Endor Observation Post

The story of a kids playhouse

Some years ago, after the pool was wrecked by the weight of a record snow year, we dismantled a part of the deck. Suffering from the common makers sickness that prevents you from throwing away good material, I stored all that wood away. Here's the pile after we got it back out and inventoried what we had to work with:

The only new wood was the 4 columns and the cross braces at the base. To ensure (completely overkill) stability I went for a design where all the columns are leaning inward.

For extra QA and on the spot design-validation, my dad was part of the build. By working with him him when I was a kid, I learned to build and to problem solve. I always loved building things with him.

Here is the playhouse partway during construction:

Since we finished the playhouse some days ago, the kids have played in it every day. Like a moths to a flame all the kids in the street were also sucked into the playhouse. It is one happy place.

Now let's renovate our old bathroom...

Adventure Time Sword

My son was invited to the birthday party of one of his friend.  His friend mentioned to him that he liked   the Adventure Time cartoon and would like to have the sword.  My son then told him that we could probably make it because we are always building stuff.

We looked it up on the web and since it's a simple shape I decided to give it a shot.  Using the hard wood from an old shelf we took down, I drew the rough dimensions on it

I then cut the rough shape using a skill saw and a jig saw

The guard was build with 2 pieces with grooves screwed and glued on both sides

This was the fun part where I sculpted all the notches and scratches followed by some sanding

It was then time for primer and painting.  The handle was done by hand using acrylic paint

This the final product after gold metallic paint and a clear acrylic coat.  The jewel was made with Super Sculpey and also painted using acrylic paint.

Action shot with my son

RoboTank #2 / homemade PCB

This was my first attempt at making a PCB at home.  I follow this awesome tutorial explaining how to make PCB using a laser printer.  The first step was to design the board.  For this I used ExpressPCB free software.  Then I printed the design on a magazine paper.

The next step (which took me 3 tries) was to transfer the design to the copper plate using an iron.  This was a big learning experience about the necessary spacing between the traces and the amount of time to apply the iron.  In the end I got something that was good enough to go to the next step.

As suggested, I corrected the mistakes using a Sharpie pen.  After a Ferric Chloride bath here is the result:

I used a sponge to rub the surface during the etching.  Apparently the Sharpie fix is not meant to survive that kind of abuse.  This is still fixable.  The final step was to drill the through holes and do the assembly.

DIY Proto board

With the Arduino board, I'm using the proto shields very often. It all sounds good with the exception that I often have many ongoing projects and only two proto shields. On top of that I would like to start using the ATtiny and not only the Atmega328 and the UNO board is not made for the ATtiny.

The solution? Make my how proto board of course!

I wanted the board to be compact but still contain a mini breadboard so I decided to used one half of a mini breadboard.

To make things convenient, I also wanted to use a ZIF socket to easily change the micro-controller chip(s). Here are all the parts before assembly:

Part list:

1: ZIF socket 28 pin (~$2.95)

2: 8 pin female header (~$0.50 2x)

2: 6 pin female header (~$0.50 2x)

1: 5 pin female header (~$0.50)

1: 4 pin female header (~$0.50)

1: 16MHz Crystal (~$0.95)

1: Mini breadboard (~$3.95)

2: Capacitor Ceramic 0.1uF (~$0.25 2x)

2: Electrolytic Capacitors - 100uF (~$0.35 2x)

1: Voltage Regulator – 5V (~$1.25)

1: 9V Snap Connector (~$1.25)

1: PCB board (~$1.25)

+ some wires for connecting the components.

Total cost: ~$16.0

Here's the final product.

I'm pretty happy with it because it's small, it doesn't need a separate proto shield, I can use it with either 1 Atmega328 or 1-2 ATtiny(s) and the ZIF socket makes things a lot easier when switching chips.

Infrared on the cheap

When you make mobile robots, infrared detectors are a must. Here's a nice specimen taken in the Internet wilderness:


The problem is the cost. Starting at $13.95 US plus tax, plus shipping from Mars and the retarded Canadian border fees... in the end, it's to much. Not only that! It takes two weeks to come here. Two week! Are they using camels? I'm living in Quebec city, it's not that small, we even have asphalt and electricity.

Deep breath

Anyway for about $2.50 you can make the 'same' thing at home with these components:

• Detector $1.95
• Light $0.32
• Resistor (220 ohms) ~$0.15
• Bit of PCB board ~$0.01

Long live DIY