World's Smallest Sand Castle

Background

I was looking for some fun, clean, April Fools pranks when I found a printable joke about the worlds smallest sand castle, "carefully crafted by microscopic nanobots." What you really do is glue a tiny pinch of sand to the paper.

This might fool some gullible, elementary aged children, but in my line of work we can easily view objects on the micro and nanoscale. We have powerful optical microscopes, scanning electron microscopes, confocal microscopes, laser interferometry, etc. So I got thinking about what it would take to really build the world's smallest sand castle.

The Idea

I think it would be a fun project to actually build the world's smallest sand castle (if it hasn't been done already). To accomplish this I would build it from real grains of sand by stacking them one at a time like giant building blocks. Okay, they are actually tiny building blocks, but think about buildings that are made from huge granite blocks. I would treat each small grain as if it were a huge building block. That gives you a sense of scale of what I want to build.

There are many different types of sand, but the typical size distribution goes from 0.06mm to 2.0mm. To make building easier I would try to find a high purity silica sand with grains filtered towards the smaller end of the spectrum, around 0.10mm. I think the biggest problem with building on this small scale is that the building blocks won't be square. Unlike salt crystals, silica crystals take a much more random form and will be rounded on all sides. This means I'll need to be creative to get the grains to stick together. The most obvious answer would be to glue them in place.

The last, and I think most difficult / expensive, challenge to overcome is how to actually perform the building.  How do you move the sand grains into place and glue them there?! Really steady hands and lots of patience? I think not. I've done lots of work lately playing with servos, and motor controllers, but those just don't have micro-scale accuracy. After a little research I think I'll use micromanipulators. These are mechanical devices used mostly by biologists to work with individual cells under a microscope. If I can get my hands on one or two of these things then I might have a shot at a world record.

Progress

02/03/2015 -

Has it Been Done Before?

Using my Google-fu I checked for any prior attempts at my idea. The current claim to the world's smallest sand castle comes from Vik Muniz. He has taken an individual grain of sand and used a laser to etch a picture of a castle. I think this is awesome, and a clever twist on the idea of a sand castle. However, it does not qualify as a 3D structure build from multiple grains of sand.

I also found a few photos of small castles built with more traditional techniques by J.W. Gruber. He makes a tightly packed block of sand then carves out the castle. Probably the smallest freestanding examples with extensive detail.

Here is a gentleman who does micro-sculpting by hand between his heart beats. He could probably do it without using any extra equipment. His pace is a little slow, but that's exactly the attribute that makes him successful: Willard Wigan TED Talk

Looking For a Micromanipulator

• New on Amazon: $1,500
• Used Industrial: $150 - $500
• 3D Printed Low Res: $100

The 3D printed version actually gives me an affordable way to research the feasibility of this idea. As soon as I get the nozzle on my printer repaired I may dig into this.

03/31/2019 - I still want to do this one. It just seems unique and fun. I've had the 3D-printed micromanipulator and VR goggles on my desk for at least a year.

I've been stuck on the optics. I'm trying to maximize both the free working distance and the depth of focus around the optimal magnification level for medium sand grains (about 0.1 mm). If you've ever used a microscope, you may have noticed that everything looks flat or out of focus. This is because when you zoom in to high magnifications, only a thin section of material is in focus.

With my design, I've been trying to overcome this flatness and give a sense of depth and dimension by using stereo 3D microscopy. This has been done successfully by Gary Greenberg, but he looks like an academic gone commercial. I can't afford his equipment, and he doesn't publish the design since he's selling them for over $40,000 on Amazon. From his websites it looks like he's relying on Z-stacking to get full-depth 3D images. In other words, the camera automatically takes images at different focal depths, then a computer combines all the parts that are in-focus to create a neat looking picture. So it's not REALLY real-time, live 3D viewing.

That depth of focus is going to really make this project a challenge. My problem is that I don't have the money to just play around with expensive optics, and I don't know enough optics theory to design my system on paper to know exactly what to buy and how that translates to a workable system. I've gotten a rough idea by studying scopes for soldering electronic components, and I found DIY stereo microscope that I might try.

Or maybe I should build the end-effector first and try to find a lab with a standard stereomicroscope and see if a standard mag like 65 or 90 is sufficient for what I need. Then I'd feel okay dropping the $250-$2500 for a standard lab unit.

Water Rockets

Intro

One day in the church parking lot, while waiting for an activity to begin, my step-brothers pulled out a bike pump and a soda bottle half filled with water. The lid of the soda bottle had a hole drilled inside with a bike tire stem poking out. They attached the pump to the bottle and pressurized the contents. Finally, one of them pointed the bottle up in the air and removed the cap. It rocketed out of his hands spewing water everywhere. That was my first introduction to water bottle rockets.

As kids we never took that principle any further. It wasn't until college when I learned that some people get very serious about building complex launchers and rockets. For me it has become a fun summer pastime, but not a serious hobby. I mostly enjoy launching rockets as a way to spend fun time with my children.

My Rockets

My first rocket no longer exists. I shot it so many times that the plastic got weak from landing and it exploded during pressurization. So unless you have a soft recovery system, I recommend retiring your pressure vessel after about 20 launches.

"Red Rocket", my second rocket, is a two-liter bottle with fins stolen from a firework. The nosecone is a Nerf football cut in half and hollowed to the correct weight. The fins and nosecone are attached by duct tape to allow fast repairs and relaunches. I've found duct tape to be very reliable and convenient in withstanding launch forces. These fins are too small to be really effective, so I'll probably replace them soon.

My family at the engineering competition, me holding "Red Rocket."

"One Night Wonder", my third rocket, was designed for an engineering competition at work. I procrastinated the build until the night before the competition. The nose cone was 3D printed, and I invented a circular fin that extends on launch. This system allowed the rocket to be fired from virtually any launcher design. With only a single good launch my rocket won second place for height, and first place for closest to target. The fin extension system used short sections of drinking-straw as linear bearings. The straws were cheap and thin and failed on the second launch. The design is sound and one I will duplicate with stronger materials.

"One Night Wonder" Maiden Flight

"One Night Wonder" Catastrophic Second Flight

My Launcher

I'll add a picture soon. You can find instructions on how to build a similar launcher from The King of Random. Or you can buy a kit from the Taylors. My current release mechanism uses a Clark Cable-Tie Launcher.

Useful Links

• Dean's Benchtop - Dr. Wheeler was one of my professors and bosses in college. He is the one who re-introduced me to the world of water rockets.
• Air Command Water Rockets - Lots of resources and tutorials.
• Clifford Heath's Simulator - I don't know Clifford, but he wrote a nice simulator for modeling different rocket design parameters. I've found it to be reliable for making design choices. It also allows you to change launcher and nozzle parameters.
• It's a Blast! - The Taylors were our neighbors while I was in college. They introduced me to the world of paper rockets. The pneumatic system I use for launching my water rockets is based on their launcher design.
• 3D Printable Rocket Parts - Here are some water rocket parts that you can print with a 3D printer. I used a nosecone in the engineering challenge.

3D Scatterplot Online, XYZ Plot in Javascript

Background

I'm an engineer by trade and by education. In my role I spend large amounts of time summarizing and presenting data to other people, usually engineers. Data comes in a variety of forms, and each form has a different way to be displayed. Information Visualization is an entire field of study on it's own. There are many software packages that have the ability to create charts and graphs. Some of them, like Microsoft Excel, are heavily used in almost every company. Other, more specialized, packages are often bought by a company to provide additional functionality.

One frequent type of data I use is called "xyz" data. I often just want to quickly chart a bunch of points in 3D space. Oddly enough, most standard software does a poor job of graphing "xyz" data. The default format for "xyz" data is a long list of rows where each row represents a point, and each point has three entries; one for each of x, y and z values. Excel won't chart this data unless you "pivot" the data into a different format. Other packages will chart the data from that format, but the chart controls to rotate, resize, zoom in and out, etc are kludgy at best.

The Idea

Since I need the xyz scatter plot so often, and sometimes in unusual places, it would be great to have an online interface to quickly paste some data and present a simple chart that can be rotated and scaled in real-time. Is that really too much to ask?! My Google-Fu is pretty good and I can't find anything online. How has no one done this yet? I've found contingency table calculators online that require a Chi table lookup. Most people in my industry don't even know what that IS despite it's usefulness. I don't want a free download, or an R script or an excel hack. I need to copy and paste my data and look at a plot in under a minute.

So I have to do it myself. Writing something server-side would be the fastest. I really like ColdFusion for this exact purpose, but that's not very common and I'd have to pay for some hosting. Maybe I will someday. My next natural inclination is to use JavaScript since it is client-side and available EVERYWHERE. But JavaScript doesn't have native graphics without using some kind of extension or additional package. Well, that was true until HTML 5, now we can use the canvas element to draw and display graphics natively in the browser.

Progress

01/27/2015 - First I created a static canvas of 2D points. Then I added the ability to import 2D points from a textarea html element. I added functions to project 3D points onto a 2D viewing plane then added buttons to modify the viewing angles. That took me a few hours. Next time I will add automatic scaling and chart annotations to give the chart some perspective. In the future I might add the ability for axis title and data labels, but that is a ways off.

02/10/2015 - Added automatic scaling and centering of chart, and the ability to make manual changes. Added corner points and XYZ reference lines. Once again it took me a few hours. Next I will add back-planes, gridlines and axis value labels.

02/21/2015 - Shading and grids are done. Shading helps a little, but perspective is needed to make the orientation clear. Also, drag to rotate would be helpful. I didn't want this to be a full-blown 3D project, so I'll probably stop here. I have what I needed; quick and simple 3D scatter plot.

Your browser does not support the HTML5 canvas tag.

Rotation Settings

Rotate By:				deg
X Rotation:				deg
Y Rotation:				deg
Z Rotation:				deg

Axis Settings

	Min	Max	# Intervals
X Axis
Y Axis
Z Axis

View Settings

Marker Size:				px
Zoom:				%

Paste xyz data below, separated by tabs, commas or spaces, then click "Import".

Avatar / Mini Me App

Background

During my Master's studies in Electrical Engineering I took some programming courses. One course that I enjoyed was called, "Visual Interfaces to Computers." It was about the many ways that computers can obtain and use visual data from the real world. Since that time I have had several ideas on novel ways to use visual data.

In a completely unrelated line of thought I often think about pictures that people use to represent themselves in chat windows, gaming icons, Facebook, forums, and the many other virtual worlds. These little self-representations are called avatars. I always have a hard time figuring out what picture to use. I don't like pictures of myself, but I can never think of any one thing I like SO MUCH that I would use that as my avatar.

The Idea

Create a cell phone app (I guess there could be PC / MAC and online options as well) that will take a front and side image of you and create a virtual likeness of yourself. To be clear, this is not a 3D scanning app. This would be something much more rudimentary. The app would identify the location and shape of head, body, arms and legs. It would create a cartoonish figure by matching the shapes from the picture against a database of common shapes. Then it would analyze the head in more detail to get shape and color information on the hair, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, etc. and match those features against the database of features to find matches. The output would be a cartoon, 3D likeness of yourself that could be dressed up, altered, colored, etc. You could rotate and zoom the model and save pictures that could be used as avatars.

The part that makes this idea novel from existing versions is that it creates the avatar based off real-life images.

Progress

12/02/2014 - Some similar ideas already exist, but not in exactly the way I envision.

• Yahoo used to have an avatar generator that was very limited but is no longer supported.
• Nintendo Mii Characters were introduced on the Wii.
• Second Life has the most detailed avatars.
• Awesome 2.5D face from photo at Site Pal.
• Other sites

But I haven't found anything that makes a full 3D avatar from from pictures.

Water Jouncers

Background

I really have no idea why I thought of this. The kids woke me up early and I couldn't fall back to sleep. While laying in bed this morning I got a bunch of ideas. My brain is a single-thread processor. It's like a railroad track but there are a million switches. I think along one thread, sometimes detouring on tangents, evaluating ideas more deeply or completely switching directions on a new but related thought. I often backtrack and take different switches that I marked as interesting along the way. Conversations are like this. Jenn and I sometimes find it fun to trace conversations backwards and see all the different switch points.

Anyways, I'm sure there was some half-logical track that got me onto running across the water.

The Idea

A stilt contraption that displaces water allowing you to run across a water surface. First solve the mechanics of water displacement and find workable human input scenarios. One possible answer is to displace lager surface area like a lizard. Problem is with retraction speed. Evaluate an artificial webbed foot that expands on contract, putting force into springs. Then upon contraction the springs pull the webbing in and propel the foot out of the hole of displaced water. Or maybe the actual foot never enters the hole. Maybe it's only the mechanical device goes into the pocket, and the springs pull it out again, reset by the force of every step.

Progress

11/27/2014

Lizard that can run on water

Robot that can run on water

Just for Fun:

Fake but Fun

Jeff's Miracle Boots

No-Boat Water Skis

Background

The Aquaskipper has proven that human power can propel a person above the water using hydro foils. People have attempted self-propelled water skis in the past, but the designs were all horrible. The Mythbusters' Adam Savage tried a typical approach of floating pontoons with flaps for propulsion. They turned out to be unstable and not mobile. What we need a good, functional design.

The Idea

I need to sit down and determine the physics required to keep a person on top of the water using a combination of buoyancy and propulsion. Then I need to explore the design space around these two factors and design water skis that operate similar to the principals used in the Aquaskipper. In my mind I envision something like cross-country skis for water. Cross-water skis?

Progress

11/27/2014:

A Purely Buoyant Solution - Archimedes' Principle

Put simply, the buoyant force on a submerged object is equal to the weight of displaced water. For a purely buoyant design this means displacing enough water to hold up a person. Assuming a weight of 80 kg (roughly the average American male) at standard temperature and pressure, this means displacing approximately 80 liters of water. Sounds like a large volume, but that equates to two skis that are 25 cm wide, 10 cm deep and 160 cm long. So I guess Adam Savage had it about right with his big dorky skis (for the record I was rooting FOR him).

In my opinion this is the worst way to design these skis. This is the maximum footprint of a workable design, so we should be able to stay well below that size by requiring the person to move to stay afloat. More like the Auqaskipper which uses little buoyant force.

A Purely Dynamic Solution - Barefoot Skiing

A rule of thumb for barefoot skiing speeds says take your weight in pounds, divide by two and add 20 miles per hour. This gives around 37.5 mph or 60 kph. That's really fast. The Aquaskipper obviously goes much slower than that. I found a paper on water skiing biomechanics that showed a chart of rope load that was half the skier's weight while going 15 kph.

Arduino Decibel Alarm for Noisy Kids

Background

My wife and I are night-owls but our children are early risers. We used to get up with them every morning, but have slowly trained them to do their morning routine by themselves. The only problem with this arrangement is when the kids decide to reenact "Lord of the Flies." They can get very noisy, interrupting my precious sleep. I get really cranky when I haven't had enough sleep. The kids are very responsive when I tell them to be quiet, but they quickly return to their activities and resume their loud volumes before I can drift back to happy land.

If my wife or me sits down with the kids and constantly reminds them to be quiet, then they do pretty well. But then only one of us gets to sleep (usually me). I just wish there was some kind of electronic babysitter that could tend the to the kids' volume during that hour between six and seven in the morning.

The Idea

Use an electret microphone on an Arduino to listen to the kids as they play. When their noise level goes too high then it will trigger a recorded message that will encourage the kids to be quiet.

This could be used in multiple ways. If noise a single, short noise spike is detected (like a shriek) then it could play a nice recording of Dad saying, "Remember to be quiet kiddies." If the volume is steadily rising it could say, "Hey, your getting out of control, time to do something more quiet like reading a book." Finally, if the volume stays steadily loud it could play something truly frightening.

Progress

11/27/2014 - I've got an Arduino, and an SD card kit that can be used to play MP3 files. I just need to find a suitable speaker and microphone. Instead of a speaker I've got an FM transmitter that can be connected to the Arduino and I could turn on the radio to a blank channel. I think a speaker would be easier, and more portable.

Hardware Device to Make a DVD Player Act Like a Hard Drive

Background

I'm always in the pursuit to maximize the utility and convenience of my Home Theater PC (HTPC). For me this means finding a balance between cost, performance, footprint and versatility. I want to be able to play DVDs, watch Netflix, YouTube and possibly even some light gaming. This is all available on a Windows platform, but that comes with the cost of a Windows license and the hardware to keep up with Windows bloat. I've tried Linux, but it just doesn't support Netflix reliably. Android has everything except DVD support. There are some new Android mini PCs that would work great if I could just find a compatible DVD player.

While searching for DVD drives I found other people who want to access DVDs on other devices. It seems that hard drives will work on EVERYTHING...TVs, phones, tablets, computers, etc. Why can't DVDs have the same support?!

The Idea

We could solve everyone's DVD problems by creating a hardware device sits between the DVD player and the computer / TV / android device. The device would read the DVD player but make it look like a hard drive to the computer.

I know that this device is 100% possible. In the worst case scenario the device is a mini computer that plays the DVD and transcodes it into an MPEG file. I guess basically a hardware transcoder. That's not cost effective. To be cost effective it would have to operate on a very low level, reading the DVD to see what options are available, then present them as a limited set of files on a hard drive, each file name representing a different set of movie options.

I think the biggest hurdle is solving the problem at the file transfer level. You have to present files that are readable by the computer, which for really stupid devices means video and audio files. Dumb devices only know how to read different file formats, so how do you convert the request for a byte stream into a DVD read? It may not be possible to get that low. Maybe transcoding is the closest you can get.

Progress

 11/27/14 -I really don't have the background to research this device right now, and I'm not interested in learning that low level programming, so this idea is gonna sit on the shelf, probably forever.

A Study of Adhesion Strength in 3D Printing

Background

I'm having terrible adhesion problems on my new 3D Printer. It's keeping me from making progress on other projects that rely on 3D printed parts. While researching a fix I discovered that this is a universal problem among hobbyists, and everyone has their own solution including glue mixtures, taping schemes, heated beds of varied temperatures, cleaning solutions, various print bed materials, calibration routines, etc. I understand that everyone has a slightly different build, and those builds will add variation. But I think that excuse is over-used because of the lack of usable data. The common theme seems to be people trying one thing after another until they find something that works. Very unscientific.

I really don't want to take a "shotgun" approach to this problem, but I don't really want to use my free time systematically designing and running experiments to collect the necessary scientific data. It would require a force gauge which costs around $100 for a decent unit, and I would rather burn that extra money on something more fun.

As an engineer I get this type of data from companies who are dedicated to performing experiments to collect data on heat capacities, enthalpies, transfer coefficients, etc. etc. etc. We just pay someone else to collect the data. I haven't found an entity in the 3D Printing world that has undertaken the science of all these little problems that hobbyists face.

The Idea

Since I'm losing my job in June 2015 I'll have some free time. I could probably dedicate myself to a systematic study of 3D Printing problems. I'd design and perform experiments on print adhesion using different substrates, temperatures, filaments, surface treatments, etc. Then I could publish and hopefully sell the information to pay for my time and the capitol required to perform the studies.

My big concern is how to distribute the content in a manner that will help pay for the time and capitol invested into the project. I'm a big believer in publishing this stuff for free, but there's so much work to be done I don't think I could afford to go unpaid for that long. Maybe I could get funding up front via KickStarter so I can reduce the risk of recovering a personal investment. That would also help reduce the risk of people just copying and redistributing the content. If it was paid for up front then I could just post the results for free. Otherwise I'd have to look into a distribution method to protect the copyright, like a website or cell phone app.

Progress

 11/10/14 - Just an idea so far. How do I gauge the potential interest from the community?

Sopwith for Android

The Idea

I was going to download a soundboard app to use with my Halloween costume when I saw an ad for a pixelated toy airplane game. The "8-Bit" genre is a fad right now, one that I like. The game looked like fun (can you tell that from a single icon?) and it reminded me of an old DOS game that I used to play called Sopwith. You fly a Sopwith Camel biplane, drop bombs on the enemy base and try to shoot down enemy airplanes and tanks. I loved that game (I had to be younger than 8 years of age).

So my nostalgic adult self wished to play again, but on my phone. Of course nobody else is going to make an Android clone, so I will have to take it upon myself. I've been wanting another project to improve my programming skills, and this is something simple enough I think I could deliver an app in under a year (at the rate I usually complete my projects).

Progress

It turns out I was wrong, someone already made a clone called Sopwith Barons. Despite being an upgrade, the graphics look very "paintshop"-ish. It is done with basic 3D geometries on a 2D game stage. Personally I would have gone for 8-Bit genre keeping it a 2D sprite game to give it more tie back to the original with the modern feel that I've grown to enjoy.

Automated Home Library

The Idea

Tonight Jenn and I were talking about what we should do with the spare bedroom. We just moved our two-year-old out of the crib and into a twin, sharing a room with her older sister. We could buy another bed and turn it back into a guest bedroom. We could turn it into extra storage space, or expand our office and scrap-booking space. I've always liked the idea of a library or reading room where the kids could sit and read. But it's only the idea that's nice. In practice the kids pull all the books off the shelves and onto the floor. So talked about different ways to store the books or limit access to keep things somewhat controlled so we can avoid the hassle of getting them to clean-up everyday. I mean, if there's something we DON'T need it's another room to clean.

I'm a process engineer with training in lean manufacturing. I spend a great deal of time at work cleaning up messes, self-induced or otherwise. To avoid future methods we use a method called poka-yoke, which is Japanese for mistake-proofing (literally yokeru=avoid poka="inadvertent error").

So we thought, maybe we keep the books in boxes, but label the boxes so we can easily find the books. Then we can control access and avoid the mess. But the problem becomes awareness. We forget which books we have, and if the kids can't see them, then the kids won't ask to read them. We could catalog the books and have a list. Even better if there were pictures too. Maybe in a computer so it could be easily searched or sorted. Yeah, now we're literally building a library.

So I thought, how cool would it literally build a library. I don't want to staff it...maybe I could have a robot do all the work. Let's take the room and turn it into a Redbox-style machine with a computer interface. The books would all be stored in custom shelving - horizontal slots with barcodes. The kids could pick a book from the catalog and the robot would go get the book and send it through a slot in the door. The robot would run on a track and get instructions from the computer on where to get and store each book. Then I could limit access to two books per child. They gotta return a book before they can get any more. Redbox style...just put it in the slot and the computer / robot puts it away.

Progress

I really like this idea, but I don't want to totally dedicate that room. It would be a cool "look what I can do" project, but I don't know that I'll ever pull the trigger. Sometimes it's just fun to know that I could actually do that.

3D Texture Generator

The Idea

When I took a computer graphics course as part of my master's degree I learned about using textures and skins to make objects more life-like. In one lecture we touched briefly on the idea of 3D textures which can be applied to voxels in a volume or in slices to surfaces. From there I realized there could be value in creating realistic 3D textures to be used in a variety of contexts.

The world is naturally perceived in three dimension. Instead of trying to draw a realistic looking 2D picture you could instead create a realistic 3D volume and slice out whatever surface you need to display. The main advantage of this method is the ability to parametrically generate 3D volumes using actual material properties. The visual properties are essential - color, reflectivity, scattering - but even mechanical, electrical and chemical properties could be used to generate aggregate materials. For example, you could create a realistic 3D concrete texture using the properties of cement, gravel, sand, etc. A program could accept inputs for material types and mix ratios, calculate the resulting structure, and apply the resulting visuals to the structure.

By compiling a large number of such calculators you could create a software package (web-based?) that can create 3D textures for many different materials. It could be a handy tools in the belt of computer graphics programmers. It might save them alot of work, and give them a way to easily add variety to their projects. Textures could be randomly generated each time and cut down on the amount of repetition in games, movies, etc.

Progress

I'm not actively pursuing this idea right now. I'm not a full-fledged programmer, and one of my pet-peeves is bad software written by someone totally disconnected from the end-user. If my career ever moves towards the gaming industry then I will come back to revisit this.

Whiteboard Alternative

The Idea

I work in the semiconductor industry, and nearly everyone has a whiteboard in their cubicle to assist the many discussion we have about equipment, processes, statistics, etc. Whiteboards are a cheap, effective, and relatively clean alternative to projectors, blackboards, etc. But they still require consumables, and they're not totally clean.

For a while I've been wanting to see if I could develop a better alternative. It would be nice if I could improve cost and invent something manufacturable and marketable, but at the very least it would be fun to have something unique for me to use.

Progress

Giant "Magna Doodle"

This would be a 3'x4' Magna Doodle board. Magna Doodles use an opaque ferrofluid trapped inside small cells. When a magnet is touched to the surface, the iron particles in the fluid come to the surface creating dark spots / pixels.

Pros:

• No mess
• No consumables
• Variety of cheap magnets

Cons:

• Poor resolution
• Monochrome
• Wears out with use
• Expensive to piece together or custom build one large sheet
• Hard to erase just one small section

Magnetic Viewing Film

 Viewing film operates on a similar principle as the magnadoodle, but the fluid cells are much smaller, and typically green. I've never played with it in person, I should buy a sample to see how well it would work.

Pros:

• No mess
• No consumables
• High Resolution
• Variety of cheap magnets

Cons:

• Monochrome
• Slow response?
• Have to piece multiple sheets
• Hard to erase just one small section?
• Fragile 

8/9/2014 - I got my viewing film last week, just a small sample. It's really fun to play with, but the difficulties in using it for drawing became quite clear. The film is plenty responsive; it's too responsive. It can produce decent contrast, but when you pull a permanent magnet away the contrast changes as the fields move through the film. Wherever you start and stop a line will look blurry. You'd have to use an electromagnet that activates when you touch the surface. That's doable, but more hassle. The last drawback is with erasing. You have to hit the entire board with a uniform field from the backside. That's just a little too much bulk and complexity for me to mess with right now. 

E-Ink

 E-Ink is a new technology used in some e-readers. Instead of using a ferrofluid, electronic ink puts a dark ink/oil inside the microcavities along with charged, white particles. The microcavities are coated top and bottom with a conductive film. Applying a charge to the film can move the white balls to the top or the bottom to provide pixels and contrast.

Pros:

• High resolution
• Long life
• Robust housing
• Multiple colors possible.

Cons:

• Requires electricity (could use manual generation)
• Micro-fabrication is expensive and difficult

This is my favorite method. I would like to learn how they manufacture these displays so I could make one of my own. I emailed the company to see if they would sell me a batch of ink that I could put on my own surface. Of course I got no response.

Giant BoogieBoard

The BoogieBoard is an LCD display that does not require power to retain an image. It uses chiral liquid crystals to form a cholesteric, bi-stable display. The crystals are oriented in parallel planes which align in a cork-screw fashion. Within each plane the crystals lie flat, aligned uni-directionally. This crystal medium will selectively reflect light depending on crystal orientation. I found the actual manufacturing process in a whitepaper written by Kent Displays. I have enough information on this idea to actually try building a device.

Micro Magnet Array

Giant grid of magnets with poles all in the same orientation. Pull forward or push back. Same principle as magna doodle only with magnets instead of iron. Magnest would have to be small enough and far enough apart to reduce their influence on each other, and that will limit resolution.

Dirt Drawing / Sand Writing

Writing in dirt may be the oldest form of written communication. For this project I'd use sand. I'm sure there are several ways this concept could be realized. You could have a tray of sand and use it like they do in the high contrast, flat sand art. Or you could have a packed surface using etched lines. I would need to think of a good way to make a vertical unit. It would be heavy.

Generalizing the Principles

Okay, now that I've gone through a few different ideas I think I can start distilling the underlying principles by which these devices operate. Basically you are creating contrast between a background medium by adding or moving another material. The forces being applied are electric, electrostatic, magnetic, and direct physical contact. If the background medium is liquid, and the secondary material can diffuse in the medium then the secondary material must be physically isolated to keep it evenly dispersed. If the secondary material can freely move, then you must deal with a mess or have a recycling method.

Types of Forces:

• Applied
• Direct
• Pneumatic
• Hydrolic
• Friction
• Spring
• Gravity
• Electromagnetic
• Electrostatic
• Magnetism
• Nuclear

Job from Hell, Reversed

Homer in Hell. Fair Use. The Simpsons is Copyright Fox.

Why This Post?

Sometimes our choices don't always turn out the way we predict. Even things we enjoy on the surface might not yield the same satisfaction when taken to more extremes. I've discovered this to be the case with my career choice of Chemical Engineering. I like the school work initially, but as things progressed deeper I enjoyed the coursework less. Work pays well, but I find that a paycheck alone isn't enough. I'm not like Homer Simpson in Treehouse of Horror IV. He was sent to hell and force-fed thousands of donuts as a punishment, but he still enjoyed it. 

This post is an exercise to help me identify a career for which I can be passionate. This is yet another exercise from, "I Could Do Anything: If Only I Knew What It Was," by Barbara Sher. The exercise is to write down the job from heaven, or if you have a hard time with that, the job from hell. I have a very difficult time thinking about the job from heaven and still have the job be a job. I find it much easier to do the job from hell. Does that mean I'm pessimistic?

The Job From Hell

At the job from hell I have to wake up and be to work early every morning. It's in the middle of downtown and I have to fight an hour of heavy traffic every morning just to get there. There is a mandatory morning meeting with the sole purpose of making everyone feel that they are doing a horrible job, but the actual business is ignored. Every day feels exactly the same as the one before because I do the same thing every day, day after day. My managers ask me to do loads of extra work that have no impact on the business' bottom line. I'm never allowed to be creative, or inventive or think outside the box. I have to write reports all day that no one ever reads or uses. All the technology I use is antiquated, the software doesn't work, and support from other departments is non-existent.

There are several meetings a day, but most of the time is spent arguing. People don't listen to each other and never work out solutions that will help everyone accomplish their work. As a result there's always too much to get done. Because daily work is so inefficient, my boss stays late every night and expects everyone else to do the same thing. Even when you leave you're always on-call. Vacation, sick days and anything outside of work is treated with contempt.

Because the company is trying so hard to save money, I don't even have a dedicated computer. Instead they are rotating pods, so you can never setup your workspace individually or efficiently. Everyone in the entire company sits in the same huge room, and everyone can see everyone. It's terribly distracting.

I'm sure I could add in more details, but I've written enough that I have a fairly good understanding of what really bugs me in a job. I hate when people waste time and energy on each other instead of on the problem at hand. I also hate limitations, especially the ones that are arbitrary. I hate monotony.

Double-Negative

This would be the Job Not from Hell:

I get to live wherever I want, because I get to fly a helicopter or airplane to work. And sometimes I can work from home, or just check-in while traveling with the family. The software systems at work are brilliant. All of the metrics necessary to track success as an individual, group and company are effortlessly generated and communicated by computers, so there's no need for mandatory morning meetings. When metrics predict any course deviations then people just get together to make early corrections. They do this because they are intrinsically motivated. They like making things run smoothly and minimizing problems.

There's basically no need for bosses. Conflict isn't eliminated, but my co-workers are able to resolve conflict without it becoming personal. They address problems objectively, then execute when a compromise has been reached.

I get to do a variety of things. And when I get bored of one thing or feel I have mastered my work, I get to learn something else. My work is technically challenging, but I'm surrounded by talented and experienced people and we help each-other improve our abilities. My work provides products or services that make people happy in a way that I get to see and sometimes experience with them. The company has a vision that is intrinsically understood by it's employees. Because we work on the same level with our customers we don't have to worry much about money, it naturally comes a result of our desire to create value.

Because we are innovative, creative, and do things before anyone else, I can afford to take time off, be sick, go to my kids' activities, and go home at a decent hour. But work is so engaging, that sometimes I like to stay a few extra hours when I'm making a breakthrough on something new.

It's funny, while I was coming up with this flipped version of a job, I thought to myself, "I want to be Kevin Flynn at the end of Tron (1982)."

Meaningful Work

Why This Post?

When I discovered Barbara Sher, and that I am a scanner, I bought two of her books: "Refuse to Choose" and "I Could Do Anything: If Only I knew What It Was." Even though she wrote "I Could Do Anything" first I finished reading and doing the exercises in "Refuse to Choose" because I had to learn about and activate the true scanner inside of me.
But now I started on "I Could Do Anything" and I'm working through the activities she suggests in that book. The first one I'm doing here is to define what "Meaningful Work" means to me. The premise of the book so far is that inside we really know what we want to do but have built a wall of reasons that keep us from actually doing anything. The purpose of the book is to identify and address the bricks in the wall, or the hurdles in the race or whatever mind blocks and barriers we have devised for ourselves.

My Nebulous Concept of Meaningful Work

So what is meaningful work? Right now I work in manufacturing making low power computer chips that mostly get used in consumer electronics like cell phones and laptops. My job is to help improve the yield from our manufacturing line. I frequently feel like my work is not meaningful, that it doesn't improve anyone's like for the better. I mean, whoop-dee-doo I helped make your battery last 5 minutes longer (indirectly). So I apparently think that meaningful work improves the quality of people's lives.
You could argue that making cheaper and faster cell phones and laptops makes them more accessible, and that technology and information improve people's lives. But somehow I feel like it's not making an impact in an area that really matters or to people who really need it. So nested in those feelings are two more concepts. First, meaningful work involves improvements that are considered more than just convenient. Second, meaningful work serves people who have greater than average need for improved life.
Somewhere in my brain is the idea that meaningful work is also something that could be universally recognized as "Good." Somehow, if others can't recognize the immediate value of a labor then to me it doesn't seem to merit the label of Truly Meaningful Work. This would be opposed to the concept of immoral or amoral endeavors, so I think there is an implied morality in my concept of meaningful work. There should be some underlying principle, motivation or cause that underpins and gives a foundation upon which the work is based.
That's really nebulous, I know, but that is what's in my brain. Sorry for being simple-minded?

Examples of What I Would Call Worthy Work

The following list is not perfect, not complete, and not necessarily things I want to do as a career. But it is a list of things that I tend to think of as being meaningful.

• Researching Cures for Physical Ailments and Disease
• e.g. Cancer, Malaria, Ebola, Infant Mortality, HIV/AIDS, Polio, etc.
• Work involving disabilities
• Education
• Counseling, Social Work, Community Improvement
• Energy Research, Improvement, Innovation
• Community Services, Fire Department, Police, Military, etc.

The Gist of this Exercise

The interesting thing is that practically none of the occupations that interest me fall under this classification. I'm more interested in technology, making things, video games. But when I think about those jobs I get a nag in my mind that says, "Those are just fanciful pastimes. They don't actually make people's lives better, and they have plenty of negatives associated with them."
In her book, Barbara basically says that this self-made picture of worthy work may be working as another impediment to doing the work that really makes us happy. Should be interesting to see if such an important seeming concept can really be altered.