Busy hands | Disquiet mind

So picture it. (Or simply remember it.) A pandemic has struck, and lockdown implemented. You are now cut off from all your activities, socialising, friends, as they take place an hour's bus ride (or flight) away. The internet is your only connection. You have a desktop computer, but no webcam. And webcams are sold-out everywhere. What do/did you do?

I was quite lucky, in many ways, but specifically here in that a year before the pandemic I had upgraded to a rather fancy digital micro-four-thirds camera. And it just so happened to be one of the few that the camera manufacturer had enabled with not just HDMI output, but clean HDMI output. They posted an article detailing how to steam video with some Olympus cameras. Following the guide I got a HDMI capture device. (Or rather two; I got on a waiting list for the expensive kind, and ordered a UK£10 version from ebay.) And a HDMI-to-micro-HDMI cable.

And for a few video chats my friends had to look at me in 4K. At least for a couple of hours, until the battery died. See the camera can be charged over USB, but not while actually in use. And the manufacturer does not sell a mains adapter for my model of camera. So I ended up buying the first webcam that came into stock.

Several months go by and I have acquired a 3D printer. I am browsing the internet for things I can do with a 3D printer and I find an article on camera tools which has some cool things, but as I browse the wider 3D printed camera stuff category I come across the concept of printing dummy batteries, to be able to use any size battery with your camera. I even found one for my exact battery, in the Olympus OM-D BLS-50 Dummy Battery. The instructions on assembly are on the original model. But my experience was not as smooth as that.

( Process )

This project has made me see the full potential of 3D printing. We're not just making our own pet projects. We can build things to add functionality that is not available at any price to the things we already own. And propagate it to the entire world. Okay, I get it now.

Bear with me, this is going to be a long post.

This Saturday just gone, July 14th, was Dublin's first Mini Maker Faire! It was held in the Science Gallery and on the Physics Lawn of Trinity College. I was there as a part of TOG, the Dublin maker/hacker-space. It was a fantastic day. So many people showed up who already knew a lot and came up with interesting questions and ideas. Some people were just wandering through Trinity like they do every weekend and were a little confounded to find us there. Yet others showed up wearing ESOF lanyards! I'm sad I didn't get to see much of the other makers or exhibits, things were just so hectic! It certainly seemed like everyone was having a good time.

( Maker Faire )

( TOG's new tshirt )


Projects

( Arduino IR receiver )

( LED matrix top )

( Constellation Quilts )

Well, I fairly collapsed with exhaustion about 4pm (missing the after-party and everything), but up until that point it was a great day and I'm already looking forward to next year!

Phew. It's been busy around here. And the weekend is set to be frantic as well, leaving only tomorrow looking in any way sedate. If you ignore the fact that I have to get four days of college work done in one day that is. But, I have slowly been getting places, doing things, and thought I'd give you a sneak peak. After all, the intersection of tech and craft has been absent from this blog for a little too long. Therefore I proffer unto you, LED fabric flowers.

( The beginnings of a bouquet )

The blue flower is made with a skeleton of jewellery wire, covered with blue nylon/stocking/tights, taped together around a blue LED, with fibre optics hot-glue-gunned onto it. Two power leads are soldered onto the legs of the LED. (I actually made this many months ago, but it has sat unloved since then.)

Bad things; All that wire and fabric makes it very bulky through the middle. Annoyingly the blue LED requires two 3V coin-cell batteries to power it. I've been stumped on how to add the battery-pack in an accessible, yet unobtrusive manner.

Good things; I love the effect of the fibre optics (just harvested from a donated pound-shop toy).

The white flower is made from felt. The grooves on the petals were made by stitching down the undersides with white thread. I mostly followed this tutorial from Tech D.I.Y. Except, I added a mesh of white seed-beads over the (white) LED once it was in place. Then anchored the legs of the LED through a button.

Bad things; The white felt is rather reminiscent of prawn-crackers. I'm still trying to figure out how to add the battery pack in an accessible, yet unobtrusive manner. (I intend this to be a hair clip/piece.)

Good things; It looks really good, simple yet elegant, actually wearable. It only needs the one 3V battery. Is quite small and compact.

As you can see, I'm still having trouble with the batteries. Earlier the lovely David of robots.ie pointed me to FabricKit. I didn't know it, but I'd bought the conductive ribbon that these guys created?/use from another source. (It's three-stands of conductive thread in a tinsel-like braided ribbon.) They also have a rechargeable 5V coin-cell battery brick/piece. Yes, as you can imagine, I got very excited when I saw that. I only hope a 3V one appears too. Perhaps I could use these wonderful inventions to help solve my problems?

In other e-textiles news I, like many others, was charmed by the Sparkle TuTu Instructable. So much so that I finally popped over to Aniomagic. I'd been pointed in their direction before, but it is their Sparkle board/switch that finally won me over. It's used in the TuTu, and without programming, lets you switch between blinking light patterns! The simplicity! I had to try it. While there I noticed that they sell pre-made surface-mount-LED sequins/beads! If you remember my how-to you'll know just how awesome it is to be able to find others to do all the work for you! They're also cleverly colour-coded, one-side is a silver bead and (I think) the positive terminal. The other is brass, and the negative terminal. I'm certainly looking forward to playing with these when they arrive! So many toys, so little time!