John Edgar Park, one pixel at a time
This is for a Make: television project Tod Kurt and I are working on. Tod’s Epilog laser cutter is cutting out a rectangle from the top of a Pelican case, so that I can mount a serial LCD panel there.
This turned out much neater than my Dremel cut version. The best part is the thick bed of evil yellow smoke that curls forth when you open the lid. I’m pretty sure this smoke is good for you, so I inhaled of it deeply.
This struck me as an awful lot of plumbing just to get that flow meter in there. And why the U bend at one end?
My friend Tod Kurt has a laser cutter, which means all manner of high tech tattooing is possible. We etched a Make: logo and an espresso portafilter logo onto my 12″ PowerMac today and it came out beautifully.
I first saw this machine, the JetSteam Ai-1, at the SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) show in Long Beach. It is very cool and minimal looking — most of the guts (boiler, pump, etc.) are hidden below inside a cabinet, so only the controls, portafilter holder, and steam wand are mounted on the counter. They claim serious temperature stability, thanks to dual PID devices (one for water boiler, one for steam).
Its designer Corey Waldron has been working on it for over 7 years, and people are guessing it’ll cost around $6k, but I haven’t heard anything official. Here’s an action video.
Luckymomma posted about the painting of the robots from our son’s birthday party. I think I’ve just closed a dangerous circle of intramarital blog cross-linking.
When the director starts giving you trouble it’s important to remember who’s holding the enormous gun. Hence the smile!
I found out that Bill Gurstelle’s friend Casimir Sienkiewicz build this beauty.
Here’s the camera rig that Bill Gurstelle built for our Pole Camera episode on Make: television. There’s one servo to control tilt and another to remotely trigger the shutter.
It works great — we took it to Como Zoo this morning to take picture of orangutans, who were seriously unimpressed with us and our antics.
The crew of Make: television is a wonderful group of people who really understand what Make is about. For example, here’s Richard Hudson, the executive producer, jumping in to fix the firing circuit of our air cannon. I’m in hog heaven working on this show!
This beast is on the Make: television set to make our PVC pipe version feel bad. It was built by a local maker (not sure of his name), and it’s a thing of beauty. All four tanks dump their air at once when you pull the trigger, allowing you to launch t-shirts into the top bleachers of a stadium.
Edit: I found out that this was made by Casimir Sienkiewicz.
I’m flying out to the Twin Cities to shoot three more episodes of Make: television. The projects are a burrito blaster (air cannon), a pole aerial photography rig, a steady-cam, and a digital TV antenna. It’s going to be a lot of fun. If you’ve got any tips on places to eat/drink coffee in Minneapolis/St. Paul, please let me know.
