Omatic Labs Zettelkasten

The Plan & the Distraction

So at the beginning of the year I was planing on documenting the projects I did in 2012, start posting on my website regularly and start hoping to generate a bit more traffic. The aim was to start making some boards and kits and staring a little Open Source Hardware electronics store. It’s not like I want to be the next adafruit, seed or SparkFun. But it would be nice to be the next Evil Mad Scientist, Dangerous Prototypes, Arachnid Labs or countless others in the community.

So now it’s September, What happened?

I got distracted. Basically I had a great product idea. Everything else stopped and I got very focused on the product for several months. I’m still working on it but not with the kind of focus I had in the early months. I’m not quite ready to put the idea out on the internet quite yet but I will say it’s a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) product with an iOS and in future Android app. I’m planing on doing the first batch of the product as a Kickstarter.

I know from my research that these projects always take far longer than you think. The thing is though you don’t really understand or believe that until it happens to you. So development on the product idea continues but I understand it’s going to take a while so other smaller projects are getting some attention.

One of the outcomes of the product project is that I’m tooling up the workshop for making surface mount boards, this is something i’ve been wanting to do for quite a while. I also keep having new ideas for boards and kits. So I’m hoping I’ll be able to get back to my original plan of starting up a little electronics shop and also having the product project idea moving along at the same time.

So next up some posts on the new gear in the workshop.

Quiz Buzzer System

This job was building a Quiz Buzzer system for a TV Show. The system has two inputs for the buzzer switches and two 240 volt outputs on relays for switching on indicator lights. The system also has an audio output with a sound triggered for each buzzer. Finally there is a wired remote control panel with LED's to indicate the state of the system and a button for reset. The system is set up so the once a team has buzzed in it locks out until reset from the control box.

It was built for an ABC3 show called Steampunks. ABC Link Review

The system is built around a Freetronics Eleven and a Sparkfun MP3 Trigger. All the inputs and outputs are done though 0.1" header connectors all built up on a Adafruit prototyping board.

I've only got a few in construction photos of this one.

Credits

I was working for Alien Proof Construction.

Steampunks TV show was produced by Beyond for ABC3

LED Helmet & Flux Capacitor

This project was a couple of blinkey LED effects for an advertising campaign. I built a simple “Flux Capacitor” style effect and a LED effect for the inside of a sci-fi helmet. In a handful of hours with parts on hand (ok 1 trip to the local Jaycar).

LED Helmet from NativeResolution & Omatic Labs on Vimeo.

Zortech demonstrates the LED Helmet from NativeResolution & Omatic Labs on Vimeo.

Flux Capacitor from NativeResolution & Omatic Labs on Vimeo.

Credits

I was working for Alien Proof Construction.

Further up the chain was Will O_Rourke & The Glue Society.

Final client was Ice Break Ice Coffee and I assume there was an add agency in there as well.

There is more information on the project on the Will O_Rourke site here.

2012 in review

2012 was a huge year. Particularly a big year for building and making things. I built a handful of website, did a bunch of travel, made some cool electronic devices, made some cool art and got involved in some crazy projects. Sometimes all at once.

Some of them where for Film and Television so I couldn't write about them at the time. Not that I had a easy way of showcasing the projects at the time anyway.

So now I've got a basic site up I plan to write up last years project aver the next few weeks.

links