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 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
In our conference area at work we had a rather interesting table. Â It was a huge poster of James Dean sitting on top of a piece of wobbly antique furniture. Â It was time to upgrade the desk to something more usable and fitting of serious meetings. Â Clients don’t like to sign expensive contracts on a …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