Bill Ball

The coin cell provides about 16ma to the flying saucer with nothing else in the circuit. I put in a resistor to dim it somewhat (and mounted it backwards). I'm thinking about some sort of tiny pot for brightness control or maybe a LDR in a voltage divider as crude auto dimming.

I’m finishing work on my BougieVend, a self-ordering kiosk for extreme materialist wannabes. You won’t get the products, but you will get an epic receipt documenting your purchase of them!

Those look great! I've been doing a much more stripped down version with just pin backs for lapel pins and a coin cell. I've gotten a couple full days out of the ufo on the first battery and counting...

Actor James Garner leads the pack of Formula Ones in the 1966 film Grand Prix

attracted to the insects that are attracted to the lamp, I would guess.

$369 each vs $6 for 2 (plus jumpers). I think I'll stick with the traditional ones and save the blinky lights for the projects I build on them.

YouTube video by BoB LeSuer naught nice machine (WIP)

BoB finished this out with a snowflake effect palm rest and some nifty software. www.youtube.com/shorts/cmsYV...

Unfortunately, neither Whizzo nor my goth-bot Cuddles have been successful in competition.

Whizzo the Clown was the local TV station kid's show clown when I was growing up in Kansas City (Mo). So when I helped start up a mini sumo robot wrestling competition at my community makerspace (as we all do), I really needed to make a Whizzo bot to throw in the ring.

Your maps are very interesting. And thanks for putting me on to the NFIP interactive mapping source while looking at relocating to a flood-prone region (Annapolis area).

I keep a folder called "inspirations" full of pictures like these. What do I find so compelling about them? I guess something about practical yet ridiculous (from our perspective) solutions in the industrial era.

The final version is more egg shaped but with careful indents to encourage the fingers of variously sized hands to grip it securely.

I try to make the electronics of these projects as visible as possible to inspire conversations about making at events.

The next versions were designed to be gripped or wrist worn since the light cube responds to vigorous movement and shaking. But people at our recent makerfaire revealed that this was too cumbersome and slow to adjust to hand size differences.

discarded controller prototypes

The value of 3D printing for rapid prototyping was amply demonstrated by a recent project to create controller for a 3D light display I built. I started believing I wanted something shaped like a computer mouse. But every variant of that design slipped out of my hand when lifted of the table.

naughty or nice device

At this point the hardware is ready save for the acrylic palm rest for scanning. My friend BoB will do the software and provided fresh muffins and a quick game of Fyra at the handover.

naughty or nice device

I was asked to design and construct Santa’s ”naughty or nice” device to entertain families during the holiday season. Due to unexplained forces I think all young children will be judged “nice” after the machine checks the list and checks it twice. Adults will be at serious risk, however.

FLIR image of kettle corn

Making sure my kettle corn was fresh made by checking its heat signature on U of R's FLIR camera at the Rochester Lilac Festival.

Makerfaire Syracuse banner

I’ll be sharing some of my projects as an exhibitor at Makerfaire Syracuse on Saturday (5/3). We are expecting over 2000 people and 125 exhibitors at the event. Come and join us!
syracuse.makerfaire.com
#makerfaire
#makerspace
#maker

American Sign Museum, Cincinnati.

Cosplayers checking out some gadgets

"People" really seemed to enjoy the gadgets I brought out yesterday to promote the upcoming Makerfaire Syracuse (syracuse.makerfaire.com). But I'll definitely have to go back to the drawing board to accommodate big furry paws in addition to hands on the controls.

1980s laptop

What do you do with a 10lb 1980s laptop you couldn't resist buying off eBay? Turn it into a portable Raspberry Pi workstation, of course. Then what do you do with it? Write Zork-style text-based adventure game for people to play on it at events.

An image of the ship from the game Sargasso

My first work of interactive fiction (a visual short story) is playable online: wjball.itch.io/sargasso. In "Sargasso" you are the sole surviving crew member, stranded at sea with three potentially dangerous passengers onboard. There may or may not be a monster in the seaweed. Will you survive?

A device from another planet? My homage to sci fi movies of the 50s and 60s. Few people find the hidden peephole. It's made from a 1958 Navy radio test generator and a bunch of blinky lights, sound effects, etc. One of many playthings I take to makerfaires and other events.

Just wow. From www.retroghosttown.com

"Failure to backup," another project I did for Shift2. When completed, it was made from 96 old hard drives. I wonder if one of them contained a huge bitcoin wallet :)

A “motherboard monolith,” one of two I fashioned out of e-waste and blinky lights for Shift2 (shift2nfp.org).

My project got busted by a storm trooper at Makerfaire Orlando (circa 2012).

My version of the common Twang, a one dimensional video game.

I built my version of Aaed Musa's ball balancer.

I've been posting some recent projects of mine to tinkerfarm.net the maker blog I have published for the last 11 years. One of those, the Vortex cannon our group brought to the Rochester Makerfaire was a real "blast" www.facebook.com/watch/?v=457...