Entering the MAKE coasterbot contest
MAKE Magazine has created a contest to make a coaster bot. The basic rules are pretty simple: Contestants will build “CoasterBots,” mini robot development platforms, made using CD/DVD media as the main body components (“coaster” being slang for a dead/damaged CD/DVD). Your goal is to create a CoasterBot that can navigate a space on its […]
Speed Vest on the road!
The Speed Vest went for its maiden voyage today. The video below shows me riding it at night outside my house. If you can’t see the embedded video, here is the direct YouTube link. For the record, I can bike faster than 6 miles per hour, but we had to work around the limitations of […]
Finishing touches for the Speed Vest
With the electronics complete, there were only a few steps left to finish the Speed Vest. The digits had been sewn into a large piece of black denim cloth. It was now time to put this in a more attractive shape. After some consideration I decided to go with a trapezoid, as the original authors […]
Boxing up the Speed Vest
The original MAKE article on the Speed Vest was cavalier with respect to the packaging. The authors state that they simply threw the parts into a small soap box. They also mentioned that the electronics kept getting accidentally ripped out and had already needed to be redone three times. It seemed like some improvements were […]
Playing with the Dremel
I used my Dremel 4000 for the first time to do a simple project, attaching a brass nameplate to the cherry wood cradle I made back in 2003. I spent many months building the cradle and got it done just in time for Laurel’s birth — we picked it up from the workshop on the […]
Speed Vest digits lighting up
An important part of the Speed Vest project is shaping the electroluminescent wire into digits. The original creators provide a layout template, which has odd digits only on the right, and 0 through 6 on the left. I wanted to do all possible digits on the right, leaving me with only 1 and 2 on […]
Saving the TiVo
A couple of weeks ago, I started hearing some funny noises from our Series3 HD TiVo. Sort of like an engine periodically revving up then stopping. I said to my husband, “The cooling fan is going bad.” But we ignored it and eventually the noise went away. Until, a few days ago, the TiVo got stuck at […]
Replacing an ethernet cable jack
A week ago my 4 year-old daughter bounced on the bed and knocked off my laptop. The laptop was fine, but the ethernet cable had some minor damage. The plastic tab on the RJ-45 plug, which holds it in the computer socket, snapped off. At first, this didn’t seem like a big deal. The cable still worked well. […]
New toys for the workshop
I have some new toys to play with: The main item is the Dremel 4000. It can drill, sand, plane, shape, rout, basically do everything except bake bread. Initially I’ll be using it to make holes in the enclosure box for the Speed Vest. I do have another small project in mind. Years ago I […]
Lighting up the Speed Vest
With the circuit board wired up, the ribbon cable in place, and the electroluminescent wire connected, the Speed Vest was ready for its first end to end test. I used the sample code supplied to have the Arduino run through each of the output pins, lighting up each strand of wire to make sure everything […]