Hello 2016!

Yes, I know it's the twelfth already but well, we've been busy!

October saw the Tech Wave but I was a tad "off sorts" so this is the only photo that's worth sharing:



Family of makerbots!

In November Jo baked a HUGE parkin, weighing the ingredients proved...inventive.



But those aren't the reasons I've been absent.  At the start of October I went to the nurse with some odd feelings and we did a little test.  One that comes back with either one line or two.

Two came back!

A few weeks later we had a bit of a scare, so Jo and I went to the early pregnancy unit at Glasgow.  After some anxious waiting and a lot of scanning...



That is an eight week old fetus!  It's little heart was going crazy and it already had the wriggles.  We are very much overjoyed.

Then in December it was time for the 13week scan.  Unfortunately, due to the rains and havoc that went on around Cumbria my Mum couldn't make it up and Jo wasn't going to try and get a work day off, so I went alone.



Talk about wriggly!



The little dear was doing kangaroo impressions and refusing to pose for the midwife scanning it.  But she was very happy with how it looked and I went home with more photos.

Today the pram arrived, Pippa is NOT impressed that she won't be the baby all year.



I must say though, even as an engineer, I canNOT fathom the waterproof cover!  I shall be Googling that one.

So, yeah, updates are going to be a bit sporadic this year.  Baby is due in June and we are attempting to pack things we don't really need because we dearly hope to have our own Tiree house this year.

It's all go!

TTFN

Tiree Tech Wave 9

October will be the tenth tech wave!  Impressive.

So, what happened at this one?

Well, it was a relatively small gathering, about 14 or so and fairly quiet too, but definitely not lacking in the usual silliness!  Just yesterday we were marketing sanity EBay style and then corporate style and more.

Usually a tech wave runs from Thursday afternoon to Monday evening, with folk either flying or ferrying home on the Tuesday.  This time that went a tad awry.  First the weather was so bad that the ferry delayed and delayed and most of the folk didn't arrive until gone 7 Thursday evening.

So we started properly on Friday.

I spent most of Friday working on this strange bowling pin like thing:


After an hour and a bit it turned into a baby penguin:


Made Gromitty very happy.  Other than that I sort of circulated and people-watched.

Saturday was felting workshop day.  Lovefibre has been running these once a month and this time it coincided with the tech wave.  Five eager souls came to play with fibre, soap and water along with two islanders.

Lovefibre did a great job teaching them all and they all had a sample of wet felt that they had done in a little over an hour.




As the wavers finished their wet felt they came to me to try needle felt.  I handed everyone a wad of "Tiree lawnmower" fleece and a needle and told them the two rules:
1. Don't stab yourself too often
2. Enjoy and be creative

I worked on a new armature:




It got this far before I heard an idea and had to run with it.


Some of the items needle felted on Saturday included a conductive ball and a rather fabulous mustache.



The tech wave folks were trying to incorporate tech into fabric.  What a fab idea!  One suggested the idea of a bug or butterfly head or similar that would light up when it was placed on an apron or similar.  I was suddenly hooked.  I spent the rest of that day making a ladybird with LED eyes and two needle felted conductive fibre pads on its underside.  That evening I borrowed the tech wave Lilypad kit and made a leaf for it to sit on.

It ended up a tad demonic.


The issue with this little bug is that it only works one way.  LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) light up one way and stop nearly all current the other.  So, for someone who maybe has a bit of a memory issue it could be frustrating, especially as leaves don't have fronts and backs.

Sunday was a quiet day, delicious carvery from Cobbled Cow and thoughts lazily floating around.  I went to work on a flower to hold the battery holder.  The flower was rather likened to those that eat things, oh well, it goes well with demonic ladybird!


Monday was the last day (or so we thought) so I worked away to make a caterpillar that lit up no matter which way it faced.  I learned some things doing this.  Red and yellow LEDs are far less demanding than green and blue and a single 3V cell can only manage to get three LEDs going at once if they are red and/or yellow, but not blue or green.  This is partly due to the relatively huge resistances found in conductive fibre and thread vs. wire and solder.  Wiring up the caterpillar took as long as making it!



I still had time after that so I added some pink LEDs to the flower for the final demonic look.





Lots of jokes were made about having it in your bedroom and then finding the bug on your duvet infront of you, still glowing and saying it was going to devour you.  Much silliness!

I seem to have inadvertantly set myself the challenge of getting a photo of bearded Steve looking lost while something else is happening.  This tech wave was no different.


That evening we all dined at The Lodge, fab food!  Alan did his usual speech, at the speed that cameras cannot catch.


We all enjoyed the evening and chatting.  Two Steves had the fish that came with a little dish of peas, silliness took over and they did "pea shots" akin to tequila shots, including the lemon and salt.  Highly entertaining.

By Monday evening the ferry had been cancelled, 18ft swell combined with wind speed and direction meant it wouldn't be safe or able to dock.  Tech wave extended!  Fortunately everyone who needed to was able to extend their accommodation time so no couches were required.

Tuesday was a bit...off.  No one had expected the extension and so we had all raced to finish things on Monday.  The time was still passed and things were done.  I spent the time between browsing pinterest for needle felt ideas and finishing an embroidered item for my Dad's birthday.  Folk were either full of energy or looking a little tired.

Wednesday really was the last day.  The morning and early afternoon we all gathered again and did things.  Alan and Ed did a recital of "I'm a little teapot", I got their expressions at the end.



I borrowed the elephant I made for Lovefibre and finished my baby elephant.




Come 3pm the visitors went to do the "tourist" thing and we locals sat for a while just getting on with things.


That was Tiree Tech Wave Nine.  I'm going to have to start adding tags to my posts, that way I can find the previous TTW ones without hunting through three years of blogging.  Hope you enjoyed and I hope the ferry sails today!

TTFN

TTW8 (part II)

Sunday was a later start.  Probably a good thing as Saturday night the Cardiff crew had entertained and when folk did come in after 1pm on Sunday there were a lot of hungover expressions.

The Cobbled Cow allowed us to come in in groups for their amazing carvery.


I hadn't gone to the Cardiff evening, instead I'd come home with an idea and worked on it.  After watching the 3D scanner workshop and seeing what the machines in FabLab could do I'd come up with a plan for a turntable.  I had downloaded the 3D design software for the printers and made the turntable in there.  I knew it wouldn't really be feasible to print it as it was 20cm diameter and that's a lot of plastic.  So I took the files in to Martijn and we had a chat.


What I didn't know at the time was the particular scanner we have for the island relies on the movement it senses to work out where it is relative to the object.  So really, it would need to be on an arm and rotate around the object rather than rotating the object.  Oh well, there are a myriad of other uses for a turntable!

So we went to building.  Martijn took my design and turned it into something the laser cutter could understand.  Two cut discs with etched tracks and central holes for a spindle.  While the cutter worked on that, I worked on the spindle.  This would be a true combination of technologies; a laser cut turntable with a 3D printed spindle.


Laser cutter etching the tracks


Finished base, top and spindle


Base loaded with marbles


In action

I'd designed this to be as simple as possible.  No need to go out and buy nuts and bolts or ball bearings.  Just grab some marbles and get going!  It's also easily dismantled for storage/transport.  But we hit a snag.  The etched track wasn't deep enough, the marbles would randomly pop out and make bids for freedom!  Fortunately I had already predicted this and designed an insert to prevent it.  Cue Martijn and his experienced speed at the laser cutter software and 2 minutes later this is going in the cutter:



Slotted onto the spindle and loaded with marbles.

It works!  All I need to do is paint it and then I shall glue the insert to the base and possibly the spindle to the base and I have a fully functional turntable.  Total time spent designing, including putting design into softwares: approx 25minutes.  Total time to produce: 1hr assuming you're running the 3D printer at the same time as the cutter.

I'd also had a plan for my spinning wheel.  Ever since I bought it it had been missing a piece.  A simple piece of dowel with a hole through to enable me to tension the bobbin.  I'd been using a pencil originally but as they stick out so far I'd walked into it one time and broken it off.  I turned up to TTW8 with a pen sticking out of the hole.  It was actually Saturday when I was shown the software and between us we designed and printed something relatively simple.  A cylinder with a hole through and an extruded triangle at the end to make turning easy.  A little sanding later and it was in use!


I think I must have gotten engrossed in my spinning so much that I forgot to actually take photos of it.  Here it is in situ with my bobbin of finished fluff:


Okay, this is where memory fails and I can't remember which day photos were taken.  Note to self: try doing a photo of day at the start!

So I shall just group photos by topic and explain them.  Get your cups of tea and prepare to be amazed!


Martijn doing the 3D printing workshop and answering sooooo many questions!





A test of material and machine.  Could this ball be completed without a support?


Yes!


A piece for the projector assembly:


Busy brains


Holding the kit to the ceiling to get ideas of distance and limits


"Hit it again, he can feel it with the stick"


Cannibalised sock and tribble


Techwave made tribble next to commercially available tribble.


Tribble skeleton and how it slots on the recorder


Tribble in progress


Tribble skeleton next to completed tribble


Stuffed skeleton


Who says men can't sew?


I should note: "tribble" is my word for it.  I can't remember what they're actually called.  They go over microphones to block wind noise.

Oculus headset (great for (causing!) motion sickness!)


Spacers for the table model:


Print of a failed scan of a Sinclair C5:


Print of hand scanned during the scanning workshop:


Sheep beads in progress (more on these in a future post):


Scanning Alan (It is actually possible to get Alan to sit still for 3 minutes in a row...just!)


Print of Alan (not General Custer, or Johnny Depp, honest!) and a larger print of the hand in the background


Alan and his double:


Printing of a hand showing the detail picked up:


Leg vanishing into the ceiling:


Alan's well used hat:


Painted sheep and busy minds:


Rugby in Tiree winds:




Team leader looking utterly lost:


Martijn and Dorinda discussing hands:




The FabLab panel progression:
 





Final panel with etched clear panel signed by everyone from Cardiff


On Monday the various teams/groups did presentations using the new projector set up!

Projector Proteges:


Table Techs:


Kinect Krew:


Monday afternoon was a quiet affair.  People packed up stuff and visitors went off to try windsurfing.

Quiet auction ring:


All quiet here:


Monday night was curry night at Ceabhar.
After an amazing meal (thank you Ceabhar peeps!) Alan did a bit of a speech:



 During this Wave I had fun trying to catch photographers in action.













Too slow!



Oops, spotted!


Alas, Tuesday morning came and we all went to the ferry pier to say "until next time"  At least the sun came out and the wind died down so they'd have a nice sail.

I *finally* found this modern architectural piece that I'd been told was here:
(These walls are BEGGING for moss grafitti! - completely removable with water)

It's called "An Turas".  Thing is, from the pier end it just looks like part of the livestock area and so I didn't pay it much attention.

Not sure if the designers intended this, but a pool of water was on the roof and playing with the light:


Slate floor:


Group photos!






 Bye guys!


So that was Tiree Tech Wave 8.  I've missed bits and skimmed others, but these are my "highlights" if you will.

TTFN.