Leaving on a Jet Plane – Shenzhen I/O

So, here’s something different, a game review! (This was originally written in October 2016, but I’m really the worst blogger ever.)

Shenzhen I/O is the latest puzzle game from Zachtronics, and in it you play a newly-minted Electrical Engineer, fresh out of school, and faced with the reality that we make all of jack and shit in this country. (So apparently not much changes between now and 2026…) And so you get a job with a company in Shenzhen, and are off to China! I’d previously played TIS-100 which was a puzzle game about programming in assembly– because I am exactly that kind of nerd –and enjoyed it immensely. Shenzhen I/O builds upon that formula by adding hardware design…needless to say that just makes me that much more into the game. Read more…

Week 37, 2016 – The End of a Spool…

Sorry for the potato pics, but it is pretty convenient just being able to snap pics from a phone and upload them to the blog when it’s for unimportant stuff.
One spool down!

One spool down!

Well, it’s taken well over a year and a half, but I finally reached the end of a spool of a filament.  Until now it seems I’ve just used some of each of my 40+ spools.  But I’ve settled on Push Plastic light grey for printing props, because it just prints so nicely, and it shows up great on camera…so it wasn’t long before I used up my first spool.

Luckily there's more where that came from!

Luckily there’s more where that came from!

So I’ve been working on some Fallout 4 stuff. Fusion Core, Fusion Cell, etc.  The Fusion Core I found was the wrong size, like obviously so… It needed to be like 33% bigger, so I upsized it, and printed it in several pieces so they could all printed oriented in the best way.  The Fusion Cell is just sort of…wrong.  I’m going to have to model my own, again.  After this I plan to finish my 10mm before I move on to bigger and awesomer things.

Original Fusion Core, rather small!

Original Fusion Core, rather small!

Fusion Cell

Fusion Cell

Upsized Fusion Core, original Fusion Core, and 'Purified Water', for scale. (Sorry, no banana!)

Upsized Fusion Core, and original Fusion Core.

I’m going to have to sand, glue, and spot-putty the fusion core sections together.

HAHAHA! I POSTED ON TIME! TAKE THAT!  (゚∀゚)アハハ八八ノヽノヽノヽノ \ / \/ \

Week 17, 2016 – May Acquisitions

I’m getting the ball rolling on a lot of stuff this month, from the MAKE COOL THINGS livestream and YouTube channel, to some prop making, to maybe even doing a little work on a simple fun little game project I’ve had in mind for a while… See a breakdown of this month’s acquisitions after the jump! Read more…

Week 10, 2016 – Props, Propaganda, Programming, and Projects.

First of all, let’s take a moment to talk about prop making;  It’s something that I have a real interest in but I can never seem to afford moldmaking and casting supplies…  Well, I’m not going to let that stop me from making some props before I have the ability to duplicate them.

Right now, my biggest obstacle– putting aside money issues and for the moment just looking at what I have –is the surface quality of my 3D prints.  To that end I spent some money on some basic necessities like Bondo body filler, Bondo spot putty, some quality automotive wet/dry sandpaper, and a sanding block.  Bill Doran has a great video on using Bondo, and his video on preparing mold masters also contains some applicable info.

Propaganda! By which I mean videoblogging!  I just got a cheap little steadicam thing for my video camera so I can do handheld shots that are actually stable.  It’s really quite something.

Programming! I’ve got some cool Arduino ideas I want to play with, one of them is inspired by this cool post I found about making an Arduino Wi-Fi scanner that displays the SSIDs of open wifi APs on a little OLED display.

Projects! I’ve got a 3D printing and prop making project in the works based on my current favorite videogame; Tom Clancy’s The Division, which inspired an additional project which I can’t talk about right now… ;D

Gonna be pretty cool though!

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