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Makey Birthday!

Makey Birthday

Hey folks, it’s a month out from my birthday (June 18th is the day!) and while I typically appreciate the gifts people buy for me, this year I want to make a request, and it goes like this:

1. Make me something!

Yeah, you (together with your own two hands) should make me something. Chance are you’re creative in some way. Maybe you can knit, or draw, or paint, or write a poem or a short story, or compose a song, or take an amazing photo, or maybe you are good with tools, can work with wood, can weld, or cut paper and glue it together, or maybe you make things in the kitchen, like lovely cakes or pizza pies.

If you need some inspiration, check out some of the stuff they highlight on Make, or check out the Flickr photos in the Make or Craft pool. If you really don’t think you can make something yourself, Etsy has things that other people make.

2. Give me money.

Yeah, those are the choices. Either you make me something, or just give me money. (Any amount is fine.) Seriously. Don’t go to the store and buy some mass-produced consumer good. Just make me something, or give me money. How simple is that?

Note #1: In the event you give me money instead of making me something, the money will be used to procure things like food or gasoline.

Note #2: In the event that I get awesome handmade gifts from people, I’ll blog about them, as long as people give me permission to do so.

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Simple Sandbags

Typically when we do larger video shoots we hire a grip truck, and the grip truck is loaded with stands, and scrims, and lots of sandbags. Mmmmm, sandbags!

The sandbags are pretty nice. Thick canvas with strong handles, and pretty darn heavy. Of course if you make your own sandbags you can make them smaller and lighter, or bigger and heavier. Customize them as you wish!

Here’s my recipe for simple sandbags:

  • Sand
  • Plastic bags
  • An old pair of pants
  • Cord

It’s pretty simple really. Take a plastic bag, and put some sand in it. Tie it shut. Put it inside another plastic bag. (Try to get all the air out of it if possible.)

Once you have the plastic bag the size and weight you desire, find an old pair of pants. Cut the legs off. Make sure they are long enough to fit the plastic bag into.

Slide the bag inside the pant leg, and tie up the ends with some cord. That’s it.

Simple Sandbag

You could actually sew the ends shut, but then you need a sewing machine, and you need to know how to sew, and then these aren’t really “simple” sandbags anymore.

These also don’t have any handles, but again, we’ve kept it all pretty simple.

Simple Sandbag

Your new sandbags are now ready to hold your stands down, weight down your dolly, or be used as a makeshift cinesaddle.

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Processing: RGBoxer

RGBoxer

With our latest Processing sketch it’s time to play with the mouse, and the keyboard as well. I mean, we can’t just leave out the keyboard!

See it in action here!

This one is simple, just drawing a box, and using the ‘r’, ‘g’, and ‘b’ keys, you can change the color. You can also hit ‘q’ to blank the canvas and start over.

RGBoxer

We use width/2, height/2 for proper centering of our box. Also, you’ll see that all the real action happens when you click and drag the mouse. Once you start doing that, you can press the r, g, or b key to change the color. 

/*
 * 20110513.pde
 */

void setup() {
  size(800, 600);
  noFill();
  strokeWeight(1);
  stroke(255,0,0);
  background(0);
}  
  
void draw() {

  if(keyPressed) {
    if (key == 'r' || key == 'R') {
      stroke(255,0,0);
    }
    if (key == 'g' || key == 'G') {
      stroke(0,255,0);
    }
    if (key == 'b' || key == 'B') {
      stroke(0,0,255);
    }
    if (key == 'q' || key == 'Q') {
      background(0);
    }
  }
  
}

void mouseDragged() {
  rectMode(CENTER);
  rect(width/2, height/2, mouseX, mouseY);
}
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Ready for Pushing

Ready for Pushing

So I’ve been working on this button, and one of my “in progress” photos got a mention on Make, and that was cool, but I wasn’t quite done. :)

NOTE: Need a button? Now you can buy one! Visit our store or Etsy.

The button was just part of this larger project to build a photo booth, which is mostly done, as you can see by the photo below.

So basically, this button is ready for pushing. I’ve got a number of events I’ll be at in the few weeks, and this thing will accompany me to some of them. Oh, it can also automagically upload the photos to various web sites on the Internets…

Ready for Pushing

I ended up building a stand for it which places it at the correct height for the typical human being, and thanks to the button, the whole thing can be operated by a single press. No keyboard, no mouse, no muss, no fuss.

The first test is tomorrow… we’ll see how it goes!

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Boba Fett

Boba Fett

Over in the Twittersphere I gained a new follower today: @starwarsart, which has a bio that states “We search the web for the best in Star Wars Art and post it on our site daily!”

Sure, I follow @bonniegrrl, and I enjoy the occasional Star Wars art, but I couldn’t even remember if I had created any in recent times… so I figured I couldn’t let the folks behind starwarsart.org down, so here’s a crummy drawing of Boba Fett I made during lunch.

Of course the fact that they are looking for “the best in Star Wars Art” may mean that this drawing is featured nowhere on the Internet except right here… so enjoy!