captainwhiskeycadillac

Latest Posts by captainwhiskeycadillac

Pictures of a dry fit of the table, and the fracture that kept me from gluing. I was considering doing some finishing of the plywood (wood bleach) and sapele (more sanding) separately, and when a hinge fractured during a careless dry fit it convinced me to hold off on gluing. In this table's near future is a hinge repair inlay, sanding and I think some tung oil.

A few shots of the CNC doing its work on the plywood parts of the table.

Hinge time! Turns out they did not stick together, so I drilled a ton of material out of them--you can see the piles on the drill press. In another life these hinges could have been derpy little dinosaur heads. On the bottom you can see a dado'd foot piece for the desk. It was kind o a shame to ruin the nice pattern by chiseling out the remnants.

Glue day #1: cut all the hinge components and laminated them. Hopefully they don't stick to one another. Also cut better end pieces for the beam and glued those up.

Process of the folddown desk, focusing on the hinges. I got some sapele for the hinges that will contrast with the plywood. These shots show the color that pops out of wood after it is milled down. The top shot shows the 3 piece sapele hinge stock. Also shown is the miter plywood box that will form the crossbeam of the desk.

Process shots of the group table project.

Process shots of the group table project.

Aaron with our main beam, taped but not yet glued up. streetlightchanger

Added some things to the model of final project fold-down table. Though in the proposal I talked about a very stalwart table, the concept of a heavy table and the concept of a table that folds flat for moving are in conflict, so we are going for a lighter, more skeletal look in this iteration. Also added some hardware, in the form of little legs in the front of the sides and hooks for the beam. (Also some sweet and highly convincing wood skins!!)

Quick sworks of a potential group table. Tri, top, and side views. streetlightchanger 

A slightly better representation of the folddown (though still missing many components). Beam (not shown) goes through the notches in the front of the side panels to hold it together. Without the beam in the top folds down against the back, then the sides fold in on top of the top. The beam reinserts into hooks on the outside of the sides to secure the flatpack. 

Print project. "Client" request: something that prevents pencils from falling to the bottom of her bag. Solution came in the form of magnetic pin on bag (with decorative seal backing) and a ring on the pencil to hold another magnet. After a few prints we got just the right dimensions to fit magnet and pencil, then epoxied in the magnets. Also made a ring for a dry erase marker because the screws on the whiteboard of our storage unit are magnetic.

Divider storage in action.

A mobile divider benbasseches captainwhiskeycadillac bradherz atlasdesignstudio

The conclusion of the great storage assembly. Wheels: on. Doors: on. Realized we needed a more ergonomic way to open the doors: not a problem, got some adorable little knobs. I think its a good little storage space, people are using it already. It has enough heft to feel like a not-easily-moved installation, however, because of the non locking wheels, it will not tip over even if a linebacker leans on it. Oh and there is whiteboard on the back of it as well! The piece fits into out initial design goals, as summarized here by Ben:

Having identified the need for project storage and display in the new Brown Design Workshop (BDW), we set out to design and build a large scale storage unit.  We were given the constraint of only using plywood (in straight cuts with a track-saw) and drywall screws for the primary structure.  

In the process of thinking about improving the BDW space, we felt that a small semi-enclosed lounge area for collaborative brainstorming, sketching, and snack breaks would be incredibly beneficial.  We noticed that a small awkward area around a large structural collumn was not being effectively used, and we had the idea of defining and enclosing a lounge using storage units.  With this goal in mind we came up with dimesions and layouts for the storage units that would allow them to act as partial walls defining the lounge space.  We envision the back side of the storage units being large whiteboards for ideation and sketching in the lounge.

 atlasdesignstudio benbasseches bradherz pgolyski 

Assembly of final snuggle pillow. Inconspicuous hot glue and cardboard to make the form and then a slide in round that holds the bulb. Pleasant warming, pleasant orange glow pattern, all it needs now is some cinnamon aromatherapy sticks. joshlearnstodraw ellidesignstudio14 bachterh

More first iteration of incandescent project.

For the second light project, my group and I went about building a heated cardboard pillow.  We played with scoring cardboard to change its inherent physical properties.

Conclusion of the LED light project. I had concluded maybe before the last post that the auto wake up function from the iPhone would not be a feasible option without more electronics however I still wanted a charger in here to power the LEDs and provide a nice acoustic dock for dearest iPhoney-MciPhone. The build went along the lines of contact cementing the glass sheet to plywood, then epoxying the contacts to the underside of the glass. In retrospect I think I would opt to place a few globs of epoxy along the length of wire, rather than slathering all of it. I think a few globs might have looked cleaner. Next I took the plunge and opened up my iPhones cable, then soldered it back together but with the LED bug on the 5V line. Then is was just wrapping my precut Mylar sheets around my electronics and contact cementing those to the glass. I finished up with gluing in a small wooden support sanded to level the charger with my phone's 30 pin slot with a case on. Dark tests show desirable optical and bending effects similar to the paper models.

Mega update: after breadboarding up the latch circuit I found it would not toggle with a finger contact due to the high impedance of fingers. So step one was tracking down some 10MΩ resistors to up the impedance of the the whole thing. I decided that to keep the final assembly small I would do a “dead bug” circuit rather than a board. Next, I made some touch contacts out of copper shim—antennae for my bug. The process photos really illustrate the technique’s namesake. My first dead bug circuit came out successful, but it is quite a tedious method. Only recommended if you have a few zen hours to burn. Next, I cut my newly procured Mylar sheet into the appropriate sizes to create the body. Because I had a large sheet I upped the size of the largest cut above 8.5x11, which had always looked a bit anemic. I also glued up my scrap base: a glass sheet (carefully!) extracted from the glass scrap and some scrap plywood from the shelving project. Really I think they came away with a nicely complimentary color palate for being found materials.

Prototyping a digital latch for the old light-cum-paper project. After I made a space heater out of NANDs I ended up using two inverters and some resistors and capacitors for debouncing a la the last schematic in "Circuits B" here: http://www.talkingelectronics.com/projects/TouchSwitch/TouchSwitch-1.html

From frame to frame-with-back to frame-with-back-and-shelves. And level shelves at that! Next step: slapping those hinges on. atlasdesignstudio benbasseches bradherz pgolyski

Great strides in storagability. atlasdesignstudio benbasseches bradherz pgolyski

Table Design sketches. Much of sketch credit here goes to M. Baxter.

Photos of the development of the lounge space and storage unit ideas. Bottom pictures start with of mockup of the lounge space, then moves to various drawings of the storage/divider units, then a cardboard model of a divider we will commit to plywood.

atlasdesignstudio pgolyski benbasseches ellidesignstudio14 

Well done SEA, every point deserved. First ever.

The products of today's brainstorming on Prince Lab storage/space use. 

atlasdesignstudio benbasseches pgolyski

Potential circuit for the on/off of the "smartphone opera house" lights. You could power the whole stand off of the 5V iPhone USB cable, taking a parallel path for the LEDs and the phone charger.

Dead center in the schematic is a relay that would control power to the LEDs. The relay could be pulled by some sort of signal from the iPhone's USB jack (the line coming from top left). I kind of hope that the iPhone sends some momentary Tx signal on the USB when it wakes up for an alarm but this is an assumption; its hard to find information on an Apple product. In any case, assuming some kind of transient signal could be pulled off of the iPhone the relay would be pulled closed and then self-latch, keeping the LEDs on. In order to manually turn the lights on and off, a double pole, double throw switch (ignore the SPDT label) could be used (which is shown as two separate switches, 1 and 2). To turn off the lights after the phone has turned them on you would turn the lights manually on, connecting 1 and disconnecting 2, then back to off, which would momentarily break the self-latch circuit.    

Iteration 2: thick "pages" step base which could house electronics, lengthened bay to fit iPhone form factor. Plastic, on/off, and charging discussed as future directions.

After recycle-diving in the scili for some reams: the base for the smartphone opera house, iteration two.

Day one: LED and paper project. Phone opera house, projects sound and light. Collaborator: Brian Drake (I'll miss ya buddy)