Ask HN: What have you built? (not software related)
I guess hackers like to just build stuff. What have you built other than sotware? Maybe a crib for your new born child, maybe a house, maybe a bike etc...
Printmaking is much more difficult than I'd have expected. One of the biggest challenges is maintaining a clean, inkless field. It's so easy to get ink on your hands, at which point it's nearly impossible to pick up a sheet of paper without smudging it before you're within three feet of the press itself. Registration (proper alignment) is a challenge as well, but is manageable. Working slowly and deliberately is difficult but certainly rewarding (though the reward here is spending an hour with lacquer thinner cleaning off the type, but I digress).
Even so, it feels great to take a Saturday evening away from the Internet, sit down with a set of lead 72pt Franklin Gothic, a brayer and ink, and print a few runs of something that strikes you as amusing at the moment.
Here are a couple photos from the last experiment:
Printed: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cscotta/5018870586/lightbox/
Letterpress: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cscotta/3825133446/
(See the "luck" tag for a couple in-process shots)
Anybody I show this thing to is instantly amazed. About 10% of people can actually figure out how it works. And, in general, if they don't understand it before having it explained to them, they won't understand it afterword (though they will claim to "get it"). Maybe I'm just not good at explaining the strobe effect. When people first see it, they momentarily believe that I've managed to create some sort of anti-gravity device. Then when they see it going backwards, they sort of lose grip of reality for a moment. It's amazing.
My time fountain kicks the original one's ass. Unlike the one in the video, mine does a full 30fps and has analog adjustment knobs for forwards, backwards, etc. It doesn't relay on a "drip detection" circuit, but rather just two 555 timers. I freakin' love the thing.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvY7NGncCgU Note: I didn't make the one in the video, and this wasn't my idea. I simply implemented the same concept myself with various improvements.
500 Feet long, held two passengers, guts were a rewired electric wheelchair.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/5008514139/in/set-...
This picture is neat: http://www.flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/5008514139/in/set-...
Loved this, was a very very ambitious project, sadly I didn't get to see it working. :-(
In the same vein I made this this year:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bendelarre/5010762637/in/set-72...
A 16x16 array of RGB LEDs on which we ran animations generated by the community on a website. (Yes, I know, its still software related...I can't help myself!).
Later, I built one of the second wave of the Altair computers, and actually had one or two consulting gigs from that.
And, to brag a little, I pointed my daughter, to a QST article on a code practice oscillator, and she built it with almost no supervision when she was in high school.
I built, from a kit, one or three of the amateur packet radio kits, and ran a radio BBS for too long a time. (You see, the internet is just ham radio 2.0, but none of you get that fact, but i digress)
I built (strictly was architect for) a medical information system that gathered electrocardiograms from patients bedsides, transmitted them via telephone to a datacenter near Chicago, which returned an english-language report to the hosptial in ten minutes or less. (This one is cheating a bit, as a large component of this was software.)
But by far and away most of the stuff I have built is software.
Now, my gig is to break software, but that is off-topic. (Hint--you sometimes need to write software to break other software.)
I was into cars for a long time. In college, I built strut/tie bars and sold them on the web. I turboed my car and built the downpipe and the charge piping. I also made and modified numerous parts for the car and friends' cars (suspension parts, wiring, brackets, blah blah). I also reverse engineered the ECU running the engine and wrote an engine management system for it which required some hardware integration (that count? http://benogle.com/projects/bre ).
All of my furniture that was not upholstered (no couch, etc) until last year was built by me in high school.
I finished the basement in my house which required making a bunch of stuff at previously mentioned fab shop. Even for general house maintenance I often ended up making some small part(s) at the shop (i.e. sprinkler system install, fixing the garage lean, etc).
1 PC 1 Matrox TripleHead(3 monitors-View), 1 Matrox G200(3 monitors-Instruments)
Built some electronic boards to control LEDs, Switches, Potentiometers for Throttle, Yoke, Overhead panel, Central console, etc...
Nice project if you have the time....
pictures, please?
So many amazing projects in this thread!
Building is just another part of hacking. If you asked me what I'd modded, I'd have an even larger list. I originally got into electronics and computers because it was a cheaper hobby than model railroading. I couldn't afford railroading stuff from the hobby shop, but I could always find a broken radio to get parts out of for electronics projects, and make money repairing radios and TVs until I could afford a microprocessor. :)
http://jakemauer.com/work/fields/
I also built a T-Shirt with EL wire that sync'd to Ableton Live
Very cool project. I think if somebody made an installation / toy that did extreme looking ferrofluid stuff in response to people touching around it (like those glass spheres with electricity arcs tracing all around), it'd have commercial value.
Still waiting for royalties from the Wii :)
One of my babies :) :
http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/renewables/windmill/17_sep_bill...
Yes my web page is lame and written by hand 7 years ago, but it does have a few pics.
I've been busy converting this one off-and-on for the last two years, it's going so slow because the machine is in a warehouse almost 200 miles from here:
http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/machines/dscf1225.jpg.html
But it's actually getting there, just a few more wires and it will be completely modernized.
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=241922
My next trick will be to transplant a modern variable vane turbocharger onto it and develop a fly by wire throttle and vane control system.
I also built the desk on which my workstation currently resides. I couldn't find a desk that (a) looked decent and (b) was enormous, so I designed a desk that satisfied both and built it.
I want to start building a machine shop in the basement.
Machine shops in basements are nice once they are stocked but getting your gear in there is a real pain, best to stay on the ground floor if you can, preferably in a place that is not directly connected to your house, the vibration can be quite a nuisance to other occupants.
It also helps if you bolt your stuff to the floor (concrete).
The latter was a rebuild, an old farm house, the one in Canada was from 7' in the ground to two and a half storeys.
The one here in NL was a major project, mostly because I did it all by myself and it's a brick building. It's a beautiful little house in a very quiet spot of the country, with a fair bit of ground around it.
It took me two years to get it all done.
Building a house is absolutely doable, fixing one up with a rich history in a way is more fun, but comes with more restrictions.
One day I came across this nice product, http://www.amazon.com/SNAIL-SAKK-Mail-Receptacle-Slots/dp/B0..., and it seemed more than possible to make my own. So, using a fabric shopping bag from a local store, some Velcro and a sewing kit I managed to put my own together in a couple of hours. It works great! :)
My grandfather was a carpenter and when he passed, he gave our family his tools. We always have lots of wood and woodworking tools around so that's my preferred medium (when all you have is a hammer....).
I've ground a few too; Polished fewer and never completed any :)
bunch of weirdness, but my hobby is building sprayed in facecoat glass fiber reinforced concrete pieces.
Most of my newer pieces are 3/4" thick and have EPS foam cores. My first attempt is the solid grey double sink in the bathroom which weighs at least 250lbs, I thought there had to be a better way, and there was. The desk with the imac on it is 28x60 and weighs 90lbs.
Sorry about all the other random pictures, especially if you get to see t-shirt diaperman on the beach.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/album.php?aid=204054&...
Oh, and soap. I make soap - does that count? :)
it's a long story, to do with a church funding something, but i was the eventual designer of it despite being an intern, then went and built it in my own time one weekend. was fucking heavy and never used it, just donated my time to that client
The makerbot.