Photoshop with GIMP

So I decided to play around with some Photoshop and instead of stealing a copy I decided to use the open source version called GIMP. Turns out its not too hard to create some cool effects. I found a cool little tutorial and started to play around with some effects. Also I used this cool little star wars font generator.

http://logo54.com/movie/starwars/

Some of you may remember this photo from one of my earlier blogs where Lloyd is defending his car from my potato cannon.

My Slot Fitted Bed

I have a new apartment now and its a bit unfurnished. I don't even have a mattress yet and I was sleeping on a stack of comforters and sleeping bags. Rather than spend $95 at the Walmart for their full size wooden bed support, I finally finished my homemade bed. It cost me about 35 dollars to build and it is fitted for a full sized bed mattress (54" x 72").
There use to be these old dinosaur kits that you didn't have to glue, everything was slotted and fit perfectly together. That inspired me to make my bed that way. Why you ask? Because I wanted to be different, plus it was kinda cool how sturdy it was without using any screws. The material I used was 1/2" MDF (el cheapo fake wood) and the cuts for the slots were cut using router tool with a 1/2" bit. I also used a circular saw for the straight cuts.




Dimensions
Main Supports
ABCD 12" x 72"
EF 12" x 49"

Wooden Panels
GH 54" x 24.5"
Ia Ib 30.5" x 26", 23.5" x 26" (approx)
(be careful with Ia and Ib its not stable unless you have a full mattress on top or stuff the inside with something. I recommend using a third piece if your not stingy like me :-), I even made a chair with the scrap wood from this project )

Here are some more images of the finished product


The wood panels give this bed a little secret compartment to store old comforters or other things.



I decided to use contact paper (big wood patterned stickers) on some of the edges where the MDF was exposed to give it a more appealing (though fake) look. I ran out and there are still some spots where I have to add more contact paper.

2007 Spring ASME RubeGoldberg Showcase

We made a composite video in the end because it was getting annoying to reset the machine for everyone who missed it. It was too hard to film in one shot since the entire setup was mounted on a 2x3 board practically. The actual competition entries were much larger.

This was a project I did for EG1004 when I was the head Teaching Assistant. We went to Honolulu Hawaii for the American Society for Engineering Education Conference to present our project. We designed an affordable senior designed project for freshman engineering students to implement in a one semester course. It involved many engineering aspects and concerns and it was a blast to do. We also won first place at the conference for the best undergraduate presentation when we unveiled the project. The video shows our research prototype (red) followed by some student designs.

Polytechnic ASME's award winning plane in the microflyer competition. asme.poly.edu for more...

Lets light things up

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I did a lot of projects with LEDs. It always amazed me how light is able to just be so darn attracting. In this one I froze some LEDs in ice to create a diffuser. I used the Lego pieces to create the shape. Unfortunately the pieces snapped while removing them from the ice. Someday I may try again.



This was with a shutter delay using a blue flashlight I soldered together. Pretty sweet.


This one was with a function generator attached to an LED Ring we made one a dual clad copper board.

Mmmmm M&M peanutS

Here we have a Lego candy dispenser I built back in college.