My First Maker Project

We're going through a bit of early year cleaning, and I came across the remains of what I consider to be my very first "maker" project.

What is it you might ask?  Well, believe it or not it's a projector made from a bunch of chipboard, a dissected LCD screen, a Fresnel refracting sheet to focus the image, a map loupe as a projecting lens, and a work light to power the whole thing.  I forget when exactly I built this, but I think it was summer 2003, when the cheapest projectors were close to a grand and the discount, pocket sized ones we have today were still a long way off.

I made the whole thing with hand tools in my parents' basement over a college break.  It's safe to say it wasn't HD quality (the edges of the screen had the hazy border like TV sitcom dream sequences), but given time it was built and the materials it required, I thought it was pretty impressive.

The front piece slid on 4 carriage bolts as a focusing mechanism and the lid had a couple small fans built into it to prevent overheating.

Here's an example of my design-on-the-fly approach.  I was able to keep the monitors control board attached and just bend the ribbon cable 90 degrees to expose the controls and VGA port on the outside of the projector.

I took inspiration from other projects on the internet, but like many of my projects, pretty much designed things as I went.  Besides learning about optics and of course, having a passably working projector, the coolest thing about building this was taking apart an LCD screen and realizing that the image on the screen is displayed on a transparent layer, which is simply lit from behind by a light with a diffuser.  Here's a pretty nice video showing what I mean:

Go Colts!

The Colts are in the Super Bowl, which means we're hosting friends and I get an excuse to make food that looks like something!  Go Colts!

You can make a horseshoe cake by piecing together a couple rectangles

Halloween 2009

Happy Halloween!  Having reached post-college adulthood, Halloween is no longer solely an to party, but now also represents an opportunity to design and execute original costume ideas with minimal effort and maximum creativity.

Using a red polo shirt, some brown fabric, and a bit of yellow puffy paint I was able to create my very own Winnie the Pooh costume.  Being an engineer and maker, I also indulged myself by creating a honey-stained honey pot straight out of a Pooh cartoon.

Halloween 2008

Taking advantage of my first full year out of college and not having to worry about tests or homework, I spent my free time working on props and decorations for October's big decorating holiday.  A trip or two to American Science and Surplus along with some quality time at the local Home Depot were plenty to get me started.

Not pictured is the Axworthy's Ghost that I had running across the whole yard.  It only lasted a handful of trips across the 100 ft or so span, but for something scrounged from pulleys and bungee cords and powered by vacuum cleaner belts, I was pretty excited to see it work at all.

This was difficult to photograph, but it's a Flying Crank Ghost I made with a low RPM motor, some black lighting, and cheesecloth.  I was pretty happy with the face that I made for it out of just newspaper and masking tape.

The Graveyard from the house.  You can see the fence I made out of PVC and 1x8's.  I was pretty proud of the skulls on top which were carved out from cheap plastic and coated in plaster.

These headstones were all hand carved, painted, and weathered from Styrofoam and covered in gypsum.  The gothic cross in the back right was my crowning achievement.

Here's an example of an augmented cheap plastic skeleton.  I carved out all of the ribs and cavities, remolded the pelvis and skull, and then weathered the entire thing to make a $10 prop actually look relatively good.

Just a little weathering on this one.

A little weathering, dressing, and positioning.  A good view of the PVC pipes in the fence, too.

Lastly, I made this medieval cage with some 1x8's and thin slat meant for shims all painted to look like rusted metal.  Not bad for cheap materials, an afternoon of work, and free hand design.

It took a while to get a rope over the tree in a good spot,

but I ran some chain to the actual cage for authenticity.

A standard plastic store bought skeleton inside worked fine since the cage was the visual focus.