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
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