gravityroad – ROBOHEMIAN

noodleFeet

Noodle’s Gripping Toes

December 6, 2015spetku5 Comments

For the past year, the four tawny stalks that NoodleFeet balances upon have remained common pool floaties, 2.5 inches in diameter, hollow, providing nothing more than the obvious support needed to function as legs… but Noodle longs for something greater. GRIPPING TOES When Noodle feels threatened, there is little he can do to defend himself. He can beep and perhaps canter away at a slow speed… but he is passive and therefore vulnerable. He isn’t equipped to handle the harrowing task of world domination::cough:: I mean, daily life. To fix this, I decided to add another layer of complexity to Noodle’s most important characteristic: RETRACTABLE GRIPPING TOES for his feet. A while back, I came across a video of a rock drilling probe concept by JPL. This neat claw attaches itself to a surface by splaying out a hundred or so mini grappling hooks in all directions, which catch on the rock and help anchor the central…

Projects

Eye of Toast

September 8, 2015spetku4 Comments

I would like you to meet my toaster. The toaster is an old character of mine who has survived through subtle reference in the things I draw and build. Nothing I make is about the toaster, but the toaster is about everything I make. He’s my chrome totem. While I was in college abroad, I bought an actual physical model from the early 30s off eBay which looked pretty much identical to the one from my doodles (still works too!). I had big plans for this little toaster, but at some point we got separated during my move back to Las Vegas. The toaster got packed in one of my friend’s moving boxes and it wasn’t until this summer that we finally remembered to unearth him for me to take home. After three years of waiting, toaster is now happily sitting next to me on my bench… It’s wonderful to be reunited, but admittedly it feels weird talking to him during the…

General Stuff

The Thing You Follow Without Trying

August 5, 2015spetku2 Comments

I’ve always wanted to produce a graphic novel, but I’ve tried and failed to keep the momentum up numerous times throughout my life. ITS FRAKKEN HARD. I’m not the best at drawing, but I like doing it… and at this point I’m good enough that I can crank out images without fussing over them too much. So I’m giving it a go once more. The story I’ve chosen to tell is a cracked-out trip of an autobiography. It’s about the important events of my life, told through the dreams I had at those particular times. This is all mapped over a set of characters I’ve been drawing forever who live in a post-human word. It doesn’t make much sense unless you remember to think of everything as a metaphor… much like interpreting dreams, right? For an additional layer of fun, I’ve only started illustrations after my second cocktail of the evening. This works to keep the storytelling honest while preventing…

Jelly

My New jellyBot Prototype, Racky

October 12, 2014spetku0 Comments

About a year ago I started building a robotic jellyfish inspired by Festo’s submergible AquaJelly. I was just beginning to figure out how to get the thing moving when I got sidetracked with the prospect of launching a Kickstarter campaign and dropped the project cold. During this whole long year while I’ve been fulfilling the said Kickstarter, this poor jelly prototype (“Boney”) has watched silently from a distant shelf in the workroom, begging me to pick it up again. Finally this weekend I was able to spend some time giving the old parts a makeover… in yellow. I added a nice gentle curve to the moving pieces, taking after the design of its cousins, the delta robots : Last year I decided to use a rack and pinion to get the parts to move in leu of Festo’s fancy linear actuator that they showcase in their model. Never having used, let alone designed a working rack…

DefCon Projects

DefCon 22

August 16, 2014spetku1 Comment

Sunday evening I collapsed on the couch with a nice big glass of red wine after having unloaded the very last of our stuff back into the house… thankful that I’m alive, in one piece, and that nothing critical went wrong this weekend. I have more awesome memories for the grey squishy hard drive. Here are the highlights on a few of my experiences : Our Kids’ Second Big Recital >.< DELTAS! They were there! This being our second time attending the con, we wanted to participate by bringing our own taste to the medicine. Friday night during the event of random fun and mischief, we had a nice dark sliver of space to set up all of our babies in. The best part being that we didn’t have any rules or restrictions for the space we were showing in like at Maker Faire. We could pretty much do anything we wanted; our own cooler filled with…

Fifth Element Mood Stones

Elemental Mood Lighting : The Moving Bits

April 23, 2014spetku4 Comments

First I have to show off how nicely the prints turned out! Some of these larger pieces were printed over night for nine-hour periods and were completed without fail (which is surprising). In the morning there would be a loaf of stone sitting on the printer bed : Mark is responsible for creating these seamless linear designs on the face of the stones : We ran out of natural filament by the time we got to the ‘wind’ stone, so it’s in a silver/gray color instead. This one was printed last because unlike the other three stones, its design is on the upper portion which overlaps the wedge pieces that pop out. It called for a little more fuss and planning when designed : Over all, I’m extremely pleased with how they look so far. I can’t wait to paint them though….! I spent most of this past weekend getting the mechanical parts in…

General Stuff

Bunny Slippers of Death

March 23, 2014spetku0 Comments

My birthday was this past week and Mark made me something so frekkin awesome that I had to write a post to share it. First of all, we all know gifts that are made are far better than gifts which are bought. Gifts are even better still when they were made with inspiration from something you did… in this case, a drawing I made that Mark pulled into reality with his craftsman/techie prowess! BEHOLD. Bunny feet of death : Mark collaborated on these with his awesomely talented friend from work, Emily Wiersma… who designed the ears, which she engineered to stand up and hold their shape when worn, as well as the adorable bunny faces! Mark created the eyes, which are 3D printed compartments that hold both a power supply and tiny SMT LED! I drew these almost a year ago back when I first started planning the Robot Army…

Light Play

Robot Army : Our First Rush

February 6, 2014spetku0 Comments

There were some experiences involved with launching a Kickstarter that I had been heavily anticipating. The most obvious of which being the excitement that follows your first big rush of backers. – Sort of like Christmas, but in the form of a global affirmation that your ideas are liked, understood, and that there is a place in the world for people who dare to seize their dreams. Though Mark and I were off to a respectable start… our momentum pittered out rather quickly and for a good day and a half we crawled through six or seven percent. It was agonizing. Maybe we were expecting too much. Since we haven’t yet been picked up by any major feeds, its been a matter of sitting in front of the laptop every morning and kindly reminding/begging people to post about our project and help us get the word out. After blasting yet…

Light Play

Robot Army : Video Done… sigh…

January 26, 2014spetku1 Comment

It’s done. We filmed close to 100gb of video footage and ended up using less than a percent of that. We story boarded, scripted, tried various locations, and in the end chose the most simple three-minute segment that told the bare minimum about our project. It felt the best, flowed naturally, and isn’t so long that you’d stop watching in the middle of it. So I guess we succeeded. Here it is ^ Now that we’re over that hurdle, on to the next headache. In order to launch a project, Kickstarter requires that you have an Amazon business account to transfer money into once you’re funded. This is all well and good. Mark and I got our corporation made, filed for our EIN and were about to get everything underway with Amazon- however for reasons unknown there was a discrepancy with our tax information (or something???) and we got locked…

Light Play

Robot Army : CES Week

January 10, 2014spetku0 Comments

This week was exhausting. It involved a lot of walking, chatting, setting up, tearing down, and practicing the good ‘ol elevator pitch. Myself, Mark, and his friend Gregg took off to make the most of CES- exploring for two long days on the showroom floor, and then attending events in the evening. It was a lot of fun and we made some new promising contacts (woo!). Last night we did our first demo with the six working delta robots we have at Pololu Robotics. They held a nice shindig for those attending the convention who were involved with robotics and hackable electronics. It went over well and our kids did a fantastic job, seeing as it was their first recital. >.< Now to double our numbers… Mommy and Daddy must get busy. Finally, with a moment to relax, Mark and I went over our BOM and caught up on emails…