Geek White North

Blog has moved

2009-12-02T20:52:00.003-05:00

I have moved all the content over to www.geekwhitenorth.com
The content is integrated over there but I would still like to move it around a little. I will leave this site up until I can find another use for it.

A little ME time

2009-05-06T20:18:00.005-04:00

I have been so busy for just about every weekend since going to the Newcastle Maker Faire, that when this weekend came around I thought "Computer time!"

After seeing that there was a new PCLinuxOS available I started checking to see if there was an update for the EeePC version for my EeePC 701. Sadly it seems not yet.

I had used EeePCLinuxOS (running from a pen drive) and for a while it seemed to work, right out of the box. But I had some problems with a video podcast recently and thought I would see if there was a fix. I looked at the Ubuntu variant that is now called Easypeasy.

Now, I like the look of the menus on this distro, except for a few niggly things like the wifi light always being on. Another niggle is that it takes over 2 minutes to boot. One enhancement I would like is to be able to do a menu search by just typing the name into a dialog box on that main screen.

I will search for another distro and see if I can get that little blue light to go off.

Newcastle Makerfaire 2009

2009-03-25T21:20:00.009-04:00

Well, we just got back from a quick trip to the UK to visit family. One of our little trips was to go to Newcastle for the weekend to visit the first UK Maker Faire. We saw the dates coincided with our trip and felt it would be fun to make the detour to Newcastle.

We knew it would be small as it was the first one in the UK, but boy was it fun to go and talk to like minded people who just make things for fun. There were a few robot exhibits and various other things that kept us busy. One of the best exhibits was a 'retro' lunar lander style game except it was not graphical, it actually had a bunch of stepper motors and servos and an arduino to control everything. You then controlled the thrust to land a model lunar module. Totally cool.

I had never been to Newcastle before and found it quite nice. We stayed at the Marriott hotel next to the Metrocenter in Gateshead and took the bus into Newcastle each day. The hotel and staff were well above expectations.
The Maker Faire was across several venues within Newcastle but all within easy walking distance.
The picture above is of one of the mechanical exhibits that someone had made complete with fire breathing nostrils.

Wife gets her geek on installing fonts in Linux

2009-02-17T22:02:00.004-05:00

So there are a number of posts about guys testing their partners to do typical functions in Linux that they would normally do in Windows.
A couple of days ago my wife announced that she wanted to have a particular fancy font for one of her craft projects.
When she used to boot to Windows, her computer would have a lot of fonts that she would download and install.
So I perched over her shoulder and kept an eye on what she was doing she went out there and found several instructions for a Redhat distro I explained that she needed instructions for Debian distro. Well, unperturbed, she typed something else into Google and found better instructions. I told her what a sudo is and how it works and she followed the instructions.
She manually copied the fonts to the location she wanted them to be.
Then at the command line she typed in the commands fc-cache -f -v etc.

She successfully installed the fonts with a little mumbling that it was easier to do in Windows.
This was all done with minimal prompting from me.

Today she installed a program from package manager and mentioned there is no way she is going to boot back into Windows anymore.

A head reshape for Gort

2009-01-11T19:14:00.010-05:00

Over the Christmas break I took a long look at Gorts head and I felt that some parts of it needed to be reshaped. I was not happy with the visor, although I was happy with the movement of the visor.

I made a new visor with different curves.
I reshaped the ears and repositioned one ear. I marked some areas for further touching up, bumps and ruts.

This has taken me a lot of my time to carefully adjust and mark changes.

The pictures here are the newer visor and head the visor was a 'dry fit' and so looks a little wonky.

I ripped out all the electronics, with the intention of reusing the circuit once I have the head looking correct.

One of the issues with the old visor was that the angle it was at because of the dome. So I have cut away some area inside the dome to allow the area under the visor to be at less of an angle.

Linux Mint 6 first impressions

2009-01-07T22:15:00.010-05:00

Installing a new release of Linux about every 6 months gives me a good excuse to back everything up, which is not a bad thing.
However I hate all the tweaking that is then needed to get everything back to **just right**.

So it was a pleasant surprise when I installed Mint 6 Felicia this past weekend. I was expecting my dual monitor setup to be a big pain in the you know what. But I have to say I was amazed at how easy it was. It detected my video card and I told it make a large desktop and voila!

I thought to my self 'Hmm.. that was easy ...almost too easy'.

My first impression was 'Cool, this has improved a lot since Mint 4,' which
had me going around in circles for several hours trying to get dual monitor support.

I then went to open Firefox. Nothing. Tried again. Nothing.

When I looked at the hidden .mozilla directory it had a lock and an X emblem on it and when queried it said root only. I found I could run it as a sudo user in terminal.

It took me a while. My solution was to add my user account by using the chown command sudo chown : .mozilla (and then all its subdirectories and file).
I also had the same issue with .adobe and .macromedia directories that prevented flash working.

I am now in the process of adding all those other tweaks, but in the back of my mind I am wondering how can some files become root? Why does this happen and would this happen again?
Should I reinstall over again while I have not got too much time invested in getting it **just right**?

The day the earth stood still -A review

2008-12-14T21:04:00.007-05:00

So we went to the movies yesterday and watched
- The day the earth stood still -
and I figured that we should see it in IMAX. So we paid our extra $3 (x2) and without giving too many spoilers the verdict was it was good.

The kid was annoying. There were certain bits left in for people who had seen the original, but in most cases changed to be only subtle.
It was entertaining, a sort of good story, an OK twist on the the original.
If you changed the robot to a different shaped thing or alien then removed the name GORT and Klaatu, Then you could call this movie anything.
The movie would stand on it's own as a good story.
I think it is a shame they called it the day the earth stood still.

You could pick it apart if you really wanted to.

I did not notice anything substantial enough to warrant the extra money for IMAX.
Go see it but save yourself the extra cash needed for the IMAX.

I am still continuing to build my Gort.

See inside my head

2008-12-09T21:29:00.006-05:00

With 'The day the Earth stood still' about to be released it sort of took the wind out of sails working on Gort.
I started work on Gort long before they announced that there would be a movie.
I am sure the movie will be a different take on the story. I hope it does not suck.

We are heading out on Saturday to see this movie. I am a little afraid that if the movie is good
that classic Gort will be forgotten and if it sucks the whole thing will be a joke including classic Gort....

I have been working on my Gort at 1/10th speed (ramping up) and taking a good look at him and found that I am not 100% happy with my visor so this weekend I ripped open his head and pulled out the visor.

Doctor Who season 4 ...Finally!!!!

2008-11-25T20:49:00.004-05:00

My wife and I being good little netizens, do not torrent files.
We waited until Doctor Who was finally shown by the CBC. However we're not stupid, and when the DVD set for S4 was released prior to the last four episodes being shown on the CBC we pre-ordered it and then watched all the remaining shows at once.

Which brings us to the the S4 finale of Doctor Who.
All in all not bad. It was nice to see all the companions together (even if some of them didn't have much to do) and Davros was excellent. Just one little niggle. Treating Donna the way they did was dreadful. Precious few people wanted Donna as a season long companion, but when we got her, most everyone was impressed with the growth and character development. To rip all that away, to turn her into the same vapid, gobby cow she was at the beginning of The Runaway Bride was mind-bogglingly cruel.

All the other companions got to keep their memories of their time with the Doctor, even if they didn't get to keep the Doctor. They were better people at the end than they were at the beginning. Here's how Donna's finale should have gone down.

Everything was fine until they were back in the TARDIS. When the Doctor informed her that she couldn't keep her super huge Time Lord knowledge in her comparatively tiny human brain.

How it should have ended...
He should just have taken that knowledge away, not everything that happened since she'd met him. Donna then decides that travelling anymore with the Doctor would be too painful with the memory of what she had to give up. At her request, he takes her back to Chiswick.
She mopes around for a day or two, until finally one night, out in the allotment, her grandad, says "I reckon it's time I gave you this." and pulls out a pocket watch.

It would have been a far better ending to have Donna revealed as a Time Lord.

Thoughts of Mandriva

2008-11-03T21:01:00.005-05:00

So I have Mandriva 2008.1 on my computer. So far there are only a couple of annoyances.

1) Logging in
When I installed Mandriva I added a password. No problem.
Rebooted the computer. At the end of my session I had my password memorized and turned off the computer.
A couple of days later I turned on the computer, but it would not take my password or allow me to log in.
So I tried about 30 combinations, then by accident I typed my login name only to discover that numlock was
turned on. Well, when I typed my login name it had numbers in it. The keyboard is a mini keyboard with the keys laid out close to that of a laptop. It seems that Mandravia turns the Numlock 'ON' unlike Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS and Mint.

2) Mandriva and the vanishing MD5 sum.
If you downloaded Mandriva and got the MD5 sum without a lot of searching then count yourself lucky. It really is hidden away I even searched with Google and all I found were people asking where the MD5 sum was and strange cryptic clues from others who probably found the information by accident but wanted others to go through the pain of finding it.

3) Variations of Mandriva.
It's not clear (as in I am an idiot, and could not be bothered to look) what you get with the three different versions of Mandriva- free, one and Powerpack versions. I don't just mean lists of programs, I mean Powerpack number of seats / licenses, home, professional. What happens in 6 months when a new version comes out? Does everything stop working or is there a slightly cheaper upgrade path. I know that people need to make money, but $80 (from what I can see) each year is a little expensive.

Other than that it seems OK

Ahead of the head

2008-10-25T22:49:00.006-04:00

Progress on my Gort has stagnated over the last few months. Mostly due to being busy at work, my messing around with Linux but also because I agreed to clean some areas of the basement\garage before continuing work on my Gort.

During this time I started thinking about another way of doing the head that may improve several aspects of the head. I think it is worth doing so first on my list after the workshop is rearranged is trying out this idea I have for the head. Pictures to follow....

Five different linuxes over five days

2008-10-25T20:33:00.012-04:00

A few months ago I went and purchased a hard drive for around $60. My wife had been bugging me to install Linux on her computer. I, like an idiot, went out and purchased a second hard drive for her. I say 'like an idiot' because I was lazy and did not check to see if it was IDE or Sata. (To be honest I could not see it being Sata, so why check?)

Long story short, I ended up with an extra hard drive. So I installed it into my workshop computer.

Installing Mint on my wife's computer went perfectly first time. Installing Linux on the workshop computer however, was another story.

First Install
Mythbuntu - I thought, great, I like to watch podcasts. I have a tuner card. I can watch TV or Podcasts while working on my various projects. The Mythbuntu install felt like an Ubuntu install and installed quite fast. However I was disappointed that my video card was not one of the ones that could be recognized. At that point, I knew that it probably not stay. I played with it for several hours and found that there were a lot of broken links (not their fault). I was not impressed. I thought it would do more. Removed.

Second Install
openSuse - Well, it did not like something and would not install. No time. Removed.

Third Install
Mandriva 2008.1 - It recognized my tuner card (90% - It knew it was there but I could not tune to anything except white noise station). Not enough time to test more - I need a better antenna. I actually liked this distro. I found that Mandravia 2009.1 was released the same weekend. I have done this before where I got the disks and spent time on the installation of a Linux only to discover that it was almost immediately out of date. Removed.

Fourth Install.
Mint Linux - I had a small issue here. I partitioned the drive so I could boot more than one Linux. At this point I found I had made a mistake and I did not get a boot menu like when dual booting Windows. I could see the Mandriva install but needed to run repair to access it. So I did, but then the reverse happened and it would boot Mandriva but not Mint. Mint could see my tuner card though. Removed.

Fifth install.
Ubuntu Hardy Heron - I repartitioned my disk to take different distros together and installed Ubuntu. Reinstalled Mandriva. I now have the boot menu choice. Ubuntu, however, did not recognize my tuner card.

Verdict - I think I will now revisit the Mandriva 2009.1 distro and I think I will add it to my Eee PC when I have a chance.
Mint Linux Elyssa is on my main desktop and even though it has some great features it has been a bit disappointing. I have several applications that I use that seem to actually crash. This probably is hardware related. But I never had issues with Cassandra.
My wife has been booting into Mint all the time and loves it. The only issue she has had is that flash does not always play.

Linux Mint Mint tea

2008-09-05T20:47:00.011-04:00

According to the recent Mac vs PC spoof commercial, Microsoft has come out with a line of relaxing teas to deal with the frustrations of using Vista.
Well, I surely could have used some Linux Mint Mint today. while configuring network access to other computers and my printer via CUPS.
I've been spending a lot of time trying to track down issues recently. This does not seem to be just plain setup issues
I could have used Crashytime Chamomile every other time I accessed PenguinTV, and I needed a lot of Pomegranate Patience when trying to use Flash player in Firefox.
I had to turn off Compiz's funky rotating screens to get Blender to open, Wow, now I need those bath salts.

But seriously configuring the network was quite a headache because I could not find where Gnome had hidden "Connect to Server" (it's in the "File" menu). I don't know why but I was looking in the "Go" menu. I thought it was missing. I actually installed Konqueror where I found the aptly named "Add a Network Folder" and that only took minutes to setup. Maybe it has always been there. I configured it once previously and then never needed it again. Maybe it's because I'm more familiar with KDE... but I have to say thumbs up to Konqueror.

I installed Opera because it does not seem to have the same issues as Firefox with Flash.
Also, as a side note, I hate that Mint hijacks my Google search from the search box in the tool bar. I should say I would not mind it if it did not reformat everything. I'm thinking that if I keep on using Mint then I may donate and just get rid of the code, however now I am in a distro-hopping mood.

Linux upgrading madness

2008-08-24T20:02:00.007-04:00

Linux Mint installed everywhere.....
So I posted a few weeks ago that I was going to keep Linux Mint, after trying it for a year. Shortly thereafter I talked my wife into my needing two monitors.

Reluctantly she agreed so I popped down the road and bought myself a ATI HD 3450 video card, plugged it into my system and I sort of got video working. But I needed a second monitor so I popped off to get one. Well, when I plugged it in and turned it on I could really tell the difference between the two LCD displays (old and new). But worse, both images on the screen were the same (cloned) and I wanted them to be different.

I was using Cassandra and I thought 'No problem, I am upgrading anyway. I'll give the settings a poke.'

I tried to edit my Xorg using VIM (boy, is that a pain in the neck to use). Tried Envoy and tried to follow the instructions on ATI's webpage. Not getting anywhere, I upgraded to Daryna because I had that on CD but never got around to installing it. I had the same problems as with Celena. I started checking for fixes and realized that I was still a whole distro behind.

I downloaded Elyssa and wow! It detected my video card and downloaded (from what I can see) the ATI drivers (complete with control panel) with a lot less pain than with the previous two versions.

I then started to set things up. Well, gradually I played with settings in the control panel-still a bit tricky at this point. My wife, who had been watching me play with some of the Compiz features, asked if I would install Mint Linux on 'her' computer. I popped out and got her a second hard drive and installed it. At the same time I figured maybe dissimilar sized LCD monitors were to blame for my problem so I got another LCD monitor.

I installed a dual booting Elyssa and XP on her computer (I think she has only booted to Windows once over the last 2 weeks).

The new monitor did not make a difference. I finally cracked the settings so that the images on my desktop were not cloned. After trying countless times in the ATI control panel I went to control center and found I had to add one setting there under screen resolution.

Still configuring,customizing and optimizing.

Linux Mint one year later

2008-08-01T21:47:00.006-04:00

About a year ago I did a cage match between Linux Mint and PCLOS.
A year later I am about to clean off the Linux hard drive and what am I going to install?

PCLOS or Linux Mint.
During the year I updated workshop computer with PCLOS08 and have to say it looks nice but I find it quite often does not have the applications I can find in Mint. I recently installed Lazarus a sort of Delphi clone programming IDE. I was able to find the basic instructions for Mint (I had to install all sorts of libraries and dependencies). But did not come even close in PCLOS. I gave up because it was too much effort.
PCLOS08 changed to gnome and whilst the industrial look is good, I can't help but say I like Mint more.

My wife has even commented that she likes Mint more.
So a year later it looks like Mint has won the desktop wars. I am going to try some others while I have a clean hard drive
I think I will try PCLos on the EEEPC though.

Polaris 22 - Iron Man

2008-07-16T20:45:00.008-04:00

Well last weekend was the Polaris 22 convention. I really enjoyed myself (even the 3 x fire alarms that were triggered Sunday morning did not ruin the weekend.

I have been very busy at work and knew that progress was still quite slow on Gort (still lots of painting etc) and he would not be attending.

When I went to see Iron Man the movie I saw the arc reactor that he built in the cave and I thought that would be cool to make, I toyed with the idea, but then I saw this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR18A418cAo&feature=related.

I knew I might be able to finish it in time to put it on display.

Anyway I was still working long hours and I rushed to get it built.
It did not turn out exactly how I planned it but I did finish it.
Overall it turned out OK considering it was completed in 2 weeks and some late nights. Thanks to paul030176 for giving me some inspiration to finish mine.

Back to working on the Gort man....

Spring in your step... Not really

2008-06-24T22:06:00.003-04:00

I have not posted anything recently, I have slowed down work on Gort due to being busy at work during the day and the recent bout of humid \ thunderstorm weather. Not to completely stop I have added ears to Gort and another layer of Papier mache.

I have spent a lot of time with the EEEPC and various other linux \ linuxes I like the EEEPC so much, I like that it powers up fast.
After using it for a while I have only one complaint it gets hot, very hot.

I moved my project movies to Viddler (which I also like)

Other projects have my attention too but I want to see how it turns out first.

The upcoming weekend is Canada day and I will try to give the workshop a good clean up.

During the summer I would like to paint Gort while the weather is good and give him a chance to dry in the fresh air.
More soon (hopefully)

Makerfaire 2008

2008-05-26T21:56:00.004-04:00

I have been so busy trying to catch up after my vacations.

I made the pilgrimage to San Mateo fairgrounds again this year and again I was not disappointed by what I saw.

I found that there was a lot more 'art', 'fire' and 'fire art' there this year but still plenty of Robots to go around.
I heard that there was 65000 people over the 2days, up 25000 from last year.

It certainly felt busier than last year (a little frustrating when trying to fight the crowds).

Several R2D2 robots and B9

My favorites were the laser harp, the wii white board but all amazing stuff

After the hustle and bustle of the crowds we went to Vegas for a few days of lazing around the pool.

AKA..... The Stig!

2008-04-28T22:35:00.003-04:00

I thought I should actually post a progress photo.

I am having trouble with the height of Gort at the moment, so it's not put together very often anyway this is the first time I have seen it all together for a while.

All I can think of is, if the arms were bent and holding his waist then he could be 'The Stig'.

Life is a beach

2008-04-27T23:18:00.003-04:00

Not much progress this week I went to Carlsbad for a few days because of work and so I was unable to work on Gort.

Got back yesterday.

Today I continued to work on the visor and started to work on modeling the hands.
I had a few spare hours when I arrived so I went to the beach Here is a picture from the beach looking inland.

Busy being quiet, almost too quiet.

2008-04-14T22:45:00.004-04:00

I have not posted for a while this is not because I had anything to post just no time to do it.
Easter came and went and I have actually gone into a little Gort overload.

So I thought I should do something else...

I have been switching Linux over the last weeks and had a lot of computer configuration problems.
I added Studio 64, Ark Linux, Fedora 08 and PCLinuxOS 2008.

Studio 64 is a nice Linux if you like to make music or video. Unfortunately it did not like my mother board video or monitor and the time to configure it was too much. I actually installed this by mistake.

Ark Linux is actually a very nice Linux (visually). I found it quite buggy, again it did not like my display. I did spend the time to configure it. But then it crashed too many times.

Fedora recognized my video but then I had to find all the software to play the simplest of podcasts or even MP3s.

PCLinuxOS 2008 I have to say visually PCLinuxOS is still the best for my old Dell computer, strangely it also had issues with my video card etc but PCLOS 2007 did not.
I checked the forums it was hot off the press the week before and it was not just me a lot of people were posting similar issues.
Gnome in PCLOS2008 is great but I kinda miss the KDE

Well everything was working fine then I decided that I should install opendns well now my network which was working fine is all screwed up...

I now have to move all my videos from Videoegg because they are shutting down their hosting

I got a eeepc as a toy then started reconfiguring my wifi well now half of my wifi enabled items work and the rest do not. So many distractions

This an example of how NOT to use your time effectively.

Focus... on GORT. I did manage to do some work on Gort I do not have any pictures as that would involve more work. I worked on the body and the feet of Gort. I am about to start the "lights behind the visor circuit \ programing

More updates at the end of the week.

New visor

2008-03-22T18:05:00.002-04:00

So amongst other things I have been working on replacing the visor and adding some perspex for the eyes. The visor is now done and is thinner than before. I now need to embellish it with the curves. I hope to make it look like some alien metal.

Work on the head tilting forward has also progressed should have some video of it moving shortly.

Cleaned up visor

2008-03-16T21:45:00.007-04:00

I spent the last week ripping out the old visor and changing it to be a slimmer version of what I had previously, it seems a lot better looking now.
I have to work getting the visor looking right at this stage because it will be inaccessible later.

While building up the helmet and waiting for the glue to dry I am going to work on the head tilting mechanism.

A visor only a mother would love.

2008-03-11T19:23:00.003-04:00

After showing the visor in action last week and looking carefully at it, I thought that the visor may be too thick so I ripped out the visor and have added a new one, it is still not finished yet and I have now come across the reason I chose to make it that thick!

On the head tilting front I added a bar that hangs down inside the body. Hopefully the bar will act as a extended lever to help move the weight of the head. I am now trying to figure a way that I can move the bar back and forth.

I have started to add to the build diary for Gort to my website.
www.geekwhitenorth.com

Gort's moving visor

2008-03-04T22:07:00.007-05:00

Here is my work bench, PClinuxOS running in the background I have been busy preparing the electronics for the visor.
I have programmed a Picaxe 08 to do a basic open, pause and close of the visor.
I am now going to make the visor look a bit better, and smoother.

The unintentionally loud sound captured in the background is the sound of the Simply Syndicated Webcast "Movies You Should See" reviewing Monsters Ball. http://www.simplysyndicated.com/moviesyoushouldsee/index.html
I just happened to be listening to at the time. I should mention, that whether you agree or disagree with their opinions, they are very entertaining reviews.

Visor up and down

2008-02-25T22:45:00.004-05:00

I have added a servo motor inside the head section of my Gort statue.
The servo will be controlled by a Pic micro controller programed with a Picaxe basic program (mainly because it is quick and easy to do).

I am in the process of gathering the parts for the PCB. I hope to have this finished in the next couple of days. I am using some of the PCBs I used in the Dalek project. I took the time to make them very general purpose so that I could get maximum usage out of them. If all goes well the visor will lift up and drop accordingly.

Pictures as soon as the servo is running.

I have also been busy adding shape (paper mache) to the dome part of the head. This is a bit tedious because I need to wait for it to dry between coats.

Visor down

2008-02-18T21:24:00.006-05:00

To the left there is a picture of the head in the looking down position. Below is the straight ahead stare.

The plan is to have the head tilt back and forth.
I added strength to the neck for support. ... time will tell if the head is too heavy. (I am still adding items to the head)

The visor is also ready to be pulled up and down. There is still some work to be done on the visor and the lift mechanism.

I have held off adding the feet, just because I need a way to put everything together with limited ceiling height.

Not a town in Galway Ireland

2008-02-11T22:45:00.000-05:00

When I first started gathering information for the project I did not know there was also a town in Ireland named Gort. Well, this is not the town in Galway Ireland.

I have made some progress on the head and here is a picture. My biggest problem at the moment is the weight of the head, I just weighed the head as it is now and it weighs in at approx 1Kg (~ 2 to 2.5 lbs). Downside is I expect it to get heavier.

The head has been the hardest part so far, mostly because there are no straight edges to reference.
The visor is ready to go up and down and I have space for a servo motor.

It still needs some building up, some gesso and sanding.

Where is my head?

2008-02-05T23:04:00.000-05:00

I added the second arm and took a picture of the dry fit.
The chest looks a little high but I plan to build that down a little.

I have been working on the head building out the sides and strengthening it up. Pictures coming soon.

Now if you look carefully the neck has been prepared for the head. At the moment my biggest issue is weight the head is starting to weigh quite a lot.

Looking at the picture to the left the hands and feet are also missing. The head will tilt forward and I am looking forward to adding the electronics (still got tonnes of sanding to do).

No project updates this week

2008-01-31T22:47:00.000-05:00

So because of family commitments, and the installation of a hood over the stove, I spent very little time (over the last week or so) working on my latest creation.
I could take a photo but you would not notice much of a change.

I have been working hard a couple of nights during the week to glue and let parts dry and there will be a photo or two next Sunday \ Monday nights or sooner if things progress well.

Captain Scarlet

2008-01-21T23:14:00.000-05:00

I got the complete box set of Captain Scarlet as a Christmas present and there are a total of 32 episodes. Finally saw the last one today. Even though I vaguely remember seeing these as a kid I never saw them all or in order.

I have to say the violence just washed over me as a 7 or 8 year old. Maybe I knew that they were not real and just puppets but the Mysterons were quite mean. In the first couple of episodes we see someone's head explode a la Scanners and a man get crushed by a car hoist that pushes the car into the garage ceiling.

Overall I found it most enjoyable and interesting, what their view of the future would be with analogue dials and all.

Mostly 'armless

2008-01-20T22:58:00.000-05:00

I started to add definition to the chest area.
I also added an elbow, this one is attached, the other arm is still drying.

Also drying is one of the coats of paper added to his head. The other arm may be added tomorrow not sure yet.... I need some more glue.

The top of the shoulder through to the arm is accessible enough that I can add wires easily.
I plan to add an SRF05 ultrasonic sensor in the palm of his right hand.

The body is now awkward to work on because the arm hangs below the waist so I needed to prop him up.

Plastered bumpy forehead.

2008-01-14T23:12:00.000-05:00

Things have been going well recently.
Working on the head has been slow but progress was continuous.
After the previous post of pictures of the head I discovered, after I made several measurements that it was too small.
So the head has been built out by an inch all-round.
I then added several layers of paper mache.
Once dried I added a coat of gesso (This helps see the unevenness)
The pits and hills of unevenness were filled with filler.
I sanded and added more filler
and ended up with this.

While waiting for things to dry on the head I cut the arms and this is a dry fit giving a quick view of what the arms may look like once in place.

Big head

2008-01-06T23:01:00.000-05:00

No real visual difference in the pictures posted last week and the progress made this week.
Basically still working on the head and, probably will be for some time.
I spent a while checking measurements and making sure things were in scale.

It's usually best to resist the urge to continue and just wait for the glue to set.
However progress does tend to slow when doing this.
I do plan to spend time back on the chest whilst waiting for glue to harden.

New Year... New look

2008-01-01T22:16:00.000-05:00

I moved my web site to a content management system so we have a new year and a new look.
Everything is moved around and there's more information
Take a look....
www.geekwhitenorth.com

Christmas...
We got some DVDs as Christmas presents and spent some time sitting and watching.

New project...
Work on my latest project has continued in between watching DVDs and working on the website.
In all the fuss Bender's head stole the body of my new project, and said "Ahhh, finders keepers!", or something like that. It forced me to spend some time on the new head.
Here is a picture of the real head of the new project...Still plenty of work to do

In the Neck of tie time

2007-12-18T21:39:00.000-05:00

I have added some glue to the shoulder section and prepared the neck. The glue is drying and there are several crocodile clamps holding things in place as the glue dries. Preparation to build out the chest has started.

End of Autumn 'Spring clean'

2007-12-11T21:21:00.000-05:00

I was looking at the pictures I posted of the last few weeks and came to the realization that I should give the work room a quick clean up.

So no work on any projects. The good news is that I found some bits and pieces I did not know I had.

Headless and chest above the rest

2007-12-05T20:14:00.001-05:00

I have been busy working on the body and it is slowly starting to take shape.
I need to bulk the chest up a little.

I will be adding the feet and ankles soon. The arms are sort of prepared too, (well I measured the arms).
I am really happy that it is progressing.

Insert flap A into slot B.

2007-11-26T22:08:00.000-05:00

I am about to start work on the feet very soon. But first I was working on cutting out the top of
the body.

I thought I would see what a dry fit would look like.

Any ideas who or what this is yet? Keep checking back to see it progress.....

Strewth! A large pair of strides.

2007-11-18T20:29:00.000-05:00

Looking like a large pair of starched pants, here are the legs and waist.
You cannot see them here but I have prepared a set of 'ankles' that will go into boots.
Still a bit rough, as mentioned a lot of sanding is in my future!

Bender vs the competion

2007-11-16T23:14:00.000-05:00

I finished the eyelids a few weeks ago and they just do not look quite the way I want them to look. So after being cheesed off at the lack of success with Bender's eyes lids I have knocked him back to a priority #2.

However work on my new project is coming strong, the legs and torso are all together and there will be lots of hand sanding in my future.
I have made plans to what he will do....
The electronics will be taken care of easily. I will use some of the PCBs I created for the scale Dalek I made.
The PCBs were designed to have several functions
one was to control a couple of servo motors and interface with the SRF05. others were just more generic input outputs. More information about these can be found on my website (look to the right for a link to geek white north website) I will be adding in some other generic lighting effects.

Possibly sound and possibly a voice recognition feature. These two have yet to be worked out and they would be more for my own personal fun than anything else.

Bender will certainly continue but I hate spinning my wheels so much. So it will not be continued for a while.
If you are interested in other versions of Bender ...check the links to the right.

Shades of fruit cocktail

2007-11-11T20:45:00.000-05:00

Well for a while I have been regularly eating fruit, at lunchtime.

It started one day when I bought a cantaloupe, melon and pineapple mix from the local grocery store because I was being lazy.

I found that this filled me up a lot... to the point that I was not hungry when it came time to eat dinner. This is quite the feat...

So I have been eating more pineapple. The downside is that it is a pain to core and peel the pineapple.

Today I found that you can get a pineapple slicer and corer for around $10 made by VACUVIN. I just used it and it takes the pineapple apart in just a few minutes. I recommend if you want to save by buying whole pineapples but hate the time it takes to core them do a search for pineapple corer.

Weekend vacations

2007-11-11T19:46:00.001-05:00

So for a mid Autumn-ish getaway we were away last weekend, well actually Thursday through Monday. We headed to Springfield Ma, to UnitedFanCon.

It was a great convention and I highly recommend it. There were about 1000 attendees (my guess). Very up close and personal.

Guests were all really good. Wendy Padbury who is at retirement age had hardly changed.
Grace Lee Witney was amazing talking about her life as a singer and actor.
Henry Winkler was also a guest. He was also amazing to listen to.

On the way back we stopped to shop a little and I got some more supplies to continue some projects.
So no progress last week, but some progress on the legs. Some progress pictures next week

All revved up and no time to do!

2007-10-27T21:33:00.000-04:00

I have so many things I want to do at the moment and it feels like the days have gone from 24 hours in a day to about 18.
The fall TV line up has meant that at least 1-2 nights I am watching TV, I want to do more with Linux, been playing some PS2, and working on 2 projects is all taking it's toll.
I have about 3 or 4 more ideas in my head.

So progress is slow but it is moving and progress is being made.
Eyelids were glued.
Legs are also progressing.
Some pictures of both hopefully on Monday...

Thanksgiving weekend sticky times

2007-10-08T20:41:00.000-04:00

This was the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.
The weather is unseasonably hot humid and well.. sticky, yes this is October.

I love it when the weekend feels like it was 5 days off and not 3 days.
We segmented the weekend into chunks. I watched TV\Movies, Slept in,
watched Podcasts listened to numerous podcasts, played PS2 video games.
Went to the mall to do some shopping, cooked a batch of Chili, cleaned up the place, web surfing, reading played around with a live distro of Linux Mint on my Laptop and worked
on my projects. WOW!

So with all this segmentation I did not get a huge amount done on my projects but because I am gluing things waiting for glue to dry works with the weekend. I glued strengthening ribs on my new project and I worked on the eyes of my Bender. So next week Benders eyes should have eyelids.

Reflecting on legs

2007-10-01T23:25:00.000-04:00

The project is starting to move along. The one on the right is done, whilst the left one needs some more attention. Too early to guess what it will be?

A leg up

2007-09-19T20:52:00.000-04:00

I have been working on the new project this last weekend.
This is the first look at the new project. It is a 6.5" builders tube the type you pour concrete in as footing for a deck or gate post.
I have then split the one end open so it is a funnel shape at the top. To keep the shape I have cut 'V' shapes then jammed and glued cardboard wedges into the 'V' shapes.

Linux for your listening pleasure

2007-09-12T21:15:00.000-04:00

I was mentioning recently about all the Podcasts I've been listening to.
If you are thinking of making the big switch over to Linux, or have the urge to play with Linux,
then I found this podcast all about switching over to Linux and the various things you need to do to experience Linux for yourself.

Well here is the really wacky part, this is not a video podcast but is actually an audio podcast.
How can an audio podcast be so good?
Well it is described in lots of detail as if someone was describing the steps out loud as you did them.

The pod cast is called Linux Learning Curve and you can find it at PodcastAlley

If you like it then you should give a vote for it.

I had some questions asked about listening to Podcasts. You do not need an iPod to listen to Podcasts. I found a program called PenguinTV that will find when new podcasts are available and download them automatically
It works in Linux only

The long, long, long, weekend

2007-09-04T21:55:00.000-04:00

The long weekend was great it felt like it lasted forever (in a good way).
Now if I could just get the essence, bottle it and sell it, I could be a millionaire.

I was out Saturday morning scouting Home Depot for items that can be used.
It was a good weekend
...I found several items and this week and this weekend I plan to swoop around and buy these items and get down to doing something.

In between planning what part goes where when I buy them, I listened to several new podcasts I am really hooked on these. In no particular order.
"Munchcast" is a web cast all about food, different food.

"Make it So" is a Star Trek web cast (language warning) It discusses the finer point of Trek and is hilarious. You need to start from episode 1

"Webbalert" is a web cast that has the Tech news in a 5 minute chunk.
"slice of Sci-fi" TV movie sci-fi news

Of course we watched aton more of our regular web casts too, like Diggnation, Totally Rad show, Cranky Geeks etc etc...

We also got some through first season and some of the second season of MacGyver DVD set.

On the down side, my internet went down on Sunday morning, had a problem with the connection. Well after talking to my ISP they had it fixed and it was back up by Sunday afternoon, good service huh?

Oh, and some baby steps on Bender's eyelids.

See what I mean about it being a long weekend?

Hitting for a century!

2007-08-29T22:32:00.000-04:00

So I have been monitoring the visits to my web site since it went up in February 2007. I have seen a progressive increase in visitors.
I started monitoring visitors in March and I finally have reached over a hundred visitors per month on a consistent basis.
Not a big feat for some but I have never really gone out of my way to publicize it either.

For the record most visitors are from UK, USA and Canada, Australia is a strong fourth.

If you are interested in seeing who is visiting your site you can check out the clicky analytics tool here Clicky web analytics .

I should mention that it reports on so many things like, country and city of the ISP, Operating System, screen resolution and what brought them to your page. A free version and a paid version.

I only use it to find out what interests people so I can add more content.

In the interests of being ethical and open I would also like to mention I do follow visitors to this blog too.

Time off for good behavior.

2007-08-29T21:44:00.000-04:00

Benders eyelids are still not complete, they are not coming out quite how I want them to.

This week I took some time off from thinking about my Bender project, progress is a little slow at the moment and I find taking time away and thinking about something else helps refocus things.

My mind was on perhaps a useful model and I think I have come up with an idea for something cool.
I do not want to say what I'm thinking of, all I will say is it is a bit old school, but I have a rough plan.
The upcoming weekend is a long weekend and I am going to see what materials I can find.

If I do work on something else I am planing to see what I can do on two projects at the same time one being major and one being minor, so when the eyelids are working I will add pictures.

Improvement? I hope so...

2007-08-24T12:02:00.000-04:00

I must admit that work on my projects has been slow recently, this is partly due to my spending lots of time cleaning and reorganizing my website.
www.geekwhitenorth.com
I have added some content about the SRF05 range finder I like to use and some more content about how I'm using the servo motors, code, some additional pictures etc.

Some of the content still needs revisiting, I wrote some of it late at night and not in one go so you tend to loose the groove.

Don't just stand there, make yourself useful too

2007-08-12T23:09:00.001-04:00

I saw this link on Friday http://www.asciimation.co.nz/bender/. It is a Bender prop that contains his brewing equipment in his stomach.
The only thing more apt would be a cigar humidor. No cigars here so that would be pointless.
So I was thinking if my prop robots could also do a useful job, as well as just standing there on display... So I have come up with a side project. Not sure if I will move forward on it. Need some careful thinking first.

Progress on my Bender is slow, eyes are taking a lot longer than expected to complete. Hope to have pictures soon.

D'oh, it was a busy weekend.

2007-07-29T22:42:00.000-04:00

It was a busy weekend (again)
As well as installing Hard drives and Mint Linux,

I also saw the Simpsons Movie. Which I thought was way better than I was expecting, now if they could bring the regular season up to that level....

Work on Bender started up again. Working on the head, specifically the welding glasses area.
No pictures yet, mostly preparation for adding eye lids.

Linux Mint first impressions

2007-07-29T21:33:00.000-04:00

It was my birthday recently and I purchased a cheap reconditioned computer from Tiger Direct as a treat.
Emachine T5052 Pentium 4 HT
1GB RAM
120GB HD
ATI video (on board).
I was reading more reviews and I discovered Mint was an Ubuntu variation but with elegance.
So I took the challenge of Mint Linux... the one I mentioned a few weeks ago "If you have more than 512MB ram you should try it"
I downloaded the iso burned to a cd and ran the live version.
I do prefer Gnome desktop (Mint), over KDE, I also noticed there are lots of packages you can download for Mint because it and Ubuntu share the same repository

I purchased a 250GB drive and added it to my system, with the intention of it being used just by Linux.

Before installing I thought long and hard if I wanted to install Linux Mint after being so excited after installing PClinuxOS. I thought worse come to worse I can always go back...

Installation: After doing almost the exact same thing on my workshop computer last week I have to say, the PClinuxOS installation is much nicer smoother and looks more professional as it install than the Linux Mint install. I think the install is like this is because it is based on Ubuntu.

Live distro: Mint took longer to load than PClinuxOS

First impressions - Cage match......
Hard disk installation: Linux Mint 8/10, PClinuxOS 9/10.
Live distro: Linux Mint 8/10, PClinuxOS 9/10.
Packages available: Linux Mint 9/10, PClinuxOS 8/10.
Older computer suitability: Linux Mint 3/10, PClinuxOS 6/10.
Overall experience: Linux Mint 8/10, PClinuxOS 9/10.

I have not removed it yet.... I think Mint is still good and deserves to stay for a while, I have to give it a little longer.

Harry Potter and the installation wizard

2007-07-23T19:20:00.000-04:00

Midnight Friday we were out getting the last installment of the Harry Potter series.
While my wife was lost in her Harry Potter book I chose to have some fun with my Linux I had just installed on Wednesday ....

Saturday morning around the time she was on page 180 I was looking through some documents and found that about a month ago PCLinuxOS 2oo7 has been released.

Decisions, decisions I felt I should upgrade before I got stuck in too much. Just around 5:30pm when she had finished the book I had finished the upgrade.

Problem for her was she was done (no more HP books) .
Problem for me is I lost the bit that was pretty and a few of the programs I liked have gone.
This version of PCLinuxOS is grittier than the 2006 version and means business.
By her comments so did the book

Whilst I have 'lost' these things I gain with other features...
I also lost my tv-card, not really a big deal but it was nice that it recognized it straight away first time around.

I will learn all about installing not from a repository but the "hard way" next weekend.

That computer has now made it's way down into the workshop.

Linux not just better, but pretty too!

2007-07-18T21:49:00.000-04:00

I like to get the English Linux magazines (Linux Format) they always have 'free' disks with live and installable Linux distributions on them.
I have tried many different types of live Linux over the last months. So many that it is a bit of a blur. The Dell has some problems having the on board video recognized. Up to now Ubuntu had done the best job. For some reason KDE always broke with the result being huge characters.
So I was doing some upgrades and I grabbed one of these disks and it had PCLinuxOS 2006 on it.
It recognized the hardware and seemed to run OK. The Desktop picture of a field and town in the distance made me want to try this more.... It just looked so pretty!!!
So I thought I would give it a try. I installed it over Ubuntu.

Now the technical jargon....
A while ago I bought two Dell GX110 Pentium 3 computers from a surplus store, used them for a while.
I then installed Ubuntu on it. My other Dell computer (same spec) has Win 98 on it.
As Win98 support is getting less and less I thought to amalgamate the two computers.
So I moved all peripherals into one unit.
So far it is working quite well....
I have a Pentium 3 with DVD R\W 512 MB RAM, TV card 28GB over 2 hard drives Win 98 still installed on one and a dual boot using Grub.

Polaris 21: The next generation.

2007-07-08T22:56:00.000-04:00

Just got back from an amazing weekend.
Toronto Trek has passed the torch to Polaris and I had a great time.

There was a great model show both small entries and large. I took along my Talkie toaster and mini Dalek.

They were only on display (not entered into the model competition) but still had people enjoying them.

There was a whole Star Wars contingent due to the 30 year anniversary of Star Wars.
R2D2 and another droid. A 1/2 scale AT-ST.

Someone had made a full scale classic Tardis console.
There were various scale replica spaceships.
Lego depictions of the last episode of Heroes and a Lego model of Stargate Atlantis Base

The guests were wonderful, highly amusing and entertaining.
I had some very late nights, and enjoyed meeting up with old friends and acquaintances.

I purchased a Tardis USB hub from the dealers room.
Overall a great weekend.

Linux on an old computer???

2007-07-03T21:55:00.001-04:00

Been trying some other live distos of linux recently openSuse and Mandravia.

These were tried on an old Dell Pentium 3, 256MB RAM Mandravia ran very slow but on a faster machine it would be quite impressive. OpenSuse seemed to have font issues.
At present I still have Xubuntu on my Linux box. I added an additional 256MB of memory,
bringing the total memory up to a whopping 512MB RAM.

I saw this new Distro called Mint. The hardware requirements say if you have more than 512MB memory then you should try it.

I hear voices in my head.... Clear voices

2007-07-03T21:37:00.000-04:00

I have been busy doing some of this and that recently.
On the prop front I recorded some new voices for the Dalek.
The gun arm servo was creating some electrical noise that was coming through the audio.
I fixed it by adding it's own 6v power and adding a capacitor.
A switch allows for turning this on and off.

I am taking my Dalek and Talkie Toaster to Polaris21 this weekend.
A revamp of my website is underway, changing content around and adding more\new content.

Giraffe at the Maker faire

2007-06-10T21:43:00.000-04:00

I was looking through the videos I took at the Maker Faire and came across this one of a 'giraffe' someone had built.
This one had flapping ears and carries people around in it's back.

Hi I'm Talkie Toaster... Reborn

2007-06-04T22:43:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures of the inside of my Talkie Toaster.
Below is a picture of the frame that everything sits on. Lots of wires and connections.
Bottom right is the audio amplifier, and the sound to light section (so that it lights up when Talkie talks)
Microcontrollers are located in the middle section.
At the top there is a microphone and a speaker.

Below is an end view looking from the end opposite the amplifier.
it is the voice detection. It was a kit I purchased that sort of worked like one of those clappers they used to advertise ("clap-on, clap-off, clapper"). the difference is I modified the last bit to give me a 5v logic voltage instead of activating a relay. This modification can be seen in the top right of the green pcb. You can also see where I hide the batteries to run this all.

Below is the SRF05 sensor addition that I just completed mounted in the unit, I have done some tests and it seems like it is all working well.
The two silver tubes are part of the SRF05 detector unit.
Immediately below the SRF05 is the controller I used stripboard and a Picaxe 08.

Previously in Talkie toaster I used an LDR to sense people.
Basically a medium bright light would have to be pointing at the toaster and someone casting shade on the sensor would activate the speech circuit. This changed the voltage on a analogue input of a Picaxe microcontroller.
The idea originally was that the sensor could determine different shades to know the distance of objects Talkie was talking to, but light comes from too many locations in a room and nothing how I expected.
The new sensor determines distance (quite accurately). But then just translates this to a logic level to trigger sound. It reliably ignores objects too far away.
I set the program with a maximum and minimum distance anything outside the range is ignored.

Talkie Toaster you will be upgraded

2007-05-29T23:12:00.000-04:00

I thought before my trip that I would like to change the sensor that activates Talkie Toaster from an LDR (light Dependant Resistor) to a SRF05 ultrasonic sensor. In about 2 days I managed to change it over and write the software.
The SRF05 is an ultrasonic detector (as used in my Dalek) that can send pulses and then know distances to an object.
I love the SRF05 it is so easy to work with. Basically you send a pulse and then measure the length of the pulse you get back, divide the answer and you can get your results in metric or imperial based on what you divide by.

I had the most trouble placing it so it was invisible to people looking at Talkie while still peeping out enough that it would catch people in range.
I will be adding to my website soon with more information

If you're going to San Francisco... Be sure to wear something warm...

2007-05-29T23:02:00.000-04:00

We just got back from San Francisco and the Makerfaire. San Francisco is very nice place we had beautiful sunshine but it was so windy there.
The wind blowing off the ocean, gave us some minor colds.
We side tracked over to Vegas for the rest of the week, we have now recovered from our colds and now adjusted back to EST

San Mateo where the maker faire was held is a very nice town \ county. this was our first Makerfaire and after about 2 hours I felt like there was just in information overload and that my brain was going to explode. I would suggest that anyone in the Bay area should go visit next year and people it is worth the trek over to San Francisco from other parts of the country.

You name it they had it there... It was 2 days that were just incredible.

Clean Sweep.

2007-05-10T19:20:00.000-04:00

This week while working on my work bench I noticed that I was working inside a 6 inch area and over the edge of my work bench.
So before continuing on I felt the need for a tidy up so progress for this week on anything.

There is one thing I really hate and that is tidying, cleaning and putting things away so I started in with the best intentions and the next thing I knew I was playing PS2.

If you're going to San Francisco...

2007-05-02T22:45:00.000-04:00

Well it's almost time for the Maker Faire in San Francisco.

It is only the second one, but it looks really interesting.
Hard to describe exactly what it is but it is.
I saw footage of last years Maker Faire on a webisode of systm

Curves and gauze

2007-05-02T22:37:00.000-04:00

Here is a picture of the head progress so far the "Ears" are almost ready to attach. The face detail is gradually being added.
Overall I am pleased but I seem to be taking longer than I expected I really want to get back to Bender.
Next I am going to build out the ears so they can carry the "handle bars" and work on some face sculpting eye brows, chin etc.

I'm forever bending tubes

2007-05-02T22:26:00.000-04:00

Here is a photo of the tubes I had no luck in bending.
Around them is the plumber pipe I found. It is ready to be mounted (almost)

Going, going, going... slow

2007-04-30T23:04:00.000-04:00

Things have been going slowly recently.
I was not well for a while... I was out of action for a day and it took some more days to recover properly.

Prior to not feeling well...
I had some problems trying to bend some brass tubes I purchased from a Hobby shop.
I tried one of those spiral tube benders.
The tube is about 20mm diameter and I need a close to 90 degree bend.

Some suggestions I got were to fill the tube with sand or fill with water and then place in the freezer. Then bend.... Neither worked for me.

I did find a solution by purchasing a pre-bent copper tube that is used by plumbers. It typically has a sealed end and I cut off the end.

Brass is so much lighter but quite expensive at approx $8 for 3ft tube
Anyway I am hopefully back on track.

Polaris 21

2007-04-20T19:05:00.000-04:00

I have just been to the message boards of the Polaris 21 Convention and saw that there will also be some special displays this year.
Besides a very large At-St and a life sized R2-D2, there will also be items from Stargate and Doctor Who on display. Details on these others are a bit sketchy....

Polaris21 is the convention that was formerly known as Toronto Trek. It is not all about Trek these days and has tried to make the leap further into Sci-Fi,fantasy and fiction even anime. Gee I sound like an advert.
6 - 8th July 2007
Here is the link http://www.tcon.ca/polaris

They have some good guests and some great possible panels listed including this one
Droid Building 101
and this one
Star wars Prop workshop
should be fun

Hear ear

2007-04-09T21:01:00.000-04:00

I finally got the glue to stick to the fabric softener bottle, so progress on the face continues .

On Saturday I purchased some supplies to continue on with the ears. I now have one complete ear done.

I purchased some plastic tubing for the pipes that come out and go over the Cybermans head.
I found that it is not quite stiff enough to hold a bend so I am going the metal tube route. I plan to pick them up this weekend.

My next thing to work on is to finish off the other ear.

Un-sticky situations

2007-04-04T22:59:00.000-04:00

I have some problems.
I checked to see how well the styrene sheet stuck to the bottle today, I have now discovered that super glue and epoxy glue are not great at sticking to the fabric softener bottle. I have never seen epoxy glue just peel off something so easily. It's almost as though the bottle has a wax coating.
I have now tried again but scuffed the surface to give some grip.
I will hopefully know tomorrow.

Soft, fluffy and smells nice too

2007-04-01T21:40:00.000-04:00

The cyberman head is starting to take shape.
I have marked and cut out the basic shape, on the fabric softener bottle.

Some thin styrene has been glued around the front.
This area (in white) will be built up especially around the nose and eyebrows.

On the right is a blank cardboard tray. The one on the left is the same but has wire casing wrapped around the outside.

Diversion into distraction

2007-03-26T21:34:00.000-04:00

I was reading about some scratch building techniques. I thought I would like to try some of those methods.
So I now have a second project on the go ...a scratch built Cyberman head. I think that I can work on one project while waiting for glue or paint to dry on the other.

One of the articles that started the diversion into distraction was how some people were building items out of everyday items like vitamin bottles.
So my starting point is a bottle of fabric softener and we will see what comes from this.
Pictures soon when it looks more like something other than a bottle of fabric softener.

Doh! It's Bender's head.

2007-03-19T22:37:00.000-04:00

I have a very basic Bender head with the welding glasses and mouth.
This is only a dry fit, nothing is glued or finalised yet.
There is a lot of sanding and filling to do.
I am going to work on a suitable placement for the servo motors.
At the moment I need one for left/ right movement of the eyes as seen in previous post.
I have been thinking of adding expression to the eyes by adding eye lids. I cannot do the angled open and close so it will probably be straight up/down action (2 more servos).

the more I look at it the more I think it looks like Homer Simpson.....

Dome, ray, me, far, so, lar, tee, dome.

2007-03-15T23:05:00.000-04:00

I just got this dome delivered. I plan to use this as the mould to create the head dome of Bender
So if you can imagine this.....

But all in the same material

Benders shoe size is 58?

2007-03-15T22:52:00.000-04:00

No this is not a photo of the moon....

I have got my first foot or is it shoe for Bender. It recently came out of the mould.
I used a large sieve as the mould.
The material used is instant paper mache, the type you buy from a hobby shop and looks like a brick and you just break some off paper away from the brick, add water in the proportions given and no ripping of newspaper required.

The craters will need to be smoothed out. The plan is to fill the insides with something heavy to stop him tipping over.
Will be doing a second foot soon.

Flossing was never this easy

2007-03-07T23:10:00.000-05:00

So my concept on how to move the teeth in Benders mouth, is based on some dental floss and elastic.
There will be elastic for each of Benders lines of teeth and by pulling on the floss up and down it should look like he is talking

I am just trying to figure the mechanics of it all when mounted in the head

Bender what a Doll

2007-03-07T22:35:00.000-05:00

OK so I have officially passed the point where I can announce my newest project is a full scale Bender from Futurama.
I think I can do it given the materials and concepts I have tried out. The biggest issue is that Bender has whatever gadgets the animators give him
Here is my initial scale model of Bender this is being used for scale and size.

Blinking and gnashing of teeth

2007-02-20T22:26:00.000-05:00

I have been so busy working on different parts of the head.
I seem to do a little here and a little there and not really accomplishing anything

I have been bogged down in the mechanics of teeth, eye lids and heads.

I am trying various materials to cover the eyes when the eye lids close, so far no luck, It has to be soft, flexible and not bulky when retracted (eyes open).

I now have the teeth moving in theory, in practice it would take 4 servo motors.

Plus 3 for the eyes that is a lot of power and synchronizing to do.
Well It seems I'm getting close hopefully there will be some pictures soon

I have my eye on you

2007-01-21T22:06:00.000-05:00

Well I have been busy working on the eyes

here is a picture

and anticipated movement.

A series of tubes just like the internet

2007-01-10T20:04:00.000-05:00

Well Christmas is over, and because the weather has been so mild those cold bugs have been out in full force. I had a cold over Christmas and I have not been able to do as much as I wanted on my latest project.
Here are some pictures of the head and body of my next project.
Yesterday i got a care package from my favorite robot store packed full of servos and Ultrasonic sensors.

The head

The body

Head and body together

more pictures soon....

So much work so little time

2006-12-16T19:52:00.000-05:00

It has been very quiet in my blog for a few reasons
1) I went on a road trip to Chicago at the end of November
2) After returning from Chicago I have been very busy at work, crazily busy.
It now looks like I will get some time back from all that extra work. I hope to have some free time just before and over the Christmas break and make up for lost time.

Before my trip to Chicago I had actually made a start on my latest project.
I am not going to announce what it is yet, but I will have some pictures up on here soon.
I had also been working on my web site which will be up very soon.

Halloween project

2006-11-07T21:07:00.000-05:00

In between working on my web page I have been looking at other peoples projects.....
I was trawling the pages of the Make magazine site and saw lots of projects to scare people. One in particular that caught my eye and it was built around a winbond 10 second voicecorder IC. I looked through my boxes and found enough parts to make my own mini Halloween project.
Total time taken 2 Sunday afternoons to make the electronics and one evening to record the sound bites into the voicecorder IC. I went to the grocery store and got a Candy bucket 99 cents
the parts were all parts left over from previous designs.

From Halloween2006

It works by covering a light dependant resistor (LDR) and a picaxe microcontroller
senses this and starts the next sound bite,The code is extremely simple. The downside to this method is the lighting in the room has to be just right and there is a slight delay before sound is heard.

More Linux

2006-11-07T20:51:00.000-05:00

OK, so now the desktop is running OK with Linux I thought I would see what would run OK on my Laptop. Another Old computer that is hanging around.
It is a Compaq Pentium II Armada series. 4GB hard drive, 64MB Ram.
Well I tried Damn small Linux (DSL) and I like the interface but had a problem with the computer hanging.
I had even better luck with Puppy Linux and have installed it partially to my hard dive.
Now this is strange my old OS was Windows 98 the computer ran really hot and my wifi located in one of the bedrooms could only just reach the ground floor.
With Puppy Linux I can sit in the basement and surf with occasional drop out.
The computer seems to now run cool. I can really recommend Puppy Linux.

Thanksgiving 2006

2006-10-11T22:19:00.000-04:00

Well weird things do happen. The Toronto weather men actually got the weather correct they said it would be nice all weekend and they were correct. Monday did become very cloudy in the afternoon but it did not rain and so technically they were correct.

My first project add Linux to my desktop

2006-10-07T00:47:00.000-04:00

I have been playing with several live Distros of Linux. I have finally taken the plunge and converted one of my older desktops to Linux.
I have a used Dell Optiplex Pentium 3 700MHz that I converted to Linux 384MB Ram 14 GB hard disk.
DVD rom writer.
I was trying vector Linux (VL) and Knoppix. I finally caved in and tried Ubuntu, it is slightly slower than VL but the video card was recognised without any need for manual changes and that was what made my decision for me.
The whole installation to my hard drive was 30 minutes. I did not attempt to partition the drive so no Mickey$oft left on this computer.
After installation it automatically updated all the packages