Silje hard at work translating - Mini-DIY : Laptop Document Holder

If you are a writer, student or translater and spend hours each day in front of the computer reading and writing, a document holder of some kind is an ergonomic must. You also need to vary your work position during the day, and what better place to work than from the comfort of your comfy couch.When you sit at your desk you have a space for your books, and perhaps you even have dual screens to expand your workspace, but with a laptop on your lap, on a couch, you run out of realestate pretty fast. Enter the homemade document holder.

Improvised reading light - Mini-DIY : Laptop Document Holder

Mini-DIY : Laptop Document Holder

I will probably not win a design award for this but I'm actually pretty pleased with how this turned out. I glued two disposable chopsticks to a pair of black clothes pins and pinched them to the screen. The sheet of paper is clipped on with a third clothes pin, and thats that! All done. Your own homemade laptop document holder in 5 minutes.

MIni-DIY : Laptop Document Holder

This area of our living room is rather dark at night, so I fixed a quick and dirty reading light with a light bulb from a flashlight and a pair of AA batteries.

MIni-DIY : Laptop Document Holder

Mini-DIY : Laptop Document Holder

Improvised battery holder :) A broken remote control.

Mini-DIY : Laptop Document Holder

Mini-DIY : Laptop Document Holder

Mini-DIY : Laptop Document Holder

Before

Chocolate and crackers. Life really IS like a box of chocolate. You actually never know what you're going to get.

Sarah has started painting

She is almost 3 years old, and loves to paint, as all kids do. We reuse dishwashing sponges as paintbrushes, and I mix childsafe paints in a dish she can dip the sponge in. Sarah likes pink, what a shocker!Notice her multitasking capabilities :)

Spongework

The nice thing about sponges is that it gives even small hands alot of control, and the effect is also very nice. But the best reason to use a sponge is that you can cover large areas in a very short time, and it is also quite economical as it seem to use little paint compared to a paintbrush.

Smile!

So cute! Notice the painting shirt, a basic short sleved shirt a few sizes to large put on the wrong way around. We have it hanging in a closet in the kitchen along with child safe paints and other art suplies for easy access.As any parent or teacher knows, creating with children is easy, but you kind of have a very narrow window where before they start getting bored and want to do something else. So you need to have things ready to rock and roll.

Fingerpainting

My first box

Sarah choose pink for her box so I went the other way and mixed yellow, bright green and white in a dish, for a more springtime feel.

Bottom of my first box

We paint all the sides of the box of course, and with the sponge it takes no time at all, I can't have used more then 2 minutes on this.

This is what the inside looks like

You can mask the edges if you want a neater result, but I'm definitely not a neat freak.

Sarah working on her second box

The first box is done, I helped her a little with the sides and the inside lid. Now she is working on her second box, that originally contained an old etherned hub.

Close up of the pink box

Some lucky grand parents will get this.

From boring to beatiful

My second box

I love the stripes on this one, and the colors. I'm not what you might call a great painter but I think that this turned out fine.

Little boxes, on the countertop ...

Yes, that was a Weeds reference. I think the boxes turned out beautifully, I'm really happy with the result. It only took a few minutes to make them, and I know that with a nice ribbon around you won't even need to giftwrap them with paper. Just buy some nice gifts for your family or loved ones, and pop them inn, and you're done. I know my parents will be thrilled if they get such personalised gifts for christmas, handpainted by their grand-children.Made with love

Four boxes all in a row

Four boxes completed in no time at all, all ready to be filled with birthday og christmas presents. A great project to do with kids, and a fun and cheap way to create personalized giftwrapping for your family and loved ones.Remember to save your cardboard boxes if you have room for them, or you can go to a local store and ask.And if you give one away, why don't you ask the recipient to paint it some more and send it out again? Travelling art!

Mini-box

Sarah did this all by her self, all four sides. It might be a good idéa to give the smalles boxes to the kids, it makes it easier for them to complete it.

FrankenDog right after it started burning

I'm glad it happed in the daytime, or it could have burnt down our office. Our soundman noticed a weid smell, and found the i-cybie smoking in the hallway, and ran to the nearest exit with it and threw it out. So this is how I found it. Dr. Frankenstein to the resque!

Spooky FrankenFoot!

Haunted screws from hell

I absolutely hate toy firms that use triangle screws like this, they are an absolute nightmare to get loose! I have yet to be able to find a bit-set that contains a triangle head, and the i-cybie has at least two different sizes. I had to borrow two flat head screwdrivers of the exact correct size to get them out, and had to be super careful to avoid damaging the screw or screwdriver. I want to kick the makers of i-cybie in the nuts just for this :)

Magic flat head screw driver

Leg protection removed.

I had read on the web that the i-cybie was supposed to have 16 cervo motors, which turned out to be absolute bull. What you'll find are plain old cheap electric motors, the type you'll find in any Made in Taiwan toy car. Which makes economic sense of course.I had a plan of using an arduino for controlling the dogs movements, but, I see now that that won't be posssible.I wonder how they are able to reverse the polarity of the motors.

Tiny potentiometer

This has to be the smallest POT I've ever seen. It is connected to the shaft of the engine, and I imagine that it is used to tell the controller in i-cybies programming how much the motor has turned. Quite clever really. I wonder if this can be used for something later.

Screw you

These are the screws from just one leg. Hello!

The FrankenSynth

I guess I should use something more steampunk looking, but this is what I have. And it even has a dog voice, so in a sense it is perfect.

The FrankenSynth opened up

I will use this cheap toy piano I bought at a thrift store to trigger each motor, by creating temporary contacts on each piano key.I've recently discovered the joy of conductive tin foil tape, which is absolutely perfect for small mods like this. It is sturdy and takes a beating, and the glue is fairly strong.

FrankenTape

Four keys are prepped and ready for testing. Not sure it will work yet.My original plan was to glue tin foil on there, but my neighbor had recently installed heating cables in their floors, and had som aluminum tape left over from that project, and it turned out to be a great solution. Certainly better than farking around with glue and tin foil.

Closeup of home made contact switch

Push the piano key and power flows through.I'm not 100% happy with how it works, I thing you have to apply too much pressure to get a good connection. But good enough for entertainment purposes.

First FrankenFoot is attached!

I use a breadboard to hook things up, just to make it a little easier on myself. In this picture I've connected alligator clips to + and - on one of the motors, and run wires to one of the piano keys. When I press the corresponding piano key the circuit is closed, and the motor on the leg is triggered, moving the foot.I realize that I won't be able to reverse the direction of the motor, so the leg will just move one way for the time being. Suckage!

Closeup of leg

I will have to solder wires to each motor to make it easier to connect power to them.

Breadboard

Not very informative perhaps :)

FrankenJack

I found an old us robotics 56kbps modem in the attic, from the 90s, and I wanted to use the head phone jack one my synt. I'm doing this hack for a television show, so I need a way to deliver sound to the sound man.

FrankenJack is freeeeee

Just use a pair of pliers and bend and prod until the circuitboard brakes. Fast and simple. Kind of sad to destroy a piece of internet history, but hey.

FrankenJack connected

To get sound out of the audio jack all you have to do is connect wires directly to the speaker like this.

Sound out works

I've plugged in my iPhone headphones and I can now hear the sound from this synth in much higher fidelity.

Headless frankendog

I don't have pictures of this, but I prodded around a little and found a way to run wires from the led on my toy piano and to the dogs eyes instead. So each time I push a key on the keyboard, the eyes of i-cybie lights up red, Terminator style! I also run small wires to the small speaker in the i-cybies mouth, allowing me to use it as a loudspeaker later if I want to. If I had more time I would have attached an audiojack to make it easier to plug in my iphone, but that have to wait for later.

FrankenDog head, closeup.

Cut with a sharp knife, as smooth and straight as possible

Just takes a few seconds

Mixed in with storebought plastic beads

My kids seem to never tire of making necklaces. I’m looking forward to seeing them incorporate some free, upcycled, environmentally friendly beads as well.

Reuse, resist!

What you need:  A real guitar

A Kawaii. I swapped this for a Thin Lizzy LP back in the 90’s.

What you need: Xbox360 og Rockband 2 or DJ Hero

More ingredients

Rock band guitar controller for XBOX360.
Tin foil.
Screwdriver.

(Excuse the obvious for those who have played Rock Band before: The white long thingy in the middle of this pictures is pressed to ”strum” the guitar, and you also have to press down one or more buttons on the neck of the guitar controller at the same time.

Fun, but it really doesn’t feel very Rock’n'roll! Playing with a plastic guitar feels a litle like standing on Times Square wearing a diaper and making infant sounds :)

Testing Rockband 2

I must admit that this is the first time I’ve ever played Rock Band, so before I start modding the controller I have to play a little. I’m testing Easy and Medium, and it’s a brease really.

Open sesame!

I love the sight of dissassembled hardware in the morning.

Neck unscrewed

Time to do some modding!

Neck buttons

This is how the five buttons on the top of the neck are wired.

Closeup of circuitboard

The soldering points are easy to reach but quite close together, so I have to solder some wires to each of them. The brown wire at the top is for the green button, and the blue wire at the bottom is ground.

My plan is to connect ground to the strings of the real guitar. Because the frets, the bridge and the mounts for the guitar strings are all made of metal, all the strings on the guitar becomes electrified when I run a wire from ground (the bottom solder blob on this picture) and to one of the strings.

My next step is to make improvised contacts using tin foil for each of the fingers on my left hand. When I touch the strings on my (real) guitar with one or more of my fingers, it will close the circuit, and it will be like I pressed for instance the green button on the neck of the guitar controller. Good idea? Who knows! But that’s the plan.

There are five buttons on the original Rock Band controller, so if I want to play on Expert I have to run a wire to my thumb as well. That will be rather awkward.

Soldertime

Do you have a girlfriend that gives you a soldering station for christmas? Recommended.

Source for solid core wires

I got a tip that you can strip telephone cables to get a good suply of solid core wires, a must if you’re into diy elektronics. I’m trying to pick wires with colors that match the buttons on the guitar, just to make it a little easier later to hook up strange things to them.

Finished soldering, and hooked up to the guitar

The reason I soldered the wires to the circuit board is just to make it easier to connect alligator clips to them later. You can see them spaghettying out on the right side of the picture. If you are making a more permanent modification you could perhaps do it differently, but this works best for me. If you want to I can now drill a small hole in the neck and screw the neck back together again, and still have easy access to connect things to the wires.

The white alligator clip in the above images runs from ground on the circuit boar to one of my guitar strings, but I will move it down to the metal bridge later I think, leaving all 6 strings free to be played with a pick.

If I now take one of the other wires, for instance the green wire, and hold it to one of the guitar strings, it will be as of I presssed the green button on the controller. And it works!

Alligator clip as ear ornament!

Hurts like hell, but as Data learned in Star Trek 9 – Insurrection: It’s important to have a little fun every day.

Testing finger contacts

First test of my tinfoil contacts, with wired running to the green and yellow button (hurray for alligator clips with matching color). Works like a charm!

The drawback of using finger contacts it that my finger dexterity is a little reduced, and I usually hit more than one wire at a time. But I will still be able to plugin the guitar into my amp, crank it up and play some power cords on the guitar and play Rock Band at the same time. I can pick notes from anywhere on the neck, it doesn’t really matter where as long as I touch the right finger to the string(s) at the correct time.

The tin foil looks ridiculous of course, but I am sure that it is possible to make a version of this that is cooler looking and easier to play with. The electrical connection between the tin foil and the strings on the guitar is excellent, so I am now certain that this will work. Later I will try to create finger contacts that are little bit more “slim fit”.  (Tip me in the comment section if you have ideas).

Householdhacker connected wires to a guitar pick in their hack, and that was what I wanted to try as well, but then I had this other idea: To swap out the guitar pick with boxing gloves!

Connection the wires for the boxing glove

The boxing glove will replace the white plastic knob used for strumming the guitar on the xbox360-controller, and all I need to do is to clip on a red and black alligator clip to the small circuitboard as shown in the picture, and voila!

Closeup of connection

Connecting the gloves:

So the plan is to use gloves (prefferably boxing gloves) to control the strumming. I don’t have access to boxing cloves right now so I’m testing with some plain vanilla gloves for the time being. When testing I’m taping pieces of tin foil to the palm of each glove and running a wire to each.

First contact!

It seems to be working, nice sounds are comming from the TV, but it’s a bitch to test everything by myself. This is definitely a controller that demands two players!

Lars, the clapper

I push the buttons by pressing my fingers to the strings, while Lars claps his hans together in rythm.

And we have a winner! We are amazed that it is so easy to play together, and the presicion of both the gloves and the guitar are simply amazing. I started this as a novelty trick, but I now realize you can actually play Rock Band on this thing! So cool!

And you feel a little bit more macho with a real guitar!

Satanist-rockband-rocker (almost)

Wassup! Ok, so wearing tin foil on each finger might subtract slightly from my cool rocker image. But it works!

Re-evaluation of the glove controller

The fun part about making things yourself is to learn from experience and try to improve. The most important thing I learnt  (besided that tin foil makes you look slightly dorky)was that tin foil is pretty vulnerable to tear. But if I fold it several times, especially on the end that I clip the alligators to, and tape the wires to the glove as well, the tinfoil lasts a lot longer. It is really easy to get carried away then playing, so it is a must to find a way to hold the wires in place and prevent unneccesary strain if possible.

Nice tie!

I’m building this controller for a Norwegian television program called Tekno, and that means I have to dress up a little before recording! 8-bit tie bought from Thinkgeek many years ago. I knew I would get to use it sometime. :)

Testing all connections in the television studio

Boxing gloves prepped and ready to rock! I’ve taped tin foil to the front of the gloves. When recording the tv show we will only use one of the gloves but it’s easy to make a solution where you can use both gloves.

The tin foil is folded several times to make it more sturdy and after connecting the alligator clips I will tape them to the gloves as well.

My colleague Rune trying on the gloves

Testing the instrument with  Rune

The showhost Hanne helps me to attach the shoulder contact

I’ve created a contact made of tin foil and Hanne is helping me tape it to my arm. When we play she will punch me in rythm to the game. There is a wire running from the shoulder contact to ground on the Rock band guitar controller, and another wire from the glove and to positive on the xbox controller. (see previous steps for details).

When Hanne punches me in the shoulder the glove contact connects with the shoulder contact, and power flows through.

Testing Rockband with a boxing glove and a homemade controller

Good times