Tag: design

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CNC Control Panel Progress

It’s a known problem that I take on too many projects, and that tends to make some of them drag out longer than they should… has it really been more than a month since I started this one?

Yes it has. In my UI Mockup/Diagram Apps post, I was working on a control panel for the CNC Router we have at the Milwaukee Makerspace.

First Attempt

The image above was my first attempt to hack something together. I wanted to do a layout with paper to get a good idea of the physical size of things. As you may notice, the buttons are big, and make the whole thing fairly large. Larger than I wanted. So through a few posts I connected with a fellow maker in Madison who offered me some smaller buttons…

Control Panel

Once I had the smaller buttons, I sat down with some paper and the calipers, and started measuring things, and making the new layout. These were, like the previous attempt, just some rough sketches on paper. Once my paper sketches were done, I moved on to Inkscape, and made the digital version of my control panel.

Paper Mockups

I then went back to paper, by printing out my files, to get a feel for the size and spacing of everything. I didn’t go as far as mocking up an actual 3D model, though it would have been easy with some foamcore or matte board, but it’s one more step to take if needed.

Cut Panel

And as long as I was at the makerspace for some laser-related shenanigans, I figured I’d cut a test of the control panel using acrylic. (I’d like the final done in wood, but I had some scrap clear acrylic on hand, and it’s easier/faster to cut than wood.)

As is often the case, I screwed up one bit of the file, and the lower-left cut is too large. The two holes on the right are waiting for buttons I don’t have yet. Right, make that: buttons I didn’t have yet. More buttons showed up, but they are slightly smaller, so I’ll meed to re-size things again before the next cut. Back to the old drawing application, as they say.

And hey, I better finish this project soon, because there’s talk of adding a 4th and 5th axis to the router! I don’t really mind though, because so far I’ve really enjoyed the process, and I’ve learned a lot along the way, so even if this thing is outdated by the time I finish it, I’ll just start on an upgrade. :)

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A Clock Works…

Clock

Co. Design is a great site for people who love good design. Some of the stuff they cover would be called “high design” which is sort of like, well, stuff that may be really cool, but also really expensive, and chances are, you probably don’t need it.

This Jasper Morrison Alarm Clock is a clock that looks cool, and probably even has some cool features, and the article suggests that using an iPhone for your alarm clock is silly. I disagree.

I’ve got a pretty nice alarm clock, an old Sony Dream Machine from the mid-1990s, with dual alarms, a nice, big display, and a radio built in. The problem is, it’s on my wife’s side of the bed, and I get up earlier than she does. If I use it as an alarm clock, it will wake her up (not good) and it also requires me to either lean way over her to turn it off (not good) or get out of bed to turn it off (also not good.)

So I actually do have a clock on my side of the bed, but it’s a simple X10 controller and it tells me what time it is. As for an alarm, the iPhone is the best solution for me so far. I don’t use any 3rd party alarm app, as the built-in alarm works fine. I set the volume all the way down at night, and put the phone in silent mode. The phone vibrating is just enough to wake me up and not wake up the wife. The iPhone alarm is also easy to set, and I get up at different times depending on the day of the week, so that’s all preset. Since I also plug my iPhone in to charge it each night, it’s a win-win situation. Any notification apps I use tend to have the concept of “quiet time” and I almost never get messages/interruptions in the middle of the night. It works quite well for me, and I’m typically not the sort of person who uses my phone for everything, as I’ve still got a GPS I prefer to use, as well as an iPod I prefer to use.

I’m interested in what other people do… Do you have an alarm clock, or has your phone taken over that task?

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Laser-Cut Cardboard House

Laser-Cut Cardboard House

I took the family to Discovery World over the weekend and we checked out the Design It! Lab where we built laser-cut cardboard houses. (Well, the kids and I built houses, Dr. Dana made a snowflake ring.)

I was a little disappointed there wasn’t as much “designing” and “making” as I thought there would be. We were handed a piece of laser-cut cardboard (with no instructions) and were tasked with putting it together by folding it along the score lines, and inserting tabs. I was hoping for a bit more… I wanted to use a laser-cutter, or at least see one in operation. It sounded like if you sign up for classes, you get to do a bit more hands-on things like that. Maybe the kids and I are just so used to making things that this seemed fairly simple to us. For first-time makers, maybe this is a good starting point.

On the bright side, I did drop the names of some people I know who work there, and the Design It! Lab guy brought out the Makerbot for me to see. It’s not quite up and running yet, but should be soon.

(If you’re interested, I’ve written up a review of our Discovery World experience over at Yelp.)

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The Business Journal…Unread!

The Business Journal

I followed a link to a Business Journal article and when I saw a little red circle at the bottom with a number in it, I thought “Hey, I have some unrea…. Wait-A-Minute!!!”

Did you think the same thing? Many of us have been conditioned by Mac OS X, iOS, Facebook, and other applications/interfaces to instinctively click on any icon with a red circle and a number it in. Those of us who are obsessive will click on these things for just one reason, to make them go away.

Whenever my wife would log into Facebook I’d yell “You have messages, click on the red thing!” so much she banned me from looking at her screen until I stopped. She never clicked on it, and didn’t care about, and I eventually came to accept that.

Hey Business Journal, you almost got me. I almost clicked on it… but I didn’t.

So for those of you in the web design, marketing, advertising, publishing, and UI/UX worlds… Is this clever as heck, or deceptive as hell. (Or both!?)

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DHMN

DHMN

Our friends to the north are working on building something called the [D]istributed [H]acker [M]aker [N]etwork. (or DHMN for short) and they’ve got a new web site at dhmn.net and they mentioned needing a logo… so after a bit of talk about what DHMN is and represents, Tim came up with one, and I came up with a variation on it, which you see above.

See all the logos and if you have a better idea, let me/us/them know, or feel free to create one yourself and tell us about it.

The logo I designed was quick ‘n dirty, still very rough, but the ideas I was thinking about were: network, node, circuits, wrench, tools, big/little dipper. I also wanted something fairly simple, which would also work at small sizes.

Thoughts?