Make:Shift:Do and Project RC Dalek

[iamthespaceinvader .]

Hi all

Lauren brought up Make:Shift:Do on the co-ordination group; it’s an event organised by the Crafts Council among others which encourages maker spaces to open their doors to the public over the evening of Friday 21 November and during the day on Saturday 22 November, in an effort to raise the profile of making and maker spaces in the UK.  The thought was that it might be something the space as a whole would be interested in taking part in.  Application and taking part is free (and if we have enough interest and no objections, I’m happy to take care of the process).  The website is here: http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/makeshiftdo

My hope, if enough people are interested, is to move, as we did for Artweeks (though possibly not quite as extensively), into the warehouse space at OVADA if we can book it, and spend that time working on all manner of hacking - in particular, I would like to collaborate with any and all who are interested in (beginning) the creation of a full-sized remote operated Dalek from my wife’s old powered wheelchair base!

You’ve all seen the thread on these boards about it, I’m sure.  I have the plans, and am starting to rapidly accumulate materials.

Unfortunately, that weekend is Christmas Light Night and OVADA will be putting on exhibitions, so we wouldn’t be able to get out into the warehouse for 21/22 Nov, but this project does have plenty of bits that can be done within the space that we might do then, and OVADA have preliminarily offered the warehouse for either the weekend before or the weekend after.

Accordingly, I’d just like to gauge interest from all those out there who might have fun with it, in a couple of weekends of collaboration in building a cool prop, which can be stored at my home, and be brought out for events and fundraising as we see fit.

In an effort to involve as many interest groups from the space as possible, I’m hoping to have focusses in the following areas:

• construction - this is my area of choice.  The thing will mostly be made out of 12mm hardwood ply, sheathed in hardboard or MDF, with probably a papier mache dome on the top and a variety of other bits and pieces.  And lots of Gripfill, no-more-nails and wood or auto body filler!

• electronics - fitting the dalek out with the various lights and speakers it will need to look and sound dalekky (dalektable?).  Also, ensuring that all of the motors are working properly if necessary, though the chair’s in reasonable working order at present.

• audio modulation - the dalek voice changes can be done, among other methods via arduino/adafruit, and might make a fun project to create

• text-to-speech synthesis - Matt W suggested using Festival - it would be fun, I think, to have the dalek able to read Twitter or maybe the comments in a livestream and say them to surrounding audiences, piped through the audio modulator of course

• remote control and feedback - I hope, in the long term, to be able to control the dalek entirely remotely, so including both sending commands and voice and receiving visual and auditory feedback.  Hopefully we will be able to work out how to take the wheelchair and make it accept RC input.  But if not, a ride-inside model is eminently plausible

• 3d printing - STL files are available for a wide variety of parts including the eye stalk and I believe the plunger as well; it would be great if we could print these rather than buying off-the-shelf parts or trying to make these complex bits

• Other esoterics - a number of dalek props I’ve seen on the forums have had a variety of fun things including CO2 and water guns, various blinkenlights, and all sorts of others, not to mention requiring copious paint, filling and sanding, and probably a little bit of fabric work in a couple of places.

Accordingly, if you’d be interested in contributing or attending, please would you let me know both what days you would be able to attend and in what areas you might be interested to contribute.

Equally, if you’d be interested in doing something for Make:Shift:Do (or indeed, the following weekend), but not building a dalek, let me know that too; I’m hoping to cultivate a bit of an EMF-like atmosphere with a lot of things going on, not just my pet project.  So if you’ve got some ideas, please share them; all concepts welcomed!  I'll hopefully be down at the space sometime next week if you want to chat.

Best regards

Phil

[iamthespaceinvader .]

Hi again all

Plans are now firmed up for how this is going to look and work - we're currently look at having access to the warehouse space for the weekend of 15/16 November, and then again if we want it for 29/30 November.

So currently I'm planning as follows:

15/16 November: in the warehouse, doing physical construction.  Aim: to wind up with the fender section and the skirt section (the bit covered in the hemispheres) constructed (though, probably without the hemispheres attached), and to have built the means of attaching these two pieces to the wheelchair itself - most likely each will be split vertically to allow the whole shebang to fit into my car!  I've already done some bits of cutting out, and will bring (in addition to the chair, charger, and materials) down my jigsaw, drill and driver, and assorted other measuring, marking, smoothing, filling, and cutting tools as appropriate.  Ideally we would be looking at sealing the finished parts before we're done (using watered down PVA) as I understand them to be prone to warping if un-sealed, especially as they're to be stored in a fairly damp bin-store.

21(evening) and 22 November: Make:Shift:Do, in the space studio.  Esther has been working on the voice modulator, so hopefully we'll be in a position to finish that off and test it out, possibly even to see about connecting it up to Festival and enabling it to read twitter.  Additionally, I'm hoping we'll be able to look at either some 3d printing of parts, if one of the printers can be persuaded to work reliably enough to make the bulk of a part (which can subsequently be sanded down and filled to final shape) and/or some work on remote control, though I need to do some research on how that should work.  Alternatively there are a bunch of smaller-scale parts which we could work on during these couple of days.  Or possibly, we could look at getting a bit messy (I'll bring dust sheets!) and papier macheing the dome, assuming I've worked out a way to make the form by that point! (most likely at this stage either pepakura or a set of MDF/plywood ribs).

Weekend of 29/30 November: if anyone has any remaining energy to work on this project, finishing off whatever we were doing in the warehouse previously and/or working on the next part up the stack (the shoulders and gun/plunger mounting boxes, which are complicated) or possibly the bit above that (the neck area) depending on how everyone's feeling at that point.

If you'd like to attend for any or all of this, have ideas that might help, or are interested in discussing things in more detail, please do let me know, or have a chat about it on the boards.  Equally, if you have a project that would benefit from some group collaboration at a hackday either in the warehouse or in the studio, I'd be more than open to suggestions for additions to the programme.

Regarding Make:Shift:Do - I've not yet got in contact with the organisers of the event.  I'll probably aim to do that this week unless there's significant objection from members of the space.

Phil

[S T]

Hi Phil,

Actually, I was thinking of going for this

http://emergingtechweekender.co.uk/ and this

http://www.meetup.com/Digital-Health-Oxford/events/207137902/

What do you think?

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[Jo Evans]

Dr Dalek? :D

Jo

[Ben Ward]

It's Thames Valley Technology week, so everything is happening at once.

I'll be helping out as Internet of Things mentor at the Emerging Tech Weekender so you should definitely come along. Digital Health Oxford is a really good thing to be involved in as there's a lot of medical expertise hoping to meet up with technical expertise. If you like IoT AND regulation and paperwork Digital Health is the one for you, otherwise come to ETW ;-)

There's also Oxford Launch Weekend http://oxfordlaunch.com/ 21st-23rd if you fancy launching a startup or being part of one.

So now I have Make:Shift:Do to add to the list. It sounds great!

Ben

On 27 October 2014 17:08, S T <ele...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Jake Adams]

Hi phil ,
I will probably come to help in the 21-22nd and 29-30th(if there will be any ral progress then)
Really cool idea though,
Jake

[iamthespaceinvader .]

That's brilliant, it will be great to have you about.

On another note, I didn't realise quite how much techy stuff was going on in November!  Maybe we need to make it National Hacking Month or something.

Phil

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[Glyn Kennington]

iamthespaceinvader . wrote:
> Or possibly, we could look at getting a bit messy (I'll bring dust sheets!)
> and papier macheing the dome, assuming I've worked out a way to make the
> form by that point! (most likely at this stage either pepakura or a set of
> MDF/plywood ribs).

I had a look at geodesic domes, and have just built a suitably sized one out of
160gsm card, using the 3V Kruschke method:

http://www.domerama.com/calculators/3v-geodesic-dome-calculator/3v-38-flat-base-krushke-calculator/

I omitted the bottom layer, as that will all be below the chamfer, so what's
left is effectively 3/9. It's currently still in three pieces, because if I
assemble it completely it won't fit in my bag. I'll bring it back when we've
got the use of the warehouse.

All this means that it's still quite flexible. I could try reinforcing it with
cocktail sticks, but we might *want* the flexibility.

Glyn

[iamthespaceinvader .]

Sounds good.  We can also reinforce with MDF or ply as necessary.  Hitting it with papier mache would be the next step I guess, after putting it together obviously.

Does anyone have any old newspapers they could donate to the cause?  Papier mache becomes a lot harder when all news is found on bbc.co.uk!

Phil

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[S T]

Does the hackspace have a spare arduino?

I only have one - can we use the hackspace arduino or get another one for this project?

Best wishes, Esther

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[Glyn Kennington]

There are still a few nanos around.

> >> -

> >>
> >> construction - this is my area of choice. The thing will mostly be
> >> made out of 12mm hardwood ply, sheathed in hardboard or MDF, with probably
> >> a papier mache dome on the top and a variety of other bits and pieces. And
> >> lots of Gripfill, no-more-nails and wood or auto body filler!

> >> -

> >>
> >> electronics - fitting the dalek out with the various lights and
> >> speakers it will need to look and sound dalekky (dalektable?). Also,
> >> ensuring that all of the motors are working properly if necessary, though
> >> the chair’s in reasonable working order at present.

> >> -

> >>
> >> audio modulation - the dalek voice changes can be done, among other
> >> methods via arduino/adafruit, and might make a fun project to create

> >> -

> >>
> >> text-to-speech synthesis - Matt W suggested using Festival - it would
> >> be fun, I think, to have the dalek able to read Twitter or maybe the
> >> comments in a livestream and say them to surrounding audiences, piped
> >> through the audio modulator of course

> >> -

> >>
> >> remote control and feedback - I hope, in the long term, to be able to
> >> control the dalek entirely remotely, so including both sending commands and
> >> voice and receiving visual and auditory feedback. Hopefully we will be
> >> able to work out how to take the wheelchair and make it accept RC input.
> >> But if not, a ride-inside model is eminently plausible

> >> -

> >>
> >> 3d printing - STL files are available for a wide variety of parts
> >> including the eye stalk and I believe the plunger as well; it would be
> >> great if we could print these rather than buying off-the-shelf parts or
> >> trying to make these complex bits

> >> -

> To post to this group, send an email to oxford-h...@googlegroups.com.

[iamthespaceinvader .]

And if they are unclaimed I will happily purchase at least one.

Phil