DOT Wins a Maker Faire Bay Area 2011 Editor's Choice Award

End of Sunday we were pleased to learn that the Destruction of Time won a Maker Faire Bay Area 2011 Editor's Choice Award. Makes all that hard work and late nights worth it!

Maker Faire Likes the Destruction of Time

You can tell who gets the display when the look for about 5 seconds and then start laughing...

Motor Detail

The motors that are driven by the Arduino and their acrylic mounting brackets.

Maker Faire! It Works!

Everything is working pretty much to plan (notwithstanding dropping the Arduino on the floor so it now won't take a new program -- we're running the original app from yesterday. Timing is off by a few seconds - but nothing to cause major problems.) I've taken videos of the DOT working; will post this evening after the show.

Overkill?

Two ink jet printers, two ubuntu desktops, monitor, KVM, Arduino, Motor Shield, two motors, two shredders, enough T-slot to support the Golden Gate Bridge and a bunch of acrylic. Overkill you think?

Arduino & Motor Shield mounted

The Arduino & Motor Shield that drives the advance wheels is now mounted. Also added a couple of wire strain guides. We have a backup Arduino and Motor Shield just in case! Good news is that one motor shield will drive both motors (hours and minutes) so there is no need for clock-syncing across multiple Arduino's (although that would have been overkill. Who really cares if the hour advances 8ms behind the 59 -> 0 advance... ;-)

Adding covers to the paper guide

Difficult to see in the pictures, but the top and bottom covers of the paper guide are now going on the frame. Have to do this in two stages as I don't have sufficient clamps! Once the covers have set I'll cut out the slot for the wheel.

It's Alive (and keeps pretty good time!)

Ubuntu desktop now configured to print out the "minute hand". As long as the printer doesn't run out of paper and the printer queue doesn't back up we're good to go! Configuring of the second desktop will be done this week (of course I could have used just one desktop -- but over engineering is much more fun!).

Only 5 days now until Maker Faire and much still to do. I have the final design for the hero paper guides and time booked on the laser cutter this afternoon. The Arduino Motor Shield is now built and running smoothly (solid soldering foo in action!). The rest of the T-channel hardware is sitting in a pile in the garage and just needs cutting and assembly. The last shredder is on its way from Amazon as is the black drape. Gonna be a race against time!