While I was building the Robot Bartender for Two Bit Circus, I had to figure out an adequate backdrop for Gearmo. Our strengths lie with fancy LEDs, but how do we fill a space behind him. I had to find a solution that would be dazzling enough, yet do so on a budget. Someone in …read more
While working at Two Bit Circus, we had a need for a large welding table. Something that could fixture some large structures down. Since our games can be roughly 10′ wide, it made sense to make welding table 10′ wide to accommodate us. I decided on a slatted welding table so we could clamp almost …read more
One of the things that I’ve always wanted to construct is kinetic signage. People love to turn cranks and see stuff move. It’s fun and very satisfying. And signage is a perfect fit. Turn a crank, see something move, and associate a strong sense of enjoyment with the brand on the sign. What better way …read more
The whole point of building this tipping mechanism was to drive a ball through a maze. Now I had to actually build the maze. The first thing I had to do was to sketch it out by hand on graph paper. I had to account for the thickness of the boards, the width of the …read more
This is Part 3 of a series. You can start with Part 1 and Part 2. After welding up the basic frame of the Labyrinth game, I took the entire thing outside and gave it a quick coat of primer, so it wouldn’t rust. I knew this project was going to take a while, and …read more
This is a continuation of Part 1 of this series. With all of the pieces cut, drilled, and welded to make the square frames of the labyrinth, it was time to start aligning the bearings that everything pivots on. I attached a pair of 1″ ID flange mount bearings to both sides of the holes. …read more
I finally finished a large project. During the process I was intending to blog about the progress. Instead, I took photos and just let them build up. I’ve got enough photos that it makes sense to break them up into a few different posts. I hope you’ll bear with me. The goal was to build …read more
For the past few years we’ve been dealing with buttons. Â Moving, storing, sorting, picking through, and generally managing a large collection of castaway buttons from a previous company. Â Some were usable, but many lacked the micro-switch that gives the button any functionality at all. Â Why do I mention this? Â Because having these buttons made us …read more
I pulled out an old transformer that I had been saving for probably 10 years. I don’t even remember where I got it from. According to the tag on it, it has a 110V input but the output is 6200V rated at 82mA. I ran the input through a contactor (basically a beefy relay) so …read more