Month: November 2012

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Filming strategy

I put my iPhone on the lens of the lamp. The tape on the table gives me a hint about the maximum viewing area so I don’t have to watch the camera and my hands at the same time. I have second light off to one side to brighten things and add warmer tones. This is how I filmed the last several videos, including the one in the previous post.

I need more lighting and I’d love a higher resolution camera so I can move it further back and have more room to work. Also the lamp jiggles every time I bump the table and it’s so low that I sometimes hit it with my head or an arm when I reach for a tool in that yogurt container. If you’re a fan of 5S or kanban than I apologize, I don’t have the resources to make it any tidier right now.

My question to you is: what else can I do to improve things? I need to be able to work at this desk and use it as a stage from time to time. Also, do you have experience with Vimeo? From their TOS I can’t tell if I’m allowed to post my stuff there or not – it might be considered advertising.

Edit: I’m using iMovie to edit my videos. It’s not exactly Nuke but as I learn the ins and outs it gets a little easier. Blender doesn’t make any intuitive sense to me and I need a low learning curve because I have so little time. Any other ideas?

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Laser cut motor mounts 70 times faster

Last night at the VHS Steven helped me laser cut a test of the next generation of motor mounts for the Makelangelo drawbot and the Skycam. The 3d printed prototypes took 70 minutes to produce – and that’s not count all the times the printer ruined the piece 10 minutes from the end. These take only a minute to cut on the Redsail laser, they flat pack, and the pieces glue together in about ten minutes. Next I will be using the laser cutter to solve pen up/down.

More immediately, I’m having trouble mass producing bobbins. I want to mill them on a lathe and the quotes I’m getting are crazy – one said 50 pieces would cost $30/ea. The next said $6/ea. I’m looking for $1/ea or less.

There’s a number of craft fairs coming up in Vancouver at which Makelangelo will be appearing to take your requests. Stay tuned for more details!

Do you have a blog or magazine that’s looking for content? I’d love to talk about my robots with you.

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Let’s Make a Drawbot (aka Makelangelo)

Special thanks to Andrew Milne for coming up with the great name!

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Maze solving robot, prototype II

Tonight I’m going to try to laser cut a few more acrylic parts. Biggest problem right now is that the sensors are too far from the ground and it ruins the robot’s “eyesight”. I’m also planning to reuse the robot for a mini sumo robot kit.

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Antonio builds the largest Drawbot so far

“I managed to get a huge drawbot working, with a serious rethinking of the hardware. In the end it was an Egg of Columbus, and I’m proud to have discovered it: you can avoid all the mess of the electrical wiring from motors to arduino and from arduino to PC, by simply let them all stay very close together and making only the fishing line go around the drawing area, driven by idler pulleys! … It is now very easy to draw on huge areas, and the hardware remains completely unchanged independently from the size of the drawing area! You only need to change the position of the idler pulleys.

I will be disclosing this tecnique during the Makers Italy Fair in Milan (only in italian, sorry). I wanted to share it with you as another mean of saying thanks for all the effort you put in the code. I will be advertising your firmware and your site during the 3 workshops I’ll be doing during the Fair.”

Antonio: Just how big is it? How long does it take to draw that picture?