The Cart The cart will be used to move the claw around the XY table. The cart will also have a spindle on it to raise and lower the claw. The spindle is powered by a drill motor. I still have to figure out a way to run the power and data wires to the [...]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D28KmiJrMu4
The Giant claw game can be broken down in to a few parts. The Claw, The Joystick, The Gantry/Cube, The XY table, The Cart, Control system The Claw The claw is working and it is in pretty good shape. The claw can open and closes and pick up toys. It uses a small gear motor [...]
Over the week I worked on the Relay H Bridge, software and circuit diagrams for this project. Only 1 more week till it needs to be done. Relay H Bridge After finding out that my L298 H Bridge was not powerful enough to operate my gantry motors last week, I switched over to use a Relay H Bridge. The advantages of using a relay [...]
Only two weeks left to get the Claw up and running ready for Breaker Faire the Maker Faire fund raiser party. I am starting to get worried that I might not get it done in time. I have been having lots of problems this week with getting the motors working with the gantry system. The motors are [...]
This week I have working on the gantry system. The gantry system is used to move the claw around inside the Cube. I was originally planing on attaching the claw to 4 cables running to pulleys in each of the corners of the cube. The cables would be attached to four electric motors. Just like the sky cam that you can [...]
I started working on the third version of the claw this week. In this version I have added a motor, extended the length of the prongs, and started on the electronics. At first I tried using a direct drive electric motor that I found at VHS. I constructed my own shaft coupler out of sheet metal and hotglue. It [...]
This is the second prototype of the claw. I really liked the claw design by Marc Cryan that I found on Instructables.com but I wanted it to have three prongs instead of two. I did this prototype out of cardboard using trial and error to get the right size for each part. I tried doing the math [...]
I have made a bunch of time lapse videos in the past with my Cannon S90 using the CHDK hacked firmware. These videos turn out great and I have very happy with the results. The problem is that I have to leave my expensive camera unattended for hours or days at a time and I am unable to use the camera while it [...]
Now that I got my controller working and the stepper motors moving with a RAMPs board, I decided to get started on The Claw. I knew that I would have to go thought a bunch of iterations of the claw before getting one that I liked so I wanted to start early. I knew I wanted a [...]
Continuing from my last post on The Giant Claw Game! This week I build the controller for the Giant Claw using the laser cutter, a arcade joystick and a button. The box was cut with VHS’s laser cutter, using a pattern that I created with this laser cutting box making tool. I purchased the joystick and button from a local arcade suppler John’s [...]
This year for the Vancouver Maker Faire I am planning on making a giant Claw Crane game. Normally claw games are found in video arcades and shopping malls and are a glass box where players can control a crane with a joystick and attempt to pick up prizes from the playing area. They are also known as teddy picker, candy crane, [...]
Update: Updated versions of VHS Lighting Talk Challenge coins The Vancouver Hackspace (VHS) runs a social night called Super Happy Hacker House (SHHH) once every six weeks or so. One of the actives that we do at SHH is lighting talks. A lighting talk is a small 2 mins or less talk on any subject that you like. During this talk the audience can heckle [...]
This is a making of timelapes for the Tender Threads — Bloodshots Canada 2012 contest entry.
Team Failure’s Entry in the Bloodshots Canada 2012 48-Hour Horror Short Film Competition Tender Threads is the story of a talented young gynecologist who receives a mysterious instructional DVD that informs her that she is likely to be a psycho killer’s next victim. Please be advised: this film may contain puppets, but it’s pretty well [...]
I recently went on a trip to New York for the World Maker Faire. My plan was to make a bunch of wooden nickles that resembled Geo Coins and put them in several different Geo Caches across New York and Toronto. The problem was that ALL of the caches that I tried to find in New [...]
I need a simple gift for a few of my family members and friends that I am going to visit on my upcoming trip to World Maker Faire in NY. I have been playing with VHS’s Laser cutter all week making GeoCoins So I decided to make a few simple pendants. A Hawaiian flower (Hibiscus) and ukulele. The image for the [...]
I was able to compleat the last bunch of GeoCoins tonight at VHS. These ones turned out better then the first two batches. I sanded the surface of the coins just a little to remove some of the extra burn marks. They made the lines lighter but a lot more readable. I also printed [...]
Made some more GeoCoins, This time i have included the inkscape source file for your reference.
I made some more demo GeoCoins on VHS’s laser cutter. It took creating about ~25 coins to get the settings just right. I have started adding some of them to the thing tracker. While using the thing tracker I hope to learn how to make the experence better for normal users. I like to Eat [...]