Tag Archives: maker faire

Prepping for Maker Faire Bay Area 2024

Posted on by

It’s always a whirlwind heading into Maker Faire.  This year is no exception.  This past weekend we got things mostly ready for the Rocklin Maker Faire.  All of our robots were functional, which was really great.  A quick update to document progress and also act like a to-do list of sorts:

  • MakerKnit’s companion robot
    • My wife has knit her octopus
    • I’ve installed the Adafruit QtPy, NeoPixels, and touch sensors connected via BrownDogGadgets conductive thread through the legs
    • It’s been programmed to “blink” the two LED eyes randomly plus a small number of light shows for the body
    • Designed/3D printed several eyes, settling on a nice design that should make the eye animations look good
  • Kim’dael LightningSlayer’s Pendant
    • The youngest’s project has morphed from an LED arm to a CircuitPlayground in a pendant that just plays some notes when she presses buttons.
    • A long extension for the battery pack, using thicker gauge wire wound through the back of stock CircuitPlayground enclosure, is now the “necklace” portion for this project.
  • Dexter Starfighter’s ED-E
  • MakerBlock
    • My robot wasn’t quite ready for Maker Faire last year, but “ready enough” to share.  Last year the little bot was just sitting in a jar I carried around and not really visible to anyone.
    • This year I’ve added feet (entirely cosmetic), changed the battery pack around so it is removeable, swapped out dome diffusers, and am working on new animations/behaviors.
    • I realized that my old LED goggles were… janky.  This was because I had soldered some buttons to one side and then wired them into the Trinket directly, without any resistors.  While it /worked/, it caused some problems whenever I pressed a button.  I pulled the Trinket out and swapped in my new favorite board, the QtPy.
      • I really prefer programming / updating via CircuitPython over Arduino since there’s no pre-compile time and fussy Arduino connections.
      • Besides the programming/uploading, I love the built in RGB, up to 6 capacitive touch sensor, and easy serial communication
      • As an added plus, I soldered on the 2MB flash chip so the project as a ton of space. 1
      • And at almost the same price as a Triket ($0.50 more than the original, $0.50 less than the M0 Trinkets), it’s just easier to swap them into any project I would have previously put a Trinket into
  •  Soldering
    • I’ve really upgraded my soldering experience and it’s made a world of difference.  We moved about a year ago and there’s a space in the house where I can keep a soldering station out and ready to use.  Just having it available is such an upgrade.  I’ve had several handheld / pen style soldering irons over the years and they’re usually pretty terrible.  In fairness, this is also because I’m kinda terrible at soldering.  I had a basic garbage soldering iron from the local hardware store, upgrade one that had a little temperature control from Adafruit, and then upon the recommendation of a friend upgraded a few weeks ago to an X-TRONIC soldering station.
    • I gave my old soldering iron to my neighbor so he could work on a project for his wife.  As I got to finishing up work on the above projects I realized I couldn’t find my pen soldering iron from Adafruit – and that I didn’t want to find it anyhow.  It was fine.  It worked.  But, my soldering iron holder was cheap and flimsy and easy to tip over and the helping hands I had from Adafruit were “okay” for very small projects, but the joints came loose easily and the helping hands kept falling off.  Rather than spend $20 on another soldering iron I would hate, I dropped $70 on the X-TRONIC station which has built in helping hands and soldering iron holder.  Setting aside that it heats up very quickly, has good temperature control, melts solder quickly, and has great helping hands… it has a way to hold the soldering iron in a way that isn’t constantly anxiety inducing. 2
    • Having the soldering station handy has meant I don’t really mind whipping out a quick battery pack extension cable for our projects.  I just need to strip some wires, fire it up, drop some solder, and turn it off again.
    • I may have ruined the first soldering iron tip kinda quickly.  Again, I have no idea what I’m doing.  I would add solder, dip the tip in flux, wipe on sponge, and then do it all again.  This is a terrible process since all it does it add extra contaminants and gunk to the tip, reducing the ability of it to transfer heat effectively.  Instead, after watching a video, I learned I should run it at the lowest temperature appropriate for the solder/joint, just dab the tip in the brass wool to clean it up a little, then maybe wipe on the slightly damp sponge, and absolutely coat the tip in solder before putting it down.

Things left to do!

  • Things to finish
    • I’d really like to finish up the Fallout themed shirt/vest to go with my project
    • A way to attach my wife’s octopus to a purse strap
    • A better way to wear my robot on my shoulder – may use a similar foam paldron
    • A big chunky seat belt looking thing for the strap wearing my robot
    • I’ve got designs for a new bag to wear/carry around Maker Faire, but haven’t sewn them up yet – maybe this week!?!!?
  • Make sure we have
    • Enough batteries, battery packs, etc for our projects
    • USB chargers for our LiPo batteries in goggles
    • Finish my goggles (install battery, update code, possibly change out diffusers
    • Bring a few Maker Coins to give out (I bought 100 of the 5,000 minted, probably never to be minted again…)
    • Ways to show people links to learn more about our projects – probably via QR codes – though I might also use an RFID tag :)

Okay, back to work on… work… so I can get back to making!

  1. Note to self:  It requires a different version of CircuitPython, Haxpress, to make use of the chip storage [↩]
  2. I used to tape the cord of my soldering iron to the table and then place it on the flimsy stand [↩]

Companion Robots and Maker Faire Season!

Posted on by

I’m super excited for Maker Faire Bay Area / Mare Island and Mini Maker Faire Rocklin.1  I’m not just excited to see everything, but to show all the things I’ve been working on for a while now.  It’s also time to pick up all the little dev boards I’ve somehow accumulated and see if I can make anything with them to show off.

  1. Project Boards
    1. Wemos D1 Mini.  A small insanely cheap (~$3?!) WiFi enabled dev board2 , which has 4MB onboard and can run Arduino.  I think it can also run MicroPython, but I haven’t tested this yet.
    2. Wemos 600 Pico.  An even smaller, even cheaper (~$2 when ordered from China) WiFi enabled dev board that runs… MicroPython?  I think??  I’m saying “I think” because I haven’t been able to get it to do anything yet.
      1. Since starting this blog post, I found a guide on installing MicroPython on Wemos boards that seems promising.
        1. Flashing MicroPython on an ESP8266
        2. https://github.com/espressif/esptool/tree/master
        3. Arguing with Python to let me use “esptool.py”
          1. esptool -p COM13 -c esp8266 flash_id
      2. As promising as that series of blog posts looked, I eventually scrapped the Wemos because it was just too much of a pain to get going with MicroPython.  I think I could have made it work, but for $7 I could also just use the Adafruit QtPy I already have.  The advantages of simply uploading code over a USB cable into a virtual drive just can’t be overstated.
    3. Other Boards
      1. I have a bad habit of picking up dev boards.  I’ve got several Adafruit QtPy’s, several Adafruit Trinkets, an Adafruit FX Sound Board, Raspberry Pi Pico (non-WiFi), various Digispark boards, a small handful of ATTiny85’s, and an even weirder assortment of VERY small programmable circuit boards (ISD1806B-COB) designed to go in greeting cards (just 6 seconds), etc.
  2. Companion Robot
    1. Background.
      1. I started this post at least a month ago when I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to make and even fewer skills.  After seeing my kid’s companion robot take shape, I wanted to get in on the action and make my own.  I decided to make a really small companion robot with just some LED’s, piezo, and small microcontroller unit.  I’d taken a stab at making a companion robot a few years ago, but set it aside for a variety of reasons and never went back.
      2. The idea for this new robot would be something a little less ambitious, make more use of NeoPixels than in prior projects3, with a little more interactivity, trying out some CircuitPython, and… let’s be real… more pizzazz!
    2. Idea:  Friendly Cloud/Vapor/Flame
      1. I still really like the copper-toned PLA I’ve been using since it has something of a steampunk flair to it.  I settled on repurposing a small plastic enclosure with a clear dome as the “body” for the robot.  I wanted it to look something like a small entrapped / captive / domesticated4 sentient cloud of vapor or perhaps flame held within a steampunk enclosure.
      2. As a very small, inexpensive board that could run either Arduino or CircuitPython, I decided on the Adafruit QtPy M0.  It could run NeoPixels, there were lots of cool guides on it, plenty of pinouts, and could definitely fit within the confines of my enclosure.
    3. Enclosure:
      1. I started the enclosure by trying to design and 3D print a part to mate with the clear plastic dome.  It took a few tries.

        This slideshow requires JavaScript.

      2. Once I had that, I extended the base so it could hold more electronics.  I could definitely have shoehorned everything into the dome, especially if I took up some of the space inside the dome, but even with an “elevated base” it was still plenty small and could use a battery pack rather than a rechargeable lipo.
      3. Once I had a good design for the enclosure, I tried to make it work with an existing 3xAAA battery pack.  In the process I yanked off the connector and ended up soldering the battery pack leads directly into the circuits.
    4. Internal Electronics
      1. I’m just not a great electrical engineer and am still copy/pasting from various guides, tinkering, changing bits of code, swapping out parts, and using “close enough” resistors.  Wiring up some LEDs or a piezo to a project isn’t very difficult – it’s some of the more fiddly bits.
      2. Piezo Element Speaker
        1. I wanted to use a piezo buzzer/speaker because they’re large and incredibly thin.  They’re not without their downsides.  The crystal wafer is also thin and a little fragile.  The piezo buzzer without additional electronics has the potential to act as a knock sensor and can generate a high voltage spike which can fry a board.  And, without additional electronics, the piezo just isn’t very loud.  There are some libraries for the Arduino that basically double the volume of a piezo by connecting it to two pins and then running each opposite of the other, doubling the voltage difference, but they only work for Arduino chips.5
        2. After searching for various ways to increase the sound of the piezo elements, I settled on trying to use the Adafruit piezo amp.  I bought two – and tried desoldering the terminal blocks.  This completely ruined one.  The other one worked great, but for the modest volume gain it was just too big in an already cramped enclosure.
        3. After searching around, I found some amplifier circuits using a small number of common parts.6
        4. Then I tried building an amplifier circuit using an NPN transistor.  After reviewing the datasheets for my NPN transistors (and PNP transistors), and breadboarding the circuit with resistors, I sketched it a few times, laid it down with copper tape, soldered it in place with SMD resistors, then pulled it off and placed it onto a piece of Kapton tape and put another piece on top – “laminating” it in place.
      3. Capacitive Touch
        1. Buttons are great and all, but with a capacitive touch pad, I could add metallic elements to my robot rather than a much bulkier button.  I bought a few brass upholstery tacks because they looked great – but they just would not accept molten solder.  I ended up cutting the prongs short with wire cutters, wrapping the stub with copper tape, then soldering the wires to the tape.  I’d also added a little piece of heat shrink tubing over the connection to help keep it together.  It’s been working well so far.
      4. LED Animations
        1. As we know from Phillip Burgess‘ incredible “power sipping NeoPixel” guide, we can conserve power and increase the impact of the LED’s by reducing the number of LED’s, keeping max brightness ~20% for a disproportionately large impact, running fewer LED’s at a time, and even running fewer colors at a time.  Between Phillip’s work, Todbot’s guide, and the specialized QtPy NeoPixel guide by Kattni Rembor, I was able to put together a few neat animations.
      5. Piezo Sounds
        1. I had a heck of time getting the piezo buzzer to do anything interesting.  Fortunately, with my kid helped convert the piano music for “Paint It Black” into tones for me.  I haven’t gotten all the note timings right, but I’m working on it!
  3. Future Modifications
    1. More Accessible Enclosure.  Right now the “lid” with a hole for the LED ring just sits on the enclosure with a light friction fit.  One idea is a hinged lid, either with a conventional hinge or perhaps a hidden swivel hinge.  The problem with that, of course, is it requires even more internal space.  Other ideas include a ring on top that screws down, holding the top down and in place.  I’m crap at designing screw threads, so I’ve avoided this.

      Hinged lid for enclosure

      Hinged lid for enclosure

    2. Piezo Knocks.  Perhaps the next version will include some kind of tap / double tap / knock sensors using one or more piezo elements.
    3. Knobs.  There’s not a ton of room inside the enclosure, but by including a gear within a gear, I might be able to rotate part of the case and have it manipulate a potentiometer.

      Offset gear within gear, manipulating an off-center internal potentiometer

      Offset gear within gear, manipulating an off-center internal potentiometer

    4. Motors.  A robot that just flashes lights and makes a few beeps can still be pretty interesting.  However, I have some neat potential features that could be added with just one or two motors.  There are some interesting limitations with the current incarnation of this robot and using a QtPy.  I’ve only got 10 pinouts7 , 1 for NeoPixels, 1 for the piezo, 6 in use for the capacitive touch sensors, leaving 2 for other potential tasks.8  However, space is already tight so one or two micro servos would be a big space commitment.  I’ve seen some really tiny micro servos that might work, but I have no idea where to source them.  One silly idea is a “weapons system” using a spring loaded projectile activated by a very small servo.

      A small spring loaded projectile launcher, actuated by a small servo

      A small spring loaded projectile launcher, actuated by a small servo

    5. Creating Tone Library.  The basic piezo tones are easy enough to play, but including the entire list of tones and the frequencies associated with them seems eat up the poor little QtPy’s memory.  I think compressing them into a library might be the way around this issue.
    6. Playing WAV files.  WAV files are bulky, but that’s the only sound file format a QtPy M0 can play.  However, with the extra 2MB from the SPI chip installed, this shouldn’t be a huge problem.  I used Audacity to mix the sound clip down to mono then to 22 KHz sample rate.  My preliminary tests worked – but it was incredibly quiet.  I haven’t run it through the audio amplifier yet, but I’m planning to.
    7. Sleep / Deep Sleep.  Ever since I swapped out the tiny LiPo for a 3xAAA battery pack, I’ve had a lot more battery life, so adding sleep / deep sleep functions haven’t been a priority.  However, this inclusion just couldn’t hurt.
  4. Other QtPy and CircuitPython Resources
    1. Adafruit’s QtPy CircuitPython PWM resource
    2. TodBot’s CircuitPython tricks
Companion Robots: Building Robot Friends
  1. Cephalopod Robot Friend, the story so far
  2. Cephalopod Robot Friend Progress
  3. CuttleBot Body and OpenSCAD Design Tips
  4. An Assembled CuttleBot Body
  5. Building the Monocle Top Hat Cat for #MicrobitVirtualConcert
  6. Companion Robots and Maker Faire Season!
  1. I just got a notice they’re no longer a “Mini”! [↩]
  2. pinouts for my future reference [↩]
  3. LED goggles and a Marvel Universe inspired set of “Infinity Knuckles” [↩]
  4. OMG dome-sticated?! [↩]
  5. This is just my very basic understanding of how it works.  I’m entirely positive this is far too simplified. [↩]
  6. And one very long article about using a lot of parts [↩]
  7. 12 if you want to count the onboard NeoPixel [↩]
  8. Or 4… [↩]

Beep Boop: Emotions for ED-E

Posted on by

So I’m trying to program emotions for ED-E.

Better ed-e dialogue at Fallout New Vegas - mods and community

In Fallout New Vegas, ED-E doesn’t use regular dialogue, but communicates through beeps. Basically, he gets <(Emotion) + beeping> as his dialogue. Obviously the only way to research his beeping for this project is to replay Fallout New Vegas and talk to everyone’s favorite eyebot. I came up with a list of some of the emotional beeps he has in the game (and some that I just want) to start programming into him. I have ideas for what I want him to sound like, but I just need to find the right pitches and durations.

By this I mean I am sitting in my room and saying “beep beep” to myself at different pitches in sync with a program I wrote.

Yesterday my dad was checking in on me and how my programming was going and asked how I was doing. I replied, approximately, “bleurrrrghhhhh.”
I was having trouble programming the emotional beeps because I have very specific ideas for what ED-E should sound like and no way to get that into a computer. I’m a huge music nerd, but I unfortunately don’t have perfect pitch or some superhuman ability like that to use to get ED-E to sound exactly like I want him to.1 Dad suggested using a loop with an array going up every time, which made everything so. Much. Easier.
This plays frequencies starting at 100hz and going up by 10hz every time. I started with 100hz but going up by 50hz every time, but I liked the specificity of 10hz. Once I get in the ballpark of where I want to be, I can then just run the program and correct the pitches if need be.
If you read my last post, specifically the spoiler section, you will know why I started with a shy beep. If you didn’t read my last post, go do that! If you didn’t read the spoiler section, that’s fine. What you really need to know is that I want ED-E to make noises.
I’ll admit, this took a while to get right. Not playing the tones or even figuring out what pitches they were or how long they should play for. No, getting the tones to play was easy. Getting them to stop… was much harder.
ED-E was shyly screaming at me on repeat for at least 10 minutes while I was slowly losing my mind and trying to make him shut up.
I turned to ChatGPT to help me fix this, but it was utterly unhelpful and I ended up fixing the problem myself by deleting a bunch of the garbage it generated. Now the problem was that I had to continually upload the code to make the ShyBeep function run again. I was happy that it wasn’t looping anymore, but I wanted to fine tune the beeps and making it upload again and again was a pain. That’s why I decided to make it run when a button is pressed.2
It took a little while to make it run when a button was pressed, but then it would only run once and never again, even if the button was pressed. I finally realized that this was happening because runOnce was set to false, and fixed that.
Now that I have this framework, it has been much easier to program more beeps. Now I have a sad beep, and I’m going to start working on a happy beep because I have had just about enough of ED-E’s negativity.3
  1. I almost decided to use the definitions of pitch from my Rickroll code so I could just ask the computer to start at middle C and go down or say I want the pitch to be a half note in 3/4 time. I then realized I was making this WAY more complicated than it needed to be and just used seconds and hz like a normal-ish person [↩]
  2. I seriously love Circuit Playgrounds. They have everything. [↩]
  3. Just kidding ED-E, I love you [↩]

ED-E Project: Origins

Posted on by

Hi, I’m DexterStarfighter, offspring of MakerBlock.1 I am a maker and artist with possibly too many interests that include drawing, writing, cats, theatre, video games, horror podcasts, folklore, coding, Jenga, history, triangles, succulents, and reading literally anything. I have been going to MakerFaire for basically my entire life and it has always been something I look forward to for the whole year. As soon as Dad told me MakerFaire was coming back, I knew I had to make something super cool for the occasion. This brings me to my latest project, a companion robot.

First, some background. My favorite game is part of the Fallout series (New Vegas, if you were wondering). I started the Fallout series because my dad played them when the first Fallout came out and I wanted to be able to share a cool game with him. I started Fallout 1 and loved it, then played Fallout 2 and 3. Over the summer, Epic Games released Fallout New Vegas with all DLCs for free and of course, I played the crap out of that.23

In Fallout New Vegas, there are various companions you can take with you on your journey through the Wasteland. There are human companions of course (and ghoul and nightkin), but you can also take with you one nonhuman companion. At first I was super disappointed that I couldn’t find Dogmeat. I don’t actually like being around dogs in real life, but I got Dogmeat in Fallout 1 and somehow I have become very attached. (I do not even want to think about how many times I have reloaded a save to keep that little jerk alive.) I quickly got over my disappointment though, because there is a statue of a dinosaur and now I’m disappointed that you can’t have a dinosaur robot companion. Anyway, in my travels through the Mojave, I found two interesting nonhuman companions. The first one I found was this little eye bot named ED-E. I play as a charismatic nerd (high INT and CHA with good repair, speech, barter and science) so I was able to fix him up. ED-E was still only able to beep in ways I couldn’t understand and when I brought him to where I was supposed to for his quest, there was some sort of glitch and I couldn’t interact with the lady for the quest. ED-E seemed kind of lame to me then, so I took him back to the place I found him and left. I later ran into a dog named Rex who I had to take care of for an Elvis impersonator (no, really) and found he was a pretty good companion.

Flash forward to the endgame. I had met a cowboy robot, climbed a dinosaur statue, resurrected a B-29, fought a soldier for a dog’s brain, charmed a scientist, accidentally sided with the mafia, cleaned out an entire casino, assassinated a 261-year-old man, had my vital organs removed, stolen 27 bars of gold, befriended a man wrapped in toilet paper, and was well on my way to conquering New Vegas for myself. I had only one more thing to check off my list: walking the Courier’s Mile. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil the Lonesome Road quest for you- I’ll just tell you that I met ED-E again. Somehow, within the first few minutes of interacting with him, I had become so completely charmed by this little robot that I would do literally anything to protect him. I’m not sure what about ED-E made him so endearing to me, but he became my best friend. 

GameBanshee

In 2019, I met Odd_Jayy at MakerFaire. I remember seeing his spider bot and thinking how cool it was. I’ve always liked the idea of a companion bot, but I’ve never actually had a specific idea of what I want out of one. When dad told me that we would be going to MakerFaire again, I immediately thought of an ED-E companion bot.4 Dad loved the idea too and gave me lots of good tips on how to get started. I have a tendency to get lost in the details, so he helped me focus on the big picture and the first steps I could take to achieving my goals.

I have a lot of ideas about what I want ED-E to do eventually, but I’m a complete beginner at Arduino programming. Knowing this, Dad suggested starting small. First, turn on one light. Then multiple lights. Then make them flash. Then make them change colors. Then add beeps. Stuff like that. I was like “cool, cool” and immediately programmed ED-E to beep the entirety of Never Gonna Give You Up instead of doing literally anything sensible.

I regret nothing. It was frustrating at first because I was super out of my depth. I used Chlorondria’s arrangement of Never Gonna Give You Up and used ChatGPT to help me learn how the code works. ChatGPT was super helpful because I could get feedback on why my code wasn’t working. The sense of accomplishment when I finally recognized the tune made all the frustration so incredibly worth it.

After my self-indulgent first project for ED-E, I moved on to taking Dad’s suggestions. Sort of. I’m a teenager, and therefore I am legally obliged not to listen to any authority figures, real or perceived. I made ED-E flash some rainbow lights. I started with just red lights and it took a while to make the code work, but once I made it work, I just changed the color brightnesses. Fun fact: my ED-E bot now actually glows two shades of blue in his rainbow light show pattern. For some reason I decided RGB stood for Red Yellow Blue and messed up with the color values when I was trying to make green and accidentally made a light blue. The light blue actually looked pretty cool, so I decided to keep it.

Today, I worked more on5 ED-E’s… musical function. I’m going to warn you right now: there will be spoilers for MakerFaire below! I intend to take ED-E to MakerFaire with me, and if you meet him, there will be some fun surprises in store for you. Not if you read the spoilers, though. MakerFaire is a big place and I don’t expect everyone who visits this page to run into me at the Faire, so I’ll include some stuff about the surprises below. 

***SPOILERS START***

 

If you’re still here, I assume you want to read this. One of my favorite things about ED-E in Fallout are the little conversations you can have with him. I want to be able to have a few little “conversations” with my companion bot, kind of like in the game. I’m going to have a Pip-Boy with various buttons to run functions for ED-E, but one of the first conversations I thought of had to do with his musical function. This was my idea:

 

Me: Hey, ED-E. Do you wanna sing them your favorite song?

ED-E: [Shy beeping]

Me: Aw, are you shy?

ED-E: [Shy beeping]

Me: Come on, ED-E. We’d all really like to hear you sing!

ED-E: [Questioning beeping]

Me: Yes, of course! Listen, I’ll ask them. Do you want to hear ED-E sing his favorite song?

Other person: Yes!

Me: See, ED-E? 

ED-E: [Pleased beeps, wait, then Rickroll beeps]

 

Obviously, I’m not going to make ED-E understand my words and respond to them. ED-E will be a shoulder mounted bot, so I want to be able to have conversations that trigger based on movement. I’m using a Circuit Playground, so I intend to take full advantage of all the different sensors it has. I programmed ED-E to run his Rickroll function if he senses a significant change in acceleration. I’ll pop my shoulder like I’m giving him a nudge, triggering the function. He waits for 8 seconds to give me time to talk, then plays the Rickroll beeps.

I have to admit, this took a WHILE to get right. It was still incredibly satisfying to see it all come together and go right. I was so excited when it started working! I did a lot of testing to get the sensitivity right because I don’t want it to trigger if I’m just walking around. I’m still fine tuning that part because I bumped the cord earlier and he started Rickrolling me. Then again, maybe ED-E just has a funny sense of humor.

 

***SPOILERS END***

So, what’s next for ED-E? I think the next thing I want to work on is getting his beeps right. I can make him beep music, and that’s great, but I also want to have him beep every so often and have “conversations” with him. I’m going to program some little beep clips for different emotions or situations that I can then mix and match into various conversations. I might also actually listen to Dad for once and work on a light show.

Thanks for reading about my ED-E project! I’ve enjoyed working on him and I’m so excited to share him with other makers. I’ll try to post updates regularly (they shouldn’t be as long as this one since you won’t need all the background next time). Thank you to Odd_Jayy for the inspiration, Chlorondria for the musical arrangement, ChatGPT for the troubleshooting help, Adafruit for making awesome boards, whoever made Fallout New Vegas, MakerBlock for being a great dad and helpful sounding board, and to you for reading this post.

ED-E Companion Bot Project

  1. ED-E Project: Origins
  2. Beep Boop: Emotions for ED-E

  1. I considered saying progeny and descendant of the House of MakerBlock, but offspring sounded the best. Progeny sounded weird and the descendant thing reminded me of Game of Thrones, which I have not read or watched, but I might someday and I don’t want to invite spoilers. [↩]
  2. I love Epic Games. Free games every week? Yes please! Disclaimer: I am not being sponsored by Epic Games, but if I was, that would be awesome. [↩]
  3. New Vegas is best Fallout, you can fight me on this. [↩]
  4. I also considered a Muggy companion bot. I love Muggy and if ED-E turns out well, Muggy might be my next project. [↩]
  5. Lol, moron [↩]

DIYFaire.com: Hello Maker World!

Posted on by

There were dark rumors going into Maker Faire Bay Area 2019 which imparted a cloud over the event.  On June 8, 2019 I was still reeling from the news Make and Maker Faire were closing, so I bought a domain and created a website (DIYFaire.com, now lapsed) with the idea that come January of 2020 perhaps I might find a way to get together again with far flung friends on the same weekend.

The website is gone, but Archive.org remembers and the WordPress installation may yet exist.  Although I write this preamble on 7/12/2023, the day I will remember I’d heard Maker Faire was coming back, I’d like to preserve that post on 6/8/2019 here on my main blog:

Make: and Maker Faire may be gone. I hope they’re not. I hope Dale and the Make crew figure out a way to rise up. People made things, just for the sake of making them long before Make they’ll continue to do so. Knowing people will continue to make doesn’t really salve my sense of loss. I feel like we’ve lost too much, mourned too much, and it still feels so raw.

 

At the same time I’m not going to miss Makers, because I don’t have to. Makers are not going anywhere. I am going to miss the opportunity to meet up with Makers and far flung friends at least once a year at Maker Faire.

 

Fortunately, the end of Make and Maker Faire are not the end of the friendships sparked and forged there.

 

Here’s my promise to you, right now. On the weekend of May 16-17, 2020 I’m going to travel out to San Mateo. I’m going to stay out there for the weekend. And, I’m going to bring some stuff I’ve made or been working on.

 

I don’t have any idea what “DIYFaire.com” is going to be. If nothing else, it’s a place holder.

 

It’s a “save the date.”

 

If I don’t see you sooner, dear friend, let’s start making something together right now. Let’s make a plan to hang out, share things, and continue our friendship. You’ll forgive me for ending with someone else’s words.

 

“And if you’ve come this far, maybe you’re willing to come a little further. You remember the name of the town, don’t you?”

Maker Faire Application: Vacuum Forming Workshop

Posted on by

DIY Vacuum Formed Arc Reactors

DIY Vacuum Formed Arc Reactors

I’ve been making some notes as I work on my vacuum former and the proposed workshop for this year’s Bay Area Maker Faire.  Here’s some ideas and thoughts, in no particular order.12

  • Workshop Proposal
    • I’ve demonstrated my bucket vacuum former at my daughter’s school a few times – and it is always a huge hit.  The vacuum formed result looks like so much more than the product of very cheap and accessible materials.  Two years ago I put on a presentation at Maker Faire about how to build a vacuum former – and this year I want to try something even more ambitious.  Here’s the slideshow from 2017.

    • I want to do an entire workshop on how to build and operate a vacuum former – and then let people try to vacuum form their own objects.  One of my favorite things to vacuum form is an “Arc Reactor” and then augment it with an RGB flashing LED and a coin cell battery.  However, I think people would also enjoy making goggles and phone cases.  It takes about 30 seconds to heat up the plastic and just seconds to actually vacuum form a shape and let it cool down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Prj04gPeLw

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

  • New Developments
    • Several months ago, just before Thanksgiving, our stovetop stopped working.  Yeah.  I know.  Talk about timing, right?  While we scrambled to get a new cooktop ordered, delivered, and installed, we also purchased an inexpensive hot plate from Amazon.  I had originally used an old hand-me-down large toaster oven to heat up the plastic, but wondered … is there a better way?  That toaster oven is huge and takes a long time to heat up.  This weekend I was delighted to learn the hot plate heats up very quickly, gets hot enough to soften the plastic, and works as a fantastic and compact replacement for the toaster oven.
      • There are a few caveats to using the hot plate.
        • The heat was more localized, causing the center of the plastic to become thinner and saggier.  When the plastic plates were heated in the toaster oven, they tended to heat more evenly.  Perhaps if I tried a lower heat setting or held the plastic plate higher, this might be mitigated.
        • It’s hard to get a sense of the plastic without actually watching it get soft and wobbly.  This is especially true when the plate is inside the toaster oven – there’s only room enough for one or two people to see what’s going on.  However, with the hot plate, there’s no enclosure3 to obscure an audience view.
        • I was somewhat paranoid about letting the plastic droop down onto the heating element.  I’m pretty sure it would smelled horrible, made a huge mess, been nearly impossible to clean, and made the hot plate unsuitable for any other purposes.  I may try to locate a cheap hot plate from a second hand / thrift store / goodwill to take to Maker Faire.  Though, now I’m also wondering if it might be possible to repurpose an old coffee maker, grill, griddle, or panini press, into the heater for this project.  Maybe if I covered the heating element in aluminum foil first, that would protect the surface?
      • The power switch of the vacuum head / bucket head is conveniently placed right on top for normal operation.  For unusual operations such as this, where the vacuum is upside down, it is decidedly inconvenient.  I used a power strip with a switch which made it much easier to operate the vacuum.  I think I may invest in a dedicated foot switch extension cord for this project.  It’s a very cheap upgrade that would make it a lot easier to do.
    • I also have a prior post discussing some additional ideas on how to improve this process.
  • Accessories / Things to Bring to Maker Faire.  There are SO many little parts to a project – forget any one little thing and you’re going to be making a last minute trip to the hardware store.4 Here’s a few lists of things I will need:
    • Parts
      • Bucket
      • Vacuum head
      • Hot plate
      • Power strip or foot switch extension cord
      • One or two wire coat hangers
      • 6x Small to medium binder clips
      • Wooden dowel (1x 6″ riser, 3x 8″ legs)
      • 3D printed parts (1x plug, 2x riser caps, 3x leg holders, 3x feet)
      • Hot glue
    • Building Tools
      • Drill (for drilling holes)
      • Ruler and / or paper grid
      • Chisels
      • Hacksaw (cutting the wooden dowels)
      • Hot glue gun
      • Sharpie
    • Presentation Tools
      • Heat gun
      • Scissors (cutting plastic plates)
      • Old socks (DIY oven mitts)
    • Materials
      • Examples of plastic plates in various stages of the process
      • Examples of items made, also in various stages of production
    • Consumables
      • Plastic plates
      • Tape (clear packing tape works well)
      • Fishing line
      • Elastic cord
      • Pens (metallic permanent markers)
      • LED’s
      • Batteries
      • Maybe stickers to give away?

Bucket Vacuum Former

  1. How to Make a Vacuum Former
  2. How to Use a Vacuum Former
  3. Vacuum Former – Things to Form
  4. Vacuum Former – Ideas to Improve Vacuum Former
  5. Maker Faire 2017 How to Make a Vacuum Former Presentation Slides
  6. Vacuum Forming an Arc Reactor
  7. Maker Faire Application: Vacuum Forming Workshop

  1. As always, as much to inform you, dear reader, as to order my own thinking and jot things down before I forget them [↩]
  2. DOCUMENT!!! [↩]
  3. And, now that I think of it, it may be the enclosure which causes more even heating… [↩]
  4. Not that this is a bad thing.  But, I’d rather have to go because I want to do go [↩]

Maker Faire 2018 – 3D Printing for Home Improvement

Posted on by

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.

Practical 3D Printing for Everyone

Posted on by

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

3D printing can sometimes get a bad rap.  At first people are excited by the possibilities, then after printing a few trinkets the novelty can really start to wear off.  However, our 3D printers have become an absolutely critical part of our home repairs.

We have printed literally dozens and dozens of things in and around our home.  As of the time I’m editing this post, we’re up to 82 things so far!  The vast majority of these are completely bespoke custom creations, with a few things that are printed from Thingiverse or mashups with things from Thingiverse.

My proposed Maker Faire Bay Area 2018 Presentation submission is for a presentation that discusses:

  1. Practical things everyone can 3D print for their own home
    1. Repairs
    2. Improvements
    3. Other useful things
  2. 3D Printing with Family and Friends
    1. Specifying a purpose (“Honey, can you make me something that…”)
    2. Specifying dimensions and purpose (“I need something that will…”)
    3. Simple techniques for creating replacement parts (using good reference photos, GIMP, Inkscape, and OpenSCAD)
  3. 3D Design with Family and Friends
    1. Photographs
    2. Sketches
    3. TinkerCAD and Sketchup

Default Series Title

Hacked Tap Light Enclosure

Posted on by

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.

Default Series Title

Cheapest Easiest Easy Button Hack EVER

Posted on by

But... could it be even EASIER?!

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.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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.123

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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

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.  ;)

Default Series Title

  1. 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 [↩]
  2. In my tradition of naming my 3D printers after characters from Futurama, my Monoprice Mini Delta is named “Roberto.” [↩]
  3. My prior 3D printers are Bender the MakerBot Cupcake CNC, Flexo the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic, and HedonismBot the Replicator 1 Dual [↩]
  4. 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 [↩]
  5. Not counting the gelato we ate, of course [↩]
  6. What a waste!!! [↩]