticed that I’ve got more than 500 posts on this site. That’s kinda cool.
Most of them seemed to make some sort of sense to me at the time.
The most awesome musical Craig Ferguson video you will see today
Dave Durant, Tony Buser – You’re welcome.
Doctor Who Christmas Special 2010 Trailer
Since the revival1 of Doctor Who they’ve had a Christmas Special each year, but it airs at least a day later here in the States. Last year I totally missed the Christmas Special and had to wait several more months before BBC America re-aired it. This year BBC and BBC America will be airing the Christmas Special on December 25! Huzzah!
In case you enjoy this show too, above is the trailer for the upcoming special. :)
- Regeneration? [↩]
Ideas for improvements on the Open Source Disc Shooter
Here are some of the ideas I’ve been kicking around:
- A magazine1 that you clip in the front of the shooter. When you clip it in it should depress a spring, or more likely, tension a rubber band. When you press the button clipping the magazine in, it could actually eject the empty magazine. That would be sweet.
- Lower profile. In looking at insides of the Tracer Guns, it looks like the only reason for the bulky barrels over a long thin slot is so the toy looks more like an actual gun. I’d rather have an optimal design that uses minimal plastic than something that looks like a gun.
- A variety of discs for maximum aerodynamics. In the designs uploaded to Thingiverse I included 18 variations on a disc. Perhaps some will fly or spin better than others.
- Rubber band powered mechanism. Rubber bands are easier to find, cut to size, and replace than metal springs. It could also lead to a more compact design.
I’m sure other ideas will come to me. I just wanted to jot them all down before I forget them.
Now that I have my chess set complete, it would be pretty cool to have a working OSDS prototype before Botacon.
Default Series Title- Hey, Dave, happy??? [↩]
It was called a “Tracer Gun”
Despite my best efforts I could not locate an image on the interwebs for the kind of disc shooter I remember playing with as a kid. Finally after much googling, I found a picture and the actual name of the type of toy. Apparently they were known as “Tracer Guns” and were produced circa the 1960’s through 1990’s. (Image of a Tracer Gun at right from collect-antiques.net). Whenever I searched for these online I only found references to larger disc guns that shot larger foam discs from cylinder mounted on top.
A variation I had not seen as a kid, but desperately wanted, was disc shooter that had a removable and re-loadable clip. In the pictures to the right you’ll see a grove about halfway down the barrel, just above a protuberance. That protuberance would house about 20-25 discs depending upon the gun you had. In order to load/reload the gun you would have to slip each disc under the firing pin one at a time.
Once I discovered the name of this type of toy, Wikipedia filled in the rest. They had some pictures of a tracer gun which had been taken apart to expose the insides. The best part is the gun depicted has a clip loading mechanism!
Having taken apart the non-clip version as a kid, I recall it having a similar metal spring as a source of power. 1 I believe the rubber band on the trigger is merely to keep it in place. The protuberance on the non-clip version and the clip on the clip version of the toys both contain springs for advancing the next disc into place.
To be clear, I am not looking to duplicate, copy, or replicate this toy. I don’t want that toy. Rather, I would love to print a toy of my own, or a collaborative, design that will shoot harmless plastic discs.
- They were quite breakable, unfortunately. [↩]
Help with the Disc Shooter?
The other day I sketched up a concept of a disc shooter – the style that used to be available in grocery store aisles at about my eye level. Strangely enough I noticed over time they moved them lower and lower on the shelves until they stopped carrying them entirely.
In any case, I’d really like to print out an open source version of a disc shooter. I was figuring that since we’re such good friends and all, you’d be willing to help out. I’ve already gotten the ball rolling and posted my work designing the various components.
I realize this is a frivolous use of your time, but wouldn’t it be cool to be all “pew pew!” and then I’d be all “pew pew pew!” 1
- I want to print mine in clear PLA so I can see the bits inside working and the discs in fluorescent red so they’re easier to find. [↩]
More cool Sketchup plugins
I’ve updated my prior post about cool Sketchup plugins with some interesting new plugins. 1 These should be very useful to anyone looking to develop printable models in Sketchup. Some allow for smoothing, fixing solids, adding curves, and other cool stuff.
- New to me. [↩]