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Skill Badges (Part II)

Welcome to Part II of my self-awarded skill badges! (See Part I for background.)

Speaking of badges, there’s been some talk of badge systems, and some hackerspace/makerspace things happening where we might get to the point of awarding badges to members, maybe using Les Orchard’s Badger code, or maybe something else. It’s in the works… that’s all I can say right now. (And that’s pretty cool, right!?)

Programming

Programming: I will award myself the Programming badge based on the fact that I’ve gone from BASIC in the 1980s to Perl in the 1990s to PHP in the 2000s and Processing in the 2010s. That’s like 30 years of programming!


QR code

QR code: Flags on cupcakes for Bay View Gallery Night at Milwaukee Makerspace last year… Done!


Robotics

Robotics: I’ll pitch Friday Night Drawbot for this one… Some of the other things I build have bot in the name, but this might be the only true robot. (Plus, I just built a second Drawbot.)


Soldering

Soldering: Heck yes to soldering! I first learned to solder when I was a teenager, and I did take electronics classes in high school. I’ve learned in the last two years though that my technique was crap. No matter, it’s much improved lately. I’m only doing through-hole stuff, but I think that counts.


Welding

Welding: This one is questionable. I did a bit of welding at a demo we had at Milwaukee Makerspace, but I’m still not at the point where I could do it all on my own. I should do more welding this year…


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For vs. Against

For vs. Against

Over on Twitter I said:

I’m considering creating a web site to demonstrate how messed up America’s political system is… Anyone wanna help?

And here’s where that came from… I was listening to public radio and there was talk about how many of the people voting in the presidential election will be casting their vote against a candidate as much as they will for a candidate.

For most of my adult life I’ve taken the position that choosing an elected official is an exercise in choosing between the lesser of two evils. I’m not sure if this idea is right or wrong, but I wonder if we can prove it, so here’s an idea.

Let’s ask people to tell us if they voted for a candidate, or against a candidate.

I don’t care who you voted for, I’m more interested in if you really truly support the person you vote for, or if you’re just voting against the other guy. If we find out that the vast majority of people are actually voting against someone rather than for someone, then the system is broken.

How do we implement this? Here’s a few ideas…

Twitter
I’m sure we could come up with some hashtags like #votefor and #voteagainst and attempt to get people to use them. This is a low barrier to entry idea, and it could work. (Though it does restrict the data to just those with Twitter accounts.)

Text Messaging
Utilizing Twilio it would probably be fairly trivial to build an application to allow people to text their for/against status. They could even submit right at the polling place. You could have people sign up ahead of time to be reminded/asked on election night. (There would be some cost involved with this idea. Text messaging is cheap, but it ain’t free.)

Website
The whole thing could just be done as a web site, which would require registration/login and all the fun of building a site that is easy for people to sign up for, and use, and all that jazz. It’s doable, but it’s also (probably) more work than the other ideas. (The text messaging idea would still need a web site, but probably a less complicated site.)

The problems:
I see a few problems with the idea. The first would be adopting widespread use of it. Each of the three solutions I mentioned above have their own pros/cons, but they all rely on technology to submit data. Some voters aren’t big into technology. This could be solved by having people ask others if they voted for or against and then compiling the info. (Remember, we don’t care who you voted for, just if you voted for someone or against someone.) Have people ask other people could expand the sample beyond just the tech-savvy folks who use Twitter, mobile phones, and the Internet. (We’d like to think that’s everyone, but I’m not sure it is.)

Another problem would be determining what it means to vote for or against. Can it be expressed in binary like that? Do we need a sliding scale, or percentages? My first though is that such an idea would just complicate things. Every vote for someone is a vote against someone else, and vise versa, so at some point people just need to decide yay or nay.

Anyway, that’s my idea, and I don’t know if it’s original or not, but I’m sharing it, and really hope that someone runs with it, and does something with it, and by November I’m letting you know if I voted for someone or against someone.

Thoughts?

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Photo Booth Set-up Tips

Photo Booth Tips

The fine folks over at Sparkbooth have this great Setup Checklist, and if you plan on setting up a photo booth at an event, it’s required reading…

I’m going to comment on a few items, as well as add a few things to the list, based on my personal experience.

Place a computer, webcam, and keyboard on a table in a well-lighted area. Don’t forget a chair or stool.

For my photo booth I ended up building a stand that puts the business end up about the height for a “typical adult human being” which happens to be my height! Since I use an iMac you can actually just tilt the monitor (and camera) up or down a bit if needed. This may not be clear to everyone, so a sign might also be helpful.

The part about a chair or stool is good advice if you want people to sit when they use the booth, which is a good idea because it puts people of different size close to the same height, which doesn’t happen as much when standing.

When considering location, don’t forget about extension cords! You never know how far you might be from an outlet. I actually have a power strip hidden in the back of my stand, which allows me to plug in the computer and light(s) and also gives me a place to hide the keyboard. From the power strip I can then run one extension cord to the nearest (or most out of the way) outlet. I bought a new extension cord since most of my old ones are filthy. Clean is better when it comes to appearance. You can also get white, or black, or something besides orange if desired.

For you computer… turn off instant messaging, email, and other applications, etc.

Do everything listed there. I actually go a few step beyond that, and on the Mac I use I created a completely separate account. I keep the account very minimal. It’s set to log into that user automatically, and launch Sparkbooth on startup. I’ve also got just Sparkbooth and Safari in the dock, as well as a shortcut for the folder where the images get saved. The idea is that when I turn it on, it’ll be completely ready to go in just a few minutes. I’ve also partitioned the drive into two halves, and once Sparkbooth was fully operational, I cloned the main partition to the second partition. This way if some update to the system breaks things, I can always revert to the last good working combo. (Between Mac OS X, Adobe AIR, etc. you never know what might go wrong.)

A few other things worth mentioning include signage. I also include instructions that tell people to push the button, and then get ready for 4 photos. (You be surprised how many people walk away after the first photo.) Lights, you should have them. Don’t depend on existing lighting, bring your own. As for a background, I don’t always use one myself, but I’d still recommend one if you can do it easily enough. (I’ve had my booth in some places that didn’t really allow for a background.)

As for the get a USB button suggestion, I’m obviously in favor of that one… and hey, you can even get one from my store or from Etsy. :)

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DokuWiki Yak Shaving

DokuWiki

Yak Shaving is described as “any seemingly pointless activity which is actually necessary to solve a problem which solves a problem which, several levels of recursion later, solves the real problem you’re working on” or something like that.

I’m not 100% sure this would be considered yak shaving, but I’m working on something that requires random pages to be served from DokuWiki, just like the built-in function that MediaWiki has. (I used to use MediaWiki, but switched to DokuWiki, and like it much better. We also use it for the Milwaukee Makerspace wiki.)

There is a random page plugin for DokuWiki, which did not work. So I took the existing code, poked at it a bit, mainly by comparing to other plugins that did work and making simple edits, and got it working. (YMMV obviously.)

Because I’m a believer in “doing the right thing” and helping other people in their quest to not reinvent the wheel and stay DRY, I figured there was more to do…

So I emailed the original author of the plugin. I’ve not gotten an email back yet. Also, they appears to be French, and I’m a stupid American who can’t read French. (I’m not even sure why I mentioned that part.)

Anyway, I was happy that I fixed something so I figured I’d toss it on the old GitHub in case someone else was looking for a random page plugin for DokuWiki that (seems to) work.

Oh, and not content to not mention something I did, I posted the link on Google+, which was picked up by Nils Hitze who mentioned it to Andreas Gohr, who happens to be the author of DokuWiki (who I follow anyway, because he’s a RepRapper too) and he suggested I adopt the (possibly orphaned) plugin.

tl;dr → I fixed the Random Page plugin for DokuWiki. You can grab it from GitHub.

Also, this is how the f’ing Internet works!

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Beam me up!

Beam me up!

Beam systems make construction of thing easy, or precise, or both. I keep seeing more of these systems, so I figured I’d write-up the ones I’ve seen.

MakerBeam
Back in 2009 MakerBeam, a Mini-T open-source building system, showed up (on Kickstarter) and while makerbeam.com is empty, makerbeam.eu has lots of good stuff. You can also get them from our pals at SparkFun. There’s some bits and pieces on Thingiverse as well. (And, MakerBeam is open source hardware.)

MakerSlide
Bart from buildlog.net launched MakerSlide, which is an “Open Source Linear Bearing System” geared towards DIY CNC machines like laser cutters, CNC routers, and (now) 3D printers. MakerSlide launched as a Kickstarter project, and did quite well. It seemed to be continually out-of-stock, but Inventibles is now kicking in to fill the gap. There’s a whole system of parts that go with MakerSlide, and from what I can tell it’s a pretty solid system.

OpenBeam
There’s a new one, called OpenBeam, which is running on Kickstarter as of my writing this. It’s an open source miniature construction system. (See a trend here?) OpenBeam seems to cite that the fasteners and connecting plates used by other systems are what causes things to get costly. Their solution is to use standard sizes and common hardware to make the whole system easier and cheaper to work with. There doesn’t seem to be a web site yet, but you can check out the developers blog.

Bitbeam
A bit different is how I’d describe Bitbeam. Instead of extruded aluminum like the other systems, it’s typically made of wood, and describe as just “holes in poles.” :) In fact, Bitbeam is based on another system, Grid Beam. And hey, both are open source! Bitbeam is Lego Technic compatible, and you can make your own with a (powerful) laser cutter. Bitbeam is also on Thingiverse. Sweet!

Grid Beam
As previously mentioned, Grid Beam is sort of the older big-brother of Bitbeam. While Bitbeam is for smaller things, Grid Beam is for larger things. You can actually build things like vehicles and furniture with Grid Beams. It also appears to be the oldest of these beam systems, dating back to 2008. Check out more at gridbeamnation.com

Are there any other beam building systems I’ve missed?