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I haven’t posted in awhile.  I have been working on a Master’s Degree in Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing) through Penn State.  It has been interesting, but has taken up my time and prevented me from working on my own projects.  Last semester I worked on improving a large printer (52″ square build platform) that some undergrad students had built for my work.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it to work.  The weight of the extruder platform was too much for the stepper motors and they stopped working.  This semester is about design and materials.  I’m really looking forward to it.

My 7 year old son has been making a lot of stuff, so I’ll try to post some of his builds.  I’m impressed with and admire his creativity and drive.  I wish I was as good as just building things the way he does, but I put too many excuses in my way and talk myself out of building something.

My latest design is a  replacement sim card tray for my Nexus 5X.  I sent it in for a warranty repair and when it came back, the tray was missing.  I intended to quickly print one out so I could use my phone, but I’m on my 4th iteration and I’m not even sure if it will work.

 

I just wrote this up for my wife’s website, ExcitedToBoMe.com.  I thought it would be fitting to go here too.

Pick a Goal!

The world wants people who are going somewhere, doing things, and making decisions.  What are you waiting for?  Pick a goal!  It doesn’t have to be something big or hard or impressive.  Just pick something.

Need some help getting started?  Here’s what you do.

1. Grab a pencil and paper.
2. Make a list of things you want to do, wish you could do, or have seen others do.
3. Hold your pencil in the air.
4. Close your eyes.
5. Put the pencil on the paper.
6. Circle the item that your pencil landed on.

CONGRATULATIONS!  You just picked a goal!

It’s that easy.  How many times have you not done something because you didn’t know how or where to start.  Do the six steps above and you have gotten farther than most people have.  A goal not written is merely a wish.

Still not enough?  Here’s the next step.

Write down what it will look like, feel like, smell like when you achieve that goal.  Who would you tell?  How would you celebrate?  Be as detailed as you want.  Then, write down what it would look, feel, smell, sound like to be half way there.  Where would you be?   What would you have already accomplished? What do you have left to accomplish?

Rinse and repeat until you have a list of steps that are small enough for you to see yourself actually doing them.  Make those next steps small enough that it seems trivial to complete them and illogical not to complete them.  Then, do them.  Plan them into your day.  Put a date next to them.  Hang them on your wall.  Put them into your phone.  Do whatever it takes to not forget about them.  Memorize them, turn them into a song.  Just get them into your brain!

Now that you know what to do… DO IT!  Keep track of what you’ve done so you can see how for you’ve come.  When those sneaky thoughts try to tell you to stop or that you’re not good enough, don’t listen to them.  Grab the remote and turn them off.  You’ll thank yourself later.  Try the Jerry Seinfeld method of tracking; mark off each day you worked on your list and DON’T BREAK THE CHAIN!  It works, and may be just what you need to keep going.

Now, here’s the hard part.  Tell other people what you are doing.  There are lots of reasons not to do this, but they all stink.  The act of telling people your goal helps solidify that goal in your mind.  It makes it real.  You hear yourself saying it and you really start to believe it.  Or it drives you crazy and you quit.  It’s up to you.  You decide how awesome you will be.  Not the person on the other side of a screen, who doesn’t see the excitement in your eyes or hear the energy in your voice when you talk about your goal.  This is your dream after all, not there’s.  So why should they get to decide how you feel about it.

Oh, and don’t forget.  Finished is better than started.

And the winner is… AZ Heat.  Clearly PLA was not supposed to be subjected to the blazing 120+ F temperatures of an Arizona summer.  It might have survived if the battery wasn’t mounted on top.  Oh, and the battery didn’t do so well either.  The rubber coating is now all sticky.

My son and I have been getting into these stop motion videos.  I came home from work and he had made several more.  Here’s a short compilation of what we’ve made.  I made the first one (to try out the app) and he made all of the others.  I like how he used extra Lego for the crash between Mator and the train.

 

 

My oldest wanted to use my laptop yesterday to make a stop motion video.  He came up with the idea all by himself and all I did was show him how to set things up.  This morning I found an app that will create the video automatically and he started using that.  Tonight, we decided to make a video together, along with his brother.  We had a fun time.  The boys LOVED the ending.

I often hear the word ‘innovation’ thrown around when people or companies are trying to market themselves as being new, different, or on the cutting edge. This word has been used so many times that I have lost understanding of what it actually means.  In researching a formal definition, it became clear that there are multiple meanings, depending on where you’re coming from.  Dictionary.com defines innovate as “to introduce something new; make changes in anything established.”  That is an open and broad definition that could apply to a lot of things.  The Business Dictionary website has a much more professional sounding way to put it, “The process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value or for which customers will pay.”  It goes on to list other criteria in business-y terms, which are still somewhat vague and remind me of agonizing meetings sitting around trying to define something that could have been completed in half the time if it had been given to one person.  My favorite definition comes from the Urban Dictionary, “To steal someone’s idea, change it a tiny bit, and release it as your own.”   There seems to be a lot of that going on these days.

I don’t know what definition this would fall into, but I think it was pretty innovative of my kids to come up with this.  They weren’t concerned about the marketability or profitability of what they were doing.  They just thought it would be fun to act like the wheelbarrow was a swimming pool, since they don’t have one.

I found a great source for free music for my videos: freemusicarchive.org.  They have a wide variety of genres and different ways of sorting them.  It’s nice to have unique music for my videos rather  than the same old repetitive tune that is over used on YouTube.

Sometimes making can be so frustrating.  I find a good reference on the internet.  I follow their example and modify it for my application.  I try it out and something goes wrong with implementing it.  I troubleshoot that and get it implemented.  Then it doesn’t work like I expected it to.  More troubleshooting. Finally, I think I have it figured out, but when I get it installed I find out it didn’t actually work or there is another issue.  More troubleshooting.  Finally, way past my bedtime, it’s working.  Success!… until the next day, when I find out something wasn’t quite right.  MORE TROUBLESHOOTING.  Maybe I won’t call myself an engineer or maker anymore.  My new title is Troubleshooter.