Kevin's Blog

Remote Control and Gumstix

Kevin — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 04:35:59 +0000

This is my new blackberry storm. For a while I was going to build a hardware based remote control for project-E… but as the design became a little clearer to me; the remote control became a little too complicated for a hardware based system. I thought the touch based interface on the storm would make a nice remote control. The entire remote can then be implemented in software which makes a lot of neat possibilities easier to do.

So far the storm has been pretty fun to develop for. It’s completely java based and very well documented. I know it’s not the geekiest phone out there right now but it was the best one for my purposes. My first choice would have been the G1 but unfortunately it’s only on a network that doesn’t have anywhere near the coverage that Verizon has. I don’t always like all of Verizon’s policies but it’s hard to beat their network coverage. I absolutely love the design of Apple’s phone, but they don’t seem to be very friendly towards developers and I find it difficult to understand how so many developers get excited over a phone that its company is so restrictive about.

Here is a look at my current work. Most of my work has been concentrated on gumstix development for the last couple weeks. I have the custom code written and communication up and running between the gumstix and the roboaudiostix via i2c. I’ll start posting my code soon… I just have to figure how I want to start posting the code to the blog.

I also have bluetooth communication working between my blackberry storm and my gumstix although the code has to be finished on the gumstix. The custom code is working on the blackberry but I simply used minicom running on the gumstix to verify my data coming across so far. My next step will to write the custom c code that runs on the gumstix to handle the incoming messages from the storm.

Here is a closeup of my new gumstix board. I now have a verdex pro XM4-bt to use as the main computer for the parade. I changed to a new board for two reasons. One is that I needed enough memory to store the wav file for the parade and the new verdex pro boards have an on-board SD card slot on them, and the other is the control system is now a blackberry storm. The best way way to control project-E with the blackberry is via bluetooth so it just made sense to have a board with built in bluetooth.

Some Additional Details About My Halloween 2008 Project

Kevin — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 07:00:53 +0000

Here is an overview of the entire design of the pumkins.

Here is the schematic for the candles. I doubt if it is that good… It’s the first real schematic that I have ever put together. I created it in eagle CAD.?

This is just the simple power supply for both the converter and each candle. I put a power supply on each candle so I could increase the voltage on the lines running to the candles to compensate for the longer runs if necessary.?

Here is the schematic for the RS232 to RS485 Converter. I used this to connect the “Pumpkin Network” to my computer. I would send commands out the RS232 port on my computer into this thing. The commands would then get converted to RS485 signals and broadcast to all the pumpkins. This version currently does not support two way communication. I only needed to tell the pumpkins what to do.?

Getting Started with Xbee

Kevin — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 06:54:04 +0000

To get started with Xbee I am flashing all the firmware on the chips and making sure my newly built kits from Adafruit Industries are working correctly. In the picture I am using an arduino board without the chip as a USB to TTL-232 converter to talk to the Xbee Chip. I later ordered a couple of cables from Adafruit Industries that do this for you. They come in real handy!?

If you couldn’t tell already why I had the helping hands in the previous picture… here is a closer look. It’s holding one of the wires connected to the Xbee directly to a point on the Arduino board that wasn’t exposed on one of the connectors. Hence why I found it a little nicer to order the USB-TTL232 cables. It worked just fine… but those USB-TTL232 Cables come in handy for so many things. I often use to debug my microcontrollers by hooking a max232 chip up to the microcontroller. I would then use a USB to RS232 cable to hook my computer to the MAX232 chip. Now I just plug the USB-TTL232 into my computer and hook it up directly to my chip. Works great.?

Assembling my Xbee kits from Adafruit

Kevin — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:51:11 +0000

Thank goodness for companies like Adafruit Industries! One of the pain in the butt parts of project-E was going to be that I wanted to use Xbee connect all the robots together. Xbee is awesome, but it has two challenges to integrating it into common circuits. One is that the spacing of the pins is not .100 like bread boards and prototyping boards are so you are going to need some sort of pcb to make it fit and also that the Xbee chips are 3.3v and are not 5v tolerant. Well Adafruit makes this wonderful kit that does all the voltage level shifting for you so you can use a Xbee chip with a 5v circuit and with a nice breakout for breadboarding!?

Here is my completed kit. It was pretty easy to put together.?

Here is my kit with the Xbee chip in place.

My new Gumstix

Kevin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:48:16 +0000

This is the gumstix that I bought to be the brains of the robotic swarm. In this picture I have a gumstix on top, a tweener board in the middle, and a roboaudiostix on the bottom. I’ve been looking for a reason to buy one of these for a while.

The very early morning of the party

Kevin — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 06:44:43 +0000

Here are the 7 candles almost done. That was one night with a heck of a lot of soldering.?

Here is one of the completed candles up close.?

Here is the bottom of one of the completed candles.?

The madness begins

Kevin — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:39:01 +0000

Now for the mad rush. I should point out that all of this construction is happening the night before my Halloween party. At the bottom of the picture you can see my first completed candle. Laying circuitry out on a breadboard is obviously not the same as laying out a circuit for a production model so I had to build one first to see how it would go. I decide to just to use some prototyping board from radio shack to build my 8 candles. It would have been better to create a pcb for these, but I hadn’t done that before and I definitely didn’t have time with less than 24 hours till party time.?

Here is a closer look at my completed first model.?

Here are a few of the remaining 7 halfway completed with some of the components on the board.?

Prototype is beginning to work

Kevin — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 06:36:31 +0000

Well my crazy debugging scheme worked well enough to allow me figure out how to send a command to my candle from my computer to tell it to start flickering yellow.?

Here is my candle prototype flickering blue after transmitting it the appropriate command.?

Getting started developing the candles

Kevin — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 06:36:06 +0000

To describe what is going on in this picture…
- I would first send command messages for the candle via RS232 serial signal from the computer to the small board on the left which would convert it to a RS485 signal so it could be broad cast to all the candles throughout my dungeon.
- An RS485 signal travels from the converter (small board on the left) to the larger board on the right which is my led candle prototype.
- Then on a temporary basis I have debug messages sent via TWI serial interface from the candle prototype(large board on the left) to the circuit for debugging purposes (large board in the top right).
- That board then sends the debug messages via RS232 back into the computer to display on a terminal screen.

This may not have been the best way to do this, but it sure was fun seeing if I could make it work. All that being said on my next project I really need to figure out how to properly debug Atmega microcontrollers.

First Proposal to Buddi on Split Transaction Support

Kevin — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 05:41:12 +0000

This is my proposal to the Buddi project for adding functionality to the application to split transactions into multiple categories.

First I would start by adding a split button next to the category drop down box in the transaction entry area on an account form. If one is concerned that the split functionality is too complicated for some people then I may make it a preference similar to the reconcile and clear transaction boxes. The split button is really the only major change to any existing forms so if it was disabled by default then the application would behave exactly as it does now. I’m not saying it should be disabled by default, only that it is a possibility if you wanted to keep the application extremely simple by default.

Now lets say that you wanted to enter a transaction for the store Target. Now that is a store I always need to split transactions for. Let’s say that spend $15.53. I would just enter the transaction like normal except that when I get to the category drop down I would simply press the split button next to the drop down. A window would pop up with another category drop down in it and 15.53 next to the drop down. Let’s say that I spent roughly $10.00 on wine (I know… cheap wine) and $5.00 on a soccer ball. So I would select groceries as the category and then enter 10.00 over the 15.53….

when I press enter or tab or whatever then a new line would automatically be inserted below the existing line with another drop down and 5.53 in the amount window next to it (since this is what remains of the split). Now at this point I could simply choose a category and press save or if I had more splits to do I could continue this trend until I have assigned all money a category. You will not be able to press save successfully without assigning everything to a category.

After you press save and then press enter to complete the transaction then the transaction would simply show -split- (or something like it) to show that the transaction has been split.

Everything else pretty much works like normal. If I click on a category in the budget screen then the transaction would be listed just like normal in the list.

A couple of notes…

It would probably be nice to make a mouse over the split category field show a list of the assigned categories but this would only look right for 5 to 10 transactions or less.. This will probably cover 99% of people though and I would just display a … for people who feel the need to split a transaction more then 10 ways.

I put a line at the bottom of the list to display the amount remaining to be split. This line may be unnecessary or may be helpful to the user… I have to think about it still a bit.

There may be also a need to add a button that manually adds a new line to the transaction split window.

New Financial Software

Kevin — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 05:23:01 +0000

I have recently implemented a new personal financial and budgeting program called Buddi for managing my own finances. I was using Quicken on the Mac but was astonished to find out that there is absolutely no API for interacting with the software. How could a company that has such a large market share of a mainstream product not have a way for other companies or people to integrate with it? It did look like they had API for the windows software but not for the mac.

Anyhow, to improve the work flow of my life, I wanted to have a personal financial platform that I could write plug-ins for or at least have scripts or something tie into it so that it would allow me to do something like automating the process of entering in bills or other mundane financial task a little easier for myself. I have also been playing around with the idea of a Google gadget or something that could allow me to enter transactions from any desktop in my house or display my balance information. With out the ability to integrate into the software this would become a real pain.

This is what lead me on a search for a new financial application. One of my criteria was that I wanted the software to be completely cross platform. Our family computer is a Mac and that is a necessary platform for the software to run on but my own personal workstation is a Linux box, and it would be nice to run the software on that system as well. I also wanted the software to have a published interface for integrating with it. That lead me to two products…

Buddi and MoneyDance

They are both Java applications so they run on Windows, Mac, and Linux. I can’t really give a review of MoneyDance since I did not try it but it looked like a pretty impressive application and filled all the requirements. However, Buddi looked like a very polished application as well and it was open source so I opted to try it first. At first I wasn’t sure if Buddi was going to have enough features but after a while that is exactly why I liked it. With Quicken I always felt like I wasn’t getting the most out of the software because it has all these features that seemed to get in the way and slow you and the application down more then they helped you. With Buddi, the application feels extremely snappy and easy to navigate around in.

One feature that people seem to always ask me about is whether or not Buddi integrates with the bank and downloads your transactions automatically. First I say no, but then I tell them why that is a good thing. Even when I was using quicken I was not downloading my transactions because I felt it really took away one of the benefits of tracking your finances. If you are always just going to download your transactions, why even bother using standalone software. Just log on and look at your account online. It’s the exact same data because all you did was sync it. I feel that if you just automatically download all your transactions then there is a much higher chance that you are going to miss a transaction where you were charged to much or a transaction that is not yours. By entering in your transactions throughout the week and then balancing your account on the weekend you have a much better grasp on your finances. If you manage your finances properly anyways, you should be entering them in as you spend money so that you can see exactly how much you have left. Then there is no need to sync with your bank. Entering transactions for Buddi is extremely easy too. One of the features that I immediately liked was that it remembered a lot of what I had already entered into it and it would fill in a lot of fields automatically as I entered transactions. It has an extremely refined interface for an open source application (and believe me, I use a lot of open source apps).

Where Buddi excels is it’s budgeting features. It’s primarily designed to allow someone to create a budget and to easily track spending and to monitor how well you are staying on budget. Since one of my primary goals was to better track my spending on projects and to more easily budget for future projects then this was a huge draw for me to use Buddi. It even has graphs and charts to show your spending and budgeting.

Overall Buddi is not perfect in that it does not have some of the bells and whistles that you may be use to in a financial application. Some of these shortfalls that I can’t live without, I will be trying to help address soon. Most of the bells and whistles I am happy to trade for a nice simple and easy to use application. If you absolutely have to have these features then maybe take a look at MoneyDance, but I highly suggest you try Buddi first.

Introducing My Life Hacks Page

Kevin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:00:44 +0000

I have been learning a lot lately about personal productivity as I try to squeeze all these projects into what little spare time I have left in my life. I am a far cry from some of the experts out there who’s life passion is time management or life hacking, but I do pick up some nifty tricks along the way while trying to do what I can. Most of my ideas come from lifehacker.com (which is an incredible site), but every once in a while I’ll have an original idea of my own about personal productivity. Whether it be something that I pickup on lifehacker.com that works for me, or one of my own “great” ideas, I will be posting some of the better ones here on this life hack project page of mine to share with the rest of the world for what they are worth.

Also this winter, as I have a little space in between deadlines, I will be working to implement some key systems that I have learned that I need based on managing my projects earlier this year. They are financial budgeting and tracking(so I can figure out just how much I can spend on my projects), a better calendaring system (so that that I can keep track of my family’s and my own schedule), and project management software (so that I can watch my deadlines slip out of control with better accuracy). Anyhow, as I try to integrate these key systems into my life, I’ll let people know what I am doing and how I’m doing it here.

Small Update on the Mountain

Kevin — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:16:30 +0000

Here is a shot of the new patio I finished earlier this year. The natural style of the flagstone should work with the mountain much better then the old brick that was there previously.

Here is an updated photo of the mountain. The 3ft and 5ft platform supports are done. You can see the 7ft platform and 9ft roof supports are almost done.

Another shot of the mountain in it’s current state.

Baby steps on to the fore-yard

Kevin — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 04:13:17 +0000

On my second day sail I got to do something that I never expected to do. I talked to the captain on the ship on how I wanted to do more and after I signed a few forms I joined the crew of the US Brig Niagara as a volunteer. That’s right… I have now picked up another hobby! What an amazing experience though. Volunteers get to work alongside and help the professional crew sail and maintain the ship. Here you can see me climbing down from aloft.

Here you can see me up on the starboard side of the fore-yard. A member of the crew and I are helping sea-stow the foresail (at least that’s how I think you say it). I was wondering the whole time if the guy standing on the rope next to me could feel my leg shaking.

Here is another shot of us up on the yard.

Dr Marvin! I’m sailing!

Kevin — Sat, 31 May 2008 04:10:36 +0000

Ever since seeing the movie Master and Commander I have been having this itch to go sailing on a square-rig sailing vessel. After a little time on the web I found out a reproduction of the US Brig Niagara was in Erie PA (not ‘too far’ from my house). Any how, they offer these day sails for people to sign up for (not to expensive). You sail for about 4 to 6 hours on the ship.

They serve you dinner or lunch (depending on the time you go), and they actually cook it on a wood burning stove right on the ship in the galley.

I did an evening sail and it was so beautiful. The sun was setting just as we were sailing back into port and I just got some incredible shots!

Thank you to the crew of the Niagara for an outstanding time!

Construction continues till night somedays

Kevin — Wed, 21 May 2008 03:57:57 +0000

Construction is so hectic that I am beginning to go into the late hours of the night trying to get as much done as possible. Here you can begin to see the wood structure taking shape.

Another shot of current construction progress.

Light Control Circuitry

Kevin — Mon, 19 May 2008 03:31:22 +0000

Here is an update of my light control circuitry. I have an Arduino mini at the bottom right acting as my primary controller. I’m not using the arduino environment to program it though. I’m just using it because it’s a nice small atmega platform that has the crystal already on the board. I’m just coding in straight C and using avrdude to load the chip (which really isn’t all that different). I have it currently wired to three other amega48 microcontrollers which are programmed to act as slaves on an TWI serial line. I then have two of those wired up to MAX232 chips to stream the serial data that the slaves receive to my desktop computer so that I can verify that they are receiving the correct commands. I can’t claim that I entirely know what I’m doing… but I sure am having fun!

Here is another shot of my bench setup.

Getting started on the mountain frame

Kevin — Sat, 10 May 2008 04:35:25 +0000

Here I am preparing to start building the mountain superstructure.

Here is another shot of me getting started.

I now have three of the twelve upright posts into place.

This isn’t a great photo because my wife took the photo from inside but it gives you a sense of scale for the mountain.

I finished up Saturday with a decent start on the framing of the mountain.

TWI Serial Bus is finally working for me

Kevin — Wed, 07 May 2008 04:27:44 +0000

Ok…. This was a big deal for me. For some reason it took me a while to get a TWI (I2c) interface up and running properly and it held me up from doing some blog posts. But it’s working now! Here I have two simple avr platforms up and running. The one on the left is the master and the one on the right is the slave. To control 300-500 LED lights I decided that it was a job for more then one microcontroller. So I will have a master LED controller and several slave LED controllers. The master will push the animation frames down the bus and each of the slave controllers will control a bank of shift registers connected to 64 LEDS.

Here is a close up of the Master Controller. Not really much different circuitry then before. I will be posting the code up here eventually. That is where most of the fun is! Don’t be fooled by the connector up to the top left. It’s not Ethernet. That’s actually a serial connection to my computer for debugging. I use Ethernet patch cables instead of serial cables often now because I can make my own cables then. Just slap a couple of custom RJ45-DSUB-9 adapters onto an ether cable and you have a serial cable. I picked that up from Make Magazine (Issue 01). Pretty Handy.

It’s great to be a geek!

Debugging the LED Controller

Kevin — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 04:25:01 +0000

I added a a serial output to my development board to help with debugging the chip. The tutorials at sparkfun were really helpful!

62 Bags!

Kevin — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 04:20:33 +0000

Alright! We have a mountain base. I will be erecting the wood frame of the mountain on top of these concrete supports. When I started this project I was not entirely sure how many bags of concrete this would take…. 62! I purchased 62 bags of concrete, loaded them in my car, unloaded them, loaded them 3-4 at a time into a concrete mixer in my driveway, poured that into my wheelbarrow, wheeled it around to the back of my house, and then shoveled it into the footers… all in a period of 24 hours. Needless to say my arms were ready to fall off! (I should have just had a truck come in, but I was unsure whether I could time everything right)

Here is another shot of the mountain base.

Here is nice shot of the construction site. I should have one of those signs that says “Pardon our pixie-dust, we are re-imagineering this site for your future enjoyment.” just like Disney. Perhaps that will be a nice small future project.

Starting the foundation

Kevin — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:17:47 +0000

Ok…pretty soon here if I keep doing projects of this magnitude, I am going to have to buy myself a truck. I could only load 8 bags of concrete in my honda accord before my car began to look like this. I found this great industrial supply store nearby where I was buying concrete tubes… It was awesome… The yard part of the store is a hard hat area! Everybody else there was backing up these big trucks; and here I am in my little honda accord trying to cram concrete tubes and rebar into the back.

I rented a Toro Dingo to dig the holes for the foundation. It worked pretty good.

The bit kind of swung on a swivel which allowed it to go straight down even though the machine was on uneven ground; but, if it hit a rock or a root then the bit would drift a bit off target and I would have to straighten the hole manually.

Preparing to build a mountain

Kevin — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:14:56 +0000

Here you can see the mountain site all prepped and ready for beginning to put the foundation in. I will be putting in 12 concrete tubes to support the structure of the mountain!

Here is a better shot of where the base of the mountain will go.

It is not easy building an entire land!

Here is another shot of the chaos in my yard.

Prototyping the LED Controller

Kevin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:01:57 +0000

Here I have a sort of custom arduino that I built. At least I used the schematics for an arduino to get a nice simple avr platform up and running. I am just coding in straight C though using avr-libc though as opposed to using any of the arduino libraries or utilities. Here you can see the stk500 development board next to my board. I am using it along with avr-dude to program my board.

Starting to visualize the design

Kevin — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:53:10 +0000

This is the start of me trying to better document my design with google sketchup. This is the start of the core structure for the mountain. The pathway to the top of the mountain where you go down the slide will work its way on a series of ramps and platform that wind through this structure. At the base you can see the 12 concrete footers that will go into the ground to support the structure. The vertical supports on top of the footers are 4×4 cedar beams. The dotted line across the top of the photo is 12 ft 6 inches high. That is the projected very top of the mountain where the tree stump ends.

Here is a front view of the same model. It’s easier to see how high the mountain will be compared to a typical adult. To a kid I’m guessing this mountain will seem life size!

Causing some real damage!

Kevin — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 06:46:09 +0000

Lookout! No good can come to allowing someone like me to rent equipment this big!

Here I am ripping out some old stumps to make way for new plants that will fit our new Critter Country theme. They were yew bushes (I think that is how you spell it). I found out yew bushes are poisoness. That was one reason for pulling them out and the other was they were far to uniform looking to be in a natural forest like setting.

Scope Creep

Kevin — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:21:45 +0000

Well, The Laughing Place may not be the best name for this project but I’ll stick with it for now. See I decided that simply building a mountain in my backyard would look out of place (as if there was a way to make a mountain look normal in your backyard)… So I’m going to re-theme the entire area into a Critter Country like theme where the mountain is in the middle of a forest like area. Here you can see me removing my old patio. It was a small brick patio that was their when we bought the house. My wife and I wanted a larger patio anyways. So I decided to rip it out and I am going to replace it with a more natural looking (but larger) flagstone patio.

Backyard Layout

Kevin — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:35:59 +0000

I think I have finalized most of my measurments. At least for the core wooden structure of the mountain. The brown circle is my tree that you see in the earlier pictures. The grey box is the core wooden structure of the mountain. It is 7ft wide and 10 ft deep. I’ll release more details of the structure once I have a chance to properly sketch it out.

More sculpting with Copper

Kevin — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 05:46:27 +0000

Wow… the frame of my first bot I think is coming together. I still have to finish up the roof, create the front and smoke stack. But so far, I’m pretty happy with it.

Sculpting with wire

Kevin — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 05:44:38 +0000

Here is my start on the first bot! The start of my very first wire sculpture. Hope I don’t screw it up!

A little prototyping…

Kevin — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 05:39:14 +0000

This is a prototype copper grid for me to test sculpting with copper and to act as a test bed for 30 leds. Also here is a prototype of a led assembly for the project. I’m going to have to make a couple thousand of these. Oh Boy!

More Parts for Project E

Kevin — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:37:40 +0000

More parts for Project E and more clues as to what I am building! I have a Daisy MP3 player kit from Make, 2 20 watt amplifier kits from Ramsey (although I think I might upgrade to the 40 watt kit), 2 different types of fm receiver chips (I have no idea which one I am going to use yet), and finally a gi-normous amount of copper wire (little clue, I’m probably going to need a lot more).

Planning the Site

Kevin — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 05:02:52 +0000

Today I marked off the easement in my backyard so that I could figure out exactly where to build the laughing place. See, I unfortunately didn’t really know about things such as easements until after I purchased my first house… Now I find that I can’t build anything substantial in the back 20 feet of my property. For someone who spends his spare time doing nothing but coming up with new ideas to build and then building them, this is pure torture! Well I guess I’ll make do with what I problems I have been dealt with.

Here you can see the post I placed in the ground. I can’t build anything too permanent behind them.

Here’s a shot from further away. I’m currently planning to build my small mountain just in front of the area between the two left stakes. I have to check with the city tomorrow though to see how close I can build it next to the property line.

Preparing to control lots of LED lights

Kevin — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 08:52:27 +0000

I just put together a small circuit that allows me to control an array of led lights with a shift register chip. I found out how to do that in this tutorial. It’s working out awesome. My next step is to expand it to 16 led lights, and then create a test animation with Light Animator and load it on the arduino.

The Arduino!

Kevin — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 08:49:08 +0000

I have decide to use the arduino board to power project E. In fact I think I may end up using 9 arduino boards in Project-E. I estimate that Project-E in total will have 13 microcontrollers. Here you can see I have a very simple circuit that I did based on this tutorial. It’s from the Make weekend podcast. These guys are awsome; however, Bre is no longer doing them so we’ll have to see what Make does in the future.

The arduinos come in many different shapes and sizes. You can even just grab the schematics online and build one yourself. Next to my main test board you can see a smaller version of the arduino which I am planning on using in project E.

Introducing the Laughing Place

Kevin — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 08:46:20 +0000

Springtime is approaching and so is the time when I plan to break ground on a new project that I am excited about called the laughing place. Its going to be a small mountain designed very similar to splash mountain. Its a play area for my son in our backyard. It will have a sliding board down the front instead of a water flume and will have a clubhouse inside the mountain. I want to thank my friend Andy for taking this picture in Disneyland for me. I have been a little busy this past year and have not made it out into the parks to take any photos for research. Thanks Andy! I hope to formalize the design, figure out my materials and begin constructing the frame of the laughing place project by the end of March. So look for more updates in the coming weeks!

Light Animator

Kevin — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:45:36 +0000

I wrote a piece of software called Light Animator. I designed it to help me animate the hundreds of led lights that are going to be part of Project E. It should be capable of animating hundreds or even thousands of lights on a time line. I’m going to release it in the next couple weeks under the GPL so anyone can download it and extend it. It is extremely limited at what it can do currently, but over the course of the next few months as I complete Project-E, I will be enhancing it with all sorts of features. This Christmas I even plan to use the same software to animate my Christmas lights!

Starting my Land Project (or restarting it anyways)

Kevin — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:16:07 +0000

This is my latest Google Sketchup model for my Land project. I posted this in the forums on www.AtHomeImagineering.com once before a while ago. I didn’t have a project page for it back then though. Now that I created a place to post updates for this project, I decided to post this picture again here for the start of the project. The model is completely to scale and represents exactly the shape that I want. Well, almost. The slope of the roof is currently just estimated and I’m not sure if I want to go with something more intentional. If anyone just happens to know the value of the slope of the the roof on the The Land pavilion at EPCOT Center, let me know.

Hopefully, this project will get going again here soon. I have yet to buy a table saw and I think I am going to need one for this project so that I can cut the polycarbonate accurate enough for the panels on my Land project. Anyways, I am planning on buying one in the next few wee

I can finally see my workbench!

Kevin — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 06:24:08 +0000

And finally you see here my wonderful new electronics workbench. For a quick weekend project done on a whim I think it turned out really well and did not cost me more then about $70 on plastic bins. Now maybe I can get some real work done!

Bringing order to chaos!

Kevin — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:17:12 +0000

Ok… Project E has an amazing amount of part requirements! I was in serious need of some more room on my electronics workbench for working on project E. Boxes and boxes of parts have been coming in and my work area was getting extremely unmanageable. Since I did not have any walls behind my workbench to fasten any organizers to, I decided to do what any sane person would do and build a wall and bolt it to the workbench.

It’s not a real workbench unless you have carriage bolts in it.

So I found this inexpensive bin system at Home Depot that I decided to use. They have an assortment of different sized bins that hang on rails that you fasten to the wall. Here you can see the rails that I had to fasten to the wall. The plastic bins hang from these rails.

R&D on the Robot Base

Kevin — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:11:52 +0000

Here I am working on one of the prototype robot bases for Project E. I’m not finished yet… I still have to put the controller board on the robot base to control the servos below that drive the wheels. This robot is based on a tutorial here. This is just the R&D phase so I’m not sure if this is the robot platform I’m going to go with. I need 4 robot bases for Project E. I’m not sure if this protype is going to have a enough power.

Here is the underside of the bot. It has 2 drive wheels and one caster. I think the weight on the bot is going to require me to put two casters on each bot though. You can also see that I made my own servo mounts out of L-shaped aluminum stock. The body is made out of a sheet of HDPE plastic. I also had to take apart and modify the servos so that they would continually rotate and I don’t think I did a very good job at that. I think using better servos with more torque would be suitable for Project E, but we’ll just have to run some more test and see.

Getting Started with some R&D

Kevin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 02:05:25 +0000

Project E is a bit of a complicated project and so will require some significant R & D work. This is my electronics work area right now…. It’s absolutely in chaos, but I don’t have a lot of time so it will have to do and I clean it up as I move forward.

Here is my first little project that I put together to learn how to control a bank of LED’s with a microcontroller. I found a tutorial here on how to build this on Make’s weekend projects. It’s an animated cube of led lights. Pretty neat little project for getting started with controlling led lights with a microcontroller.

If your an At Home Imagineer and don’t know about Make magazine yet, you should seriously take a look and consider subscribing… or at least read their feed. There are some awesome project tutorials posted there.

So…. we have our first little clue to what Project E is… It is going to require controlling led lights with a microcontroller.

My Dungeon Tunnel and Entrance is Finished!

Kevin — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:29:52 +0000

This in the new completed dungeon entrance. (Ignore the flood light I have setup to improve photo quality). I think it turned out pretty good. Next year I might add a few things to it though like sconces and stuff.

Here is a shot of the tunnel with the flash off. It gives you less detail, but a better idea how it looks in a darker setting. Its really hard to give you a good photo of the way the dungoen looks during my party. Lighting is a huge part of the experience and its hard for me to capture that with a camera…. or least for someone with my photography skills.

Here is a closer shot of the tunnel with the flash on.

Here is a closer shot of the groin vaulted ceiling in place.

Here is that same shot with the flash on.

In this shot you can see where the tunnel connects to the existing dungeon from last year.

And finally here is the completed tunnel going from the dungeon to the future laboratory. I don’t really have a very good entrance this year for the tunnel. The pumkin sconce you see on the right is really from the design from last year. Next year when the tunnel leads to the laboratory, instead of just the kitchen I’ll have a proper entrance. Happy Halloween!

Dungeon Tunnel Assembly

Kevin — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 02:25:53 +0000

Ignore the wallpaper! I have not had time to remodel this room since we bought this house (I’m too busy building dungeons). Here you can see one of the barrel vaults being put into place for the tunnel. This one leads to the kitchen.

Here is the other barrel vault piece ready to go into place. It will be the piece that extends into the dungeon.

Here you can see the lower half of the assembled tunnel. I forgot to take photos of the wall panels being finished up and the pillars being finished up but they were done exactly the same way as the first dungeon walls except that they are smaller. The wood running along the top of the wall is not yet painted… It’s going to get painted in place due to time contraints.

Here is a better shot of the tunnel walls being assembled. In the background you can see the groin vault piece sitting ready to be moved into place. It had to be positioned before the tunnel walls went up and the barrel vaults were in place because it is too large of a piece to be moved through the tunnel walls. Due to the size of the tunnel and the size contraints on the room that the tunnel goes through, assembly was almost as complex as the construction itself.

More Construction of the Tunnel

Kevin — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 02:20:52 +0000

Here are the frames for the two barrel vaulted ceiling extensions leading from the groin vault.

Here is a shot of the underside of the groin vaulted ceiling now that the foam has been filled in and sanded down.

So I bought some “Great Stuff” (the stuff you use to fill in cracks around outlets and stuff to better insulate your house) to basically fill in the cracks of my ceiling. It’s suppose to be sandable and paintable so I think it should work out great!

Here is a shot of the smaller pillars I built this year to support the tunnel.

Here’s another shot of the ceiling

The Groin Vaulted Tunnel

Kevin — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 02:16:11 +0000

Ahhhhhh! Ok… sorry I’m not showing you more here, but belive me. It wasn’t pretty. Working out the math for the curve wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be… but marking the boards where the cuts were supposed to take place was. Sooooo, I just attacked this thing with a jigsaw and eyeballed it where I though the cuts should be… I can;t belive it worked out this close this way and that I didn’t lose a finger in the process. I just would cut out the intersection a little bit at a time and then see if the boards would intersect alright.

Ok… here is the first step to building the groin vault. I cut and bent a piece of hardboard into the frame of the groin vault. This is simple enough… Now next I have to carefully work out the math and then mark my board where the other piece of hardboard will intersect it……

And so begins the most complicated part of my dungeon this year. The groin vaulted ceiling. If your like me and you don’t even know what a groin vault is… here is a wikipedia article dedicated to it. Luckly, as I was trying to figure out exactly how to build what was in my head… my friend Geoff let me know the name of what I was trying to build which made it a little easier for me to research how to build this thing. Thanks Geoff!

I was hoping for a tighter fit then this but I’ll take it… I just need to come up with a way to fill in the cracks of the ceiling,

Dungeon Pillar Construction

Kevin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 02:14:43 +0000

Next I cut out more strips of wood for more pillars for the dungeon.

More work on the entrance

Kevin — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 02:13:20 +0000

Next I cut out finish molding (or what ever you call it) for the entrance to make it look more grand!

Preparing the Dungeon Entrance

Kevin — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 02:03:56 +0000

Here is the entance with the mortar joints routed out…

Here is one of the panels with it’s shape cut out.

Getting started for Halloween again this year!

Kevin — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 11:24:49 +0000

Here we go again. More Raw Materials!!

The First thing that I did was draw out my pattern for the entrance on the polystyrene panels and then stuck them where they were suppose to go to make sure they looked right.

www.AtHomeImagineering.com

Kevin — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 10:57:27 +0000

My new site www.AtHomeImagineering.com is almost ready. I hope it will be a great place for sharing tips and tricks on at home imagineering projects. I’m expecting to have the forums at least online by next week.

Welcome to the 100 Acre Woods!

Kevin — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 23:43:29 +0000

Ok…. I know I took for ever to finish the details on this project. Lot’s of stuff going on you know. But here it is… The 100 Acre Woods Nursery. The final detail on my list is to hang Pooh on a balloon from the ceiling next to the Honey Tree. After that… who knows, I seem to always get new ideas.

Another shot of Pooh’s Door.

I finally got around to putting up the Mr Sanders sign up.

What better way to relax with your son then in the 100 Acre Woods!

Find out how I created the 100 Acre Woods during my talk at Magic Meets!

My Haunted Dungeon is Finished (for this year anyway)

Kevin — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 21:12:46 +0000

And here is my dungeon completed. I put down grey outdoor carpeting for the floor. This way it does not take a way from the dungeon look and I don’t have to worry about spills! I did not have time or the budget this year for a ceiling so I decided to just use black plastic for the ceiling. I also created some nifty simple sconces to hold real jack-o-lanterns! I created 8 sconces and jack lanterns to line the walls of the dungeon.

Here is a picture of the right wall in the dungeon. I originally created 8 sconces and jack-o-lanterns to go on the 8 side stone columns of the dungeon. But later decide that it would look really neat to put two of the jack-o-lanterns on the back wall. Next year I’ll probably have 10 jack-o-lanterns in the dungeon.

Here is a picture of the left wall of the dungeon.

Here is a closeup of one of the jack-o-lantern sconces. I put two course screws through the shelf part of the sconce up into the jack-o-lantern to hold it in place. This way it could be relatively safe enough to put tea lights into the jack-o-lanterns.

Here is closeup of me next to one of the jack-o-lanterns.

And here I am in my haunted dungeon. It’s not extremely fancy…. but I constructed it in a way that I think will make a great base to build on. Each coming Halloween I’ll plus it with new and spookier features to make my haunted parties better every year!

Assembling the Dungeon

Kevin — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 21:11:14 +0000

Here you can see I am securing the wall panels to the back of the stone pylons I created with screws. The entire structure is standing on its own.

Here is a shot of me securing the panels to the pylons. One detail I forgot to point out before, is the slot at the top of the stone column in the picture. This slot is where the ceiling beam will rest. I will also use screws to secure the beams into the slots. This will make the dungeon structure more rigid.

Here is a shot of the remaining wall panels and stone columns waiting to be put into place.

Painting the Dungeon

Kevin — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 21:09:41 +0000

Here I am painting primer on to the ceiling beams. The ceiling beams are two 12′ 2×4’s nailed together. They will span the dungeon and fasten to the pylons on each side of the dungeon.

Here I applied a coat of primer to the wall panels and then painted the mortar joints black. I will then roll on the stone paint onto the wall panels. With any luck, it won’t seep into the mortar joints and I won’t have to spend forever trying to detail the small joints.

Monster Mud!

Kevin — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 21:07:29 +0000

Here I am spreading “Monster Mud” onto the sides of the pylons. This will make the pylons look like stone columns in the dungeon.

Here is another shot of me applying the Monster Mud to the pylons.

Laying out the Wall Panels

Kevin — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 21:05:09 +0000

I decided to move the panels into my living room to do the painting. This is where the dungeon will be for my party. This way I could make sure I had enough panels for the room.

Here is a closeup of the panels so that you can see the mortar joints I cut out with the router.

Creating the Dungeon Walls

Kevin — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 21:02:38 +0000

Here you can see I am drawing out a block pattern on each wall panel. This will act as a guide for me while cutting out the mortar joints.

I used a rounded bit in my router to cut mortar joints into the polystyrene for the walls. I forgot to get a picture of a panel with the mortar joints cut earlier today while I was working. I’ll get a picture of the cut panels the next time I work before I paint them.

Preparing the Wall Panels

Kevin — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 21:01:12 +0000

Here is a closer look at the panels as they are drying.

Here you can see a couple of the panels standing up. They are actually a little shorter then 8′ so that they fit into my living room standing up.

Here I am gluing 1/8″ thin 4×8 sheets of plywood to 1″ thick 4×8 sheets of polystyrene. These will become the brick walls of the dungeon. The polystyrene can stand on its own, but I wanted something that would be a little tougher to break to allow me to screw the wall panels to the pylons. I have a few pylons sitting on top of all the panels to apply pressure while they are drying.

Finishing the pylons

Kevin — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 20:58:56 +0000

I built the pylons by clamping the strips to a 2×4 and then using both liquid nails and regular nails to fasten the strips together.

Here you can see all 14 pylons built. I was a little nervous about the strength of the materials I used, but I am extremely happy now with how they turned out.

Here we go…

Kevin — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 20:57:01 +0000

Here is a look at my work area. I needed a great deal of space for this project so I decided to take over the garage.

To cut the strips I placed the boards on the floor and used one of the strips as a guide for making straight cuts. I imagine this would have been soooo much simpler with a table saw. Unfortunately I have not got around to buying one of those yet. That will have to be one of my next major tool purchases.

I created the pylons out of cheap particle board. Particle board is not necessarily very strong but when you build it into a column of 4 strips it becomes very sturdy. Unfortunately it required me to cut 56 strips of particle board. I used 1/2″ particle board and created 28 strips 5″ wide and 28 strips 4.5″ wide to create roughly 5″x5″ columns.

I’m going to start the Haunted Dungeon project by creating the 14 pylons that are required to create the frame of the dungeon. They will be what I secure the wall panels to and mount the ceiling beams to.

100 Acre Woods Skyline

Kevin — Mon, 01 May 2006 23:37:56 +0000

Here is a shot of the skyline currently as it is in the 100 Acre Woods.

Here is a picture of the Pooh Tree Painted and with the leaves.

Detailing the Trees

Kevin — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 07:37:18 +0000

Next, I’m painting the grass green with a textured paint to also give the grass a bit of texture.

It takes a while to get the details right but I am pretty happy with the way the grass is turning out.

Next comes painting the details on the Honey Tree.

Another shot of painting the details on the Honey Tree.

Background Sound

Kevin — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 07:34:29 +0000

I also decide to add some nice in wall speakers for background music and sound into the room.

More Leaves

Kevin — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 07:31:24 +0000

Here you can see the Pooh tree is starting to get full of leaves.

Another shot of the Pooh tree having it’s leaves attached. I find a simple staggered pattern for the silk branches work best.

Here is what the silk branches look like up close.

Starting the Leaves

Kevin — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 07:27:37 +0000

The wires that I am running now are for the firefly’s. Each wire has an LED light on the end of it. They are all controlled to brighten and dim individually to look like real firefly’s! After I finish putting the branches up I will thread the firefly’s into the leaves. At night I will then have stars in the sky and firefly’s in the trees. Sounds magical huh?

Here is another shot of the firefly wires.

Now I am beginning to fasten the silk leave branches to the main branches of the Pooh tree. I drill a small hole into the wood branches and then use clear silicon to secure the silk branches onto the tree. In this shot you can also see the firefly wires for the Pooh tree.

It’s really starting to look like a tree now! I’m excited!

Painting the Tree’s

Kevin — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 07:21:34 +0000

After putting three layers of clay and a coat of primer on the tree, I am now putting a couple of coats of brown paint.

Here’s another shot of me painting the brown paint onto the Pooh tree. I painted the areas brown where there will be “grass” as well. I’ll add the green later.

More Molding of the Pooh Tree

Kevin — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 07:17:15 +0000

Here I am putting more clay on the Pooh tree.

Hey, it’s beginning to look like a tree.

Molding the Pooh Tree

Kevin — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 07:15:29 +0000

I am now applying a layer of clay to the whole structure. This is just simple air drying modeling clay.

Earlier I forgot to take photos of the tree branches attached to the pooh tree. Here’s a shot. Again, they are not really attached to the tree… Just toggle bolted to the ceiling to look like they are part of the tree.

Here is photo of the tree at where I am currently.

Pooh Tree Branches

Kevin — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 07:13:06 +0000

Now time to carve the branches of the great Pooh tree.

Here are all the tree branches for the Pooh tree. Again this was really tiresome for my arm.

Carving the trunk on the Pooh Tree

Kevin — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 07:10:38 +0000

Here you can begin to see the tree trunk taking shape.

Carving the Pooh Tree

Kevin — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 07:08:01 +0000

Alright… Now the real fun begins. Carving the pooh tree is going to be an interesting challenge. Here you can see I started the tree trunk.

So I got bored of carving just tree trunks and decided to play around with carving the hill and tree roots around pooh’s house. I’ve just stated and look at all the polystyrene fragments! This is going to be messy good fun.

Another angle of the Pooh hill beginning to take shape.

The tree roots are beginning to show.

I cannot stress how messy this is. If you try a project like this be sure to keep a vacume handy. The polystyrene doesn’t fly around to much, but it sticks to everything, including you!

I kept a picture handy as I carved the tree out. I’m not a great artist, but it’s not to hard to make the tree roots look somewhat like the picture.

I didn’t have to be to super percise with the carving here. Just close enough. All the final details can be worked out when we cover the entire tree, roots, and hill with clay.

Here I am carving out the details of the tree.

Think, think, think.

Here you can begin to see the other side of the tree taking shape.

Another shot of the other side of the tree.

Molding the Honey Tree

Kevin — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 07:04:56 +0000

Here you can see how I used clay to connect the branches to the trunk. You can also see how I used clay to mold honey dripping from the tree.

And there my friends is the honey tree all shaped and molded. Over the next couple days I plan to put two more coats of clay to help toughen the clay layer up.

Carving and Molding the Honey Tree

Kevin — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 07:01:12 +0000

Here I am begining to carve the honey tree. I’m using wood shaping tools to mold the polystyrene into a tree like shape. Again, I’m trying this process out on the honey tree first because it is a much simpler structure then the Pooh tree.

Be careful if you like to whistle while you work! I had to breath through my nose to avoid inhaling polystyrene fragments. I would highly recommend a dust mask of some sort.

I use a smaller shaping cutter to do the finer work. The practice hear will come in handy when I am working on the pooh tree. You have no idea how much of a mess this stuff makes. The polystyrene also sticks to everything! Keep a vacume handy.

Here is the honey tree fully carved out. Not everything has to be perfect. Just a nice rough shape. There will be a layer of clay on top of this to work out any fine details.

Next comes branches for the honey tree. I used a jigsaw to cut out the branches. The wood is a poplar to make it easier for me to shape.

Some more branches being cut out.

Now this really wore my arm out. I used the same shaping tools to smooth out the branches. The reason I am using actual wood for the branches is so I have something solid to mount all the silk leaves to.

Here are the branches all carved out.

Here you can see the braches attached to the tree. They are not really attached to the tree. They are toggle bolted into the ceiling. This should provide adequate support for the leaves. Any small gaps are ok beacuse we can fill them in when we do the clay.

No comes another tedious process. The clay. I used an air drying modeling clay. It sticks pretty well but only if I sort of smear it on one thumb size clump at a time. I just sort of slowly work it onto the tree trying to smear it into the cracks in the polystyrene.

Wow this is going to take a while!

Strangly, this is pretty relaxing. Applying the clay this way also gives a very good appearance of bark.

Hey, it’s beginning to look like a honey tree. I create the honey dripping hole on the tree with clay. I’ll add the honey later after this has a chance to dry. But I am pretty excited at the way it’s turning out.

Another look at me molding the finer details into the tree.

More Polystyrene

Kevin — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 06:58:35 +0000

Here you can see me cutting the strips of the polystyrene for the tree trunks. Be sure to wear eye protection!

Here you can see the polystyrene for the trunk being glued into place.

Here is another shot of the polystyrene for the trunk.

Here you can see the larger pieces of polystyrene going into place. Clearly the pooh tree is a BIG tree.

Polystyrene for the Trees

Kevin — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 06:56:08 +0000

Here you can see the tree frame with the layers of polystyrene being stacked around it.

Here I am cutting peices of polystyrene to fit around the pooh tree frame. I found a jig saw to be the best tool so far for cutting through the polystyrene.

Here I am glueing layers of polystyrene around the frame of the pooh tee. I will carve the polystyrene to create the pooh tree.

Here I am screwing down a peice of fiber board to better secure the poly styrene to the frame. It gets glued to the polystyrene as just another layer.

Pooh and Honey Tree Construction Update

Kevin — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 06:53:38 +0000

Here is the shot of the base of the Pooh tree with the door frame and fake door attached. The door is just made out of some bead board and 2×2’s.

Here is a closeup of the Pooh Door.

Here I am measuring the strips of polystryrene that I will be using to create the tree trunks.

Here I am cutting the polystyrene with a dremel tool. I later found out that it works much better with a jigsaw.

Here you can see how I am glueing the strips of polystyrene to the frame to create the tree trunk. Later I will carve the polystyrene to make it look like an actual tree.

Here you can see I used some long screws to help hold all the polystyrene together. I will glue one more layer on top to hide the screws.

Trees and Stars

Kevin — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 06:52:37 +0000

Here you can see one of the tree trunk frames. It is just simple particle board that I constructed it out of.

Here is a photo of the honey tree frame attached to the wall. I used both toggle bolts and screws going into the studs to be sure it was secure.

Here is a picture of the Pooh tree frame attached to the wall. I have the Pooh tree base sitting below it. It will also be secured to the wall and floor.

Here is another shot of the Pooh tree trunk frame and base.

It was really hard to take a picture of the stars so it is impossible to show you just how amazing they look. They literally twinkle over head( due to a mechanism in the light) and look amazingly real. Here is a picture though of the orion constellation that I placed in the night sky over where my son’s crib will be. I was able to create this by doubling the fibers for the constellations.

Here is another shot of the night sky.

Starting the Pooh Tree

Kevin — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 06:48:28 +0000

Here I am building the base of the pooh tree. I have to build it like this because the pooh tree is going on a wall with a baseboard and I have to build around the baseboard.

Here is photo of the front of the Pooh tree base.

Hello world!

Kevin — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 04:58:41 +0000

Well if anything, that title seems appropriate for the first post. Here I am with my own blog ready to make my own contribution to the internet. What I intend to use this blog primarly for is to document all the crazy projects that I like to work on. They could range from computer programs and/or electronic circuits, to entire room designs. In short I just like to hack around on whatever catches my attention. I like to start all sorts of projects and every now and then I actually finish one! For example, I am already in the middle of quite an interesting task. I decided to build a nursery for my future son that has the feel as if you stepped into the actual 100 Acre woods. It involves fiber-optic stars, realistic fireflies, two rather large realistic looking trees, and many other smaller details to help achive the effect. Look for future post about that project shortly! I had hoped to get this blog up before I started this project but time just was not on my side. Going foward I’ll try to document my projects well so that I can show you what I did to accomplish my projects. I figure at the very least, I can be a glaring example of what NOT to do. Well until next time!

Finishing the Sky

Kevin — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 06:46:18 +0000

Here you can see I am painting the clouds on the walls and ceiling of the nursery. They are kind of hard to see in the photo but they I am pretty happy with them.

Here I am cutting the stars flush to the ceiling after painting the clouds on the ceiling. You want to finish all the painting first so that the stars do not get covered up.

Stars in the sky

Kevin — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 06:40:42 +0000

Here is a close up of the stars coming through the ceiling. After the paint dries, I will cut them flush against the ceiling. It should be very hard to see them in the day giving the look of a day sky during the day and a night sky at night.

Here I am touching up the paint for the sky around the three hundred fiber optic threads protruding through the ceiling. This will allow for the stars to be almost invisible during the day but come out twinkling at night.

Prototyping the 100 Acre Woods

Kevin — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 06:33:41 +0000

I’m testing the adhesive I will be using to glue the layers of polystyrene together. Make sure you use a polystyrene friendly adhesive!

Ok. Here is my ultra simple protype. Throughout the process of building my nursery I will use this to test various processes and methods before I do them for real on the full scale trees.

No I’m preparing to work out some more of the details with the prototype. Here is my base for working on the prototype pooh tree. You can see my photo which I pulled off of “The Many Adventures of the Winnie the Pooh” DVD and my digram which I created to work out some of the dimensions of the Pooh tree.

Stars in the 100 Acre Woods

Kevin — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 06:32:39 +0000

I found it helpful to bundle groups of fibers with twist ties, and then run the bundles to various sections over the nursery. This kept my fiber optics more managable.

Ok, it took me a couple days to figure out what I was doing with the fiber optics to put the stars in. Here you can see a box of fiber with it lit up. You have to be careful with the fibers or else it turns into a bird’s nest really fast.

Preparing for stars

Kevin — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 06:29:47 +0000

Here I am creating a template for the pooh tree to help me with the stars for the nursery. I created this to be roughly the size of the tree canopy for the Pooh tree. When I go to wire the fibre optics for the stars I will place this in the attic where the tree will be so that I do not put stars in the tree.

Getting Started on the Nursery

Kevin — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 04:52:42 +0000

This is a picture of nothing but an almost empty room painted in the color Thoughtful Spot (Home Depot Disney Paint). This is where I plan on constructing the 100 acre woods. Here we go.

I’m beginning the project by putting together a small prototype to help me work out some of the details of the project. I’m not much of a model builder, but I think this will still help me a great deal.