Babbages Baggage
Inspired by Terry Pratchett's The Luggage, the Babbage's Baggage is a remote controlled treasure chest with legs.Babbages Baggage
Projects
Inspired by Terry Pratchett's The Luggage, the Babbage's Baggage is a remote controlled treasure chest with legs.Babbages Baggage
Badge
For the MakerCentral exhibition I made myself a name badge that showcased some of the skills I know. The base was wood which was framed with brass. The detail was my name in EL wire and a 3D printed logo.Badge
Bezel
A circular bezel to mount around a shower fitting. An early lathe project where I upcycled an old piece of computer case into a stylish cover for a friends bathroom.Bezel
Christmas Tree Trinket
A Christmas decoration in the shape of a tree with flashing and multicoloured LEDs driven from an Adafruit Trinket board.Christmas Tree Trinket
Dragon Detector
An electronics project to build a device that detects dragons and alerts the knights to spring into action.The project was entered in the Qualcomm Maker Month Contest 2016 and was featured on their Developer of the Month blog.
The detector is activated by a passive infrared detector which activates the webcam to take a picture. The webcam image is passed to a computer vision library called OpenCV which determines if a Dragon has been detected. The defences in the form of lights and motion are activated and the operator is notified using the IFTTT maker API. The brain of the device is the DragonBoard410C running a Linux operating system, the control code is written in Python with libraries for the GPIO access.
Code for the project is on GitHub
Details of the electronics can be found at Element14
The mechanical aspects and enhancements are detailed here.
Dragon Detector
Enchanted Cottage
The Enchanted Cottage was built for the Element14 Enchanted Objects Design Challenge. A weather house was stripped down and fitted microcontroller, WiFi, 3D printed mechanism, fibre optics and an RGB LED.Enchanted Cottage
Footstool
A small wooden stool that was made from the posts of a 4 poster bed. It took a couple of attempts to complete this and plenty of things were learnt along the way.Footstool
Gate Pin
A metal pin to support the catch on a metal gate. The old pin had rusted away and needed replacing.Gate Pin
Magnifier Lamp
A magnifier lamp to help with SMD work, made with scrap materials and 3D printed parts.
I've tried to use as much as possible from my "scrap box". The aluminium components are things I cast from old hard disks back in 2008.
The base was found dumped outside a furniture shop by Euston, I squared it up with a saw and surform before drilling, sanding and varnishing.
The arms were from an old garden parasol that had got worn out by the weather. I believe they are teak. They were planed and sanded to size before drilling. These will likely be left in a natural finish.
The 3D parts are designed using OpenSCAD and printed with a Cel Robox printer.Magnifier Lamp
PSTOIC Medals
PSTOIC is the alumni association of the Student Television of Imperial College. Each year for the PSTOIC dinner we have a "Something" competition where people can bring along an item or items that fit the theme. These are then judged and the winner is awarded a medal that I've been making since 2015 (with a gap in 2021).PSTOIC Medals
Radiator Tool
A hexagonal tool to be used with a socket wrench to open a radiator plug within a restricted spaceRadiator Tool
Stainless Steel Unicorn
A stainless steel unicorn robot based on a cardboard template from Ross Atkin of The Crafty Robot and controlled using his new SmartiBot controller and software.Stainless Steel Unicorn
Stainless Steel Washer
A large diameter washer for a mainsheet horse on a sailing boatStainless Steel Washer
T-Nuts
T shaped nuts for securing parts to a slotted table. These were milled on the lathe and are used on the drill table.T-Nuts
Topsy Turvy Clock
A mantel clock with the numbers in Topsy Turvy locations. This project is a mixture of mechanics, electronics and embedded firmware. It won a prize in the Maplin Arduino competition.Topsy Turvy Clock
Articles
BeagleBone Blue Music Player
I wanted to do a mini project with the BeagleBone Blue that would utilise all of its servo capabilities. So I came up with the idea of a mechanical glockenspiel. There was not much to the mechanical aspects other than
Posted in: Projects
Project Review
Earlier this year, I suggested that I should finish more projects than I start to avoid an increasing pile of boxes on the bench. Finished this year There’s been quite a few projects finished this year, a mix of high
Posted in: Projects
Silly Clock
Whilst watching the Mr Silly, Mr Men episode on TV, I noticed he had a rather splendidly silly clock. Research I was having a think and concluded that such a clock could be made and could also be designed to
Posted in: Projects, Topsy Turvy Clock
Tags: Arduino, Clocks
Welded Flea Sculpture
The welded flea sculpture made as part of my Artist Welding course at Chelsea is now finished. The slate base has been drilled and filled with epoxy and the mounting plates screwed down to it. The backlegs were also tied
Posted in: Projects
Tags: flea sculpture, rust, Steel
Tool makers clamp – work in progress
They say that the thing that separates the humans from the animals is the ability to make tools so I’m feeling all human at the moment. Over the last couple of weekends, I’ve been working on a tool makers clamp,
Posted in: Projects, Projects, Tool Maker's Clamps
Building the flowerpot furnace
2020 Vision said: “Just wondering how you got the air into the flowerpot? Was it through the holes at the bottom or did you somehow cut a hole in the side? I would have thought the latter could weaken it.”
Posted in: Casting, Projects, Projects
Tags: Flowerpot furnace, Hole cutting, Teracotta
Spindles
Back in the 1940s the idea of “Make Do and Mend” was common, however over the last 60 years the disposable culture has slowly taken over. My friends from PSTOIC are the kind of people who will happily repair something
Posted in: Projects, Projects, Repairs
Tags: Mending, Metal Work, Plastic, Spindles, Steel, Wood
Metal sculpture in brass, mounted on an 1800s French Coin
