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.

I hate hotels

Here is a video that a friend took while I was in Honolulu

Magnetic Drink Stirrer

I got bored and decided to make a drink stirrer device.

Here is the video, and the instructable



http://www.instructables.com/id/ECTVER6F4C0MK4J/

Lego Tape Dispenser

When I started my job as a TA in college I was given a shiny new stapler, thumb tacks the works! The one thing I didn't get was a tape dispenser. Later I realized no one got a tape dispenser. Surprisingly though there were rolls of tape by the dozens lying around. So I decided to just make one out of Lego Bricks. Yay! I have tape and dispenser Rejoice!! Then someone stole it. Arg!

Well then I started my internship and once again I found that there was yet another shiny new stapler and somehow thumbtacks but again no tape dispenser. I decided to crank out the old Lego pieces again and make another. Score! Tape! And a reminder to all around that the funny little intern who plays with Lego sits at this cube.

Ahhh the sweet intern months go by and I eventually left that internship for school and gifted the dispenser away. I decided to make my third one and record it this time and hopefully this will be the one that doesn't leave my hands.

Enjoy!

Lego Hot Wire Cutter

I wanted to build something to cut styrofoam for a while but never found the time. Then I decided I to build one out of Lego pieces. Afraid that the abs plastic construction toys would melt I mounted the electrical connections above and below the plastic so that section of the wire would never have current run through. To kept the nichrome wire taut I used a spring I found. The cutter is powered by an external power supply. I have one I built out of a PC power supply and a DC model train transformer from when I was a but a wee bit lad.

A Pneumatic Barbecue

Now a days I have more time. I started a whole lot of projects. One was the hand held water bottle rocket. I'm sure a lot of people have a lot of criticism about how dumb it is to hold that bottle and to not use any eye protection. I agree and I don't recommend this method. In my defense the system to pressurize it was a well regulated air compressor at only 45psi. Well below the maximum these specific bottles can withstand and also limiting the height they could reach.









A sideways launch towards a wooden target














My friend defending his car from hurls of stale bread being thrown at it.










My pneumatic launcher I built when I was in high school for a science project also launching stale Kirkland bread. The accuracy for this has always been spectacular. Don't worry everything we launched landed in the yard and nothing heavy or dangerous was ever used. Although that bread from Kirkland could be considered poisonous. ;-)

Senior Design Project Done

Well here is the video of the final result of 4 years in polytechnic. Unfortunately our goal was to make a full Ipod skin with the antenna embedded but time constraints held us back.

Aren't Magnetic Things Attractive?

Some wicked technology was listed on popular science related in the field of power systems. This article was about a type of weapon called a rail gun. It uses linear induction machines to propel a 'smart' chunk of metal into a target. The speeds they estimate achieving are pretty amazing (Mach 7 plus) and the impact velocity would be about 5,000 ft/sec. This kind of weapon would not carry any explosives, rather the kinetic energy alone is enough. The projectile is essentially dead weight but it will have some adjustable surfaces so that it does have some satellite course correction capabilities.

The project if successful has a predicted completion date somewhere in 2015. The new weapon is an old concept but has been hindered in the past due to the extreme energy consumption. The next generation combat ship the DD(X) will be an all electric ship and divert power from drive systems to fire this giant.

















Related - Another navy linear induction motor project called EMALS. (electromagnetic aircraft launch system)

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/systems/emals.htm

Alas its time to work

Recently a friend and I have been deciding on a senior design project. We finally chose a wireless energy mod. Something that wows and involves some electrical engineering background.

The Goal - to build a wireless energy transfer mechanism using Nikola Tesla's method of electromagnetic radiation and fundamental power system principals.

Why? - It is a novel idea that can be completed in the duration of time we have. Wireless energy technology eliminates the need for having corded chargers and helps to allow devices to become waterproof. It involves real engineering design strategy with multiple design stages.

What? - We plan to build a set of AC/DC converters as well as a tuned air core transformer to transfer energy from one location to another.

How? - The device will be comprised of multiple stages. Parts will be made from wire wound components and off the shelf electronics.

1) AC-AC rectifier
2) AC-DC full bridge converter
3) DC 555 timer oscillator
4) Tuned Free air transformer
5) DC-DC converter (if necessary)

Intro

Hi, my name is David Ye and I'm a senior at Polytechnic University. Someone once recommended that I document some of my ideas online and so here is my e-journal of my projects, hobbies and other interests.

Some random places with stuff I've done.

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?m=cooblades
http://www.instructables.com/member/cooblades/