Makerfaire UK – Newcastle

Getting ready for day 2 of the first Makerfaire UK here in Newcastle. They recokon over 2500 people came through yesterday. Seems like all of them wanted to play Lunarlander. A big hit it seems! All the mechanics are coping well with the use – great testing regime.

All the visitors have been really good and interested in the projects and how they are put together. Great to meet a few people who I know through the net, but not in real life too.

Dealing with the press has been interesting. The first TV interview was with the local ITV news and I foolishly agreed to do it wearing the Hat Hack. They really caught me on the hop as I was still setting up when the arrived. I think I might have looked like a twat. The Hat Hack is great, but you have to wear it in the right context.  Standing in a tent during the day with it on is a bit like going to do your shopping in a dinner suit.  Did anybody see the clip?

On the positive side 5Live were really keen and asked some good questions. More TV and radio expected in tomorrow. Hopefully I’ve learnt a bit about how to do a good job now.

Nixie tubes in lunar lander and musings on complexity

Without knowing quite how – I’ve decided to use nixie tubes to provide a score display for Lunar Lander. I’ve wanted to play with them for ages, but never had a project where it made sense. I didn’t want to do a nixie clock because it’s such a geek cliché. The score board might replace one of the analog meters on the display panel.

This is making a project that is already too complicated even more so, but its going to provide another level of richness to the experience. You can make anything appear on an LCD screen, but the actual experience of solid objects that move and glow is more satisfying. Let’s hope the combined effect pays off. I want to have something with the richness of a pinball machine or a (British) fruit machine. The news that a pinball machine has half a mile of wiring and 3500 components scares me.

The really sweet thing to do is to invent simple things that are still very interesting. My problem is that my ideas seem to require complex implementation. I am clearly not the only person with this problem. I went to see Felix’s machines recently. They are increadibly densely worked with many moving parts. The whole installation is tiny though – just the corner of a room with a huge loom of wiring to move all the servos. Overwhelming the user with massive visual impact doesn’t come easy.

Lunar Lander – working!

After a successful summer run of Cyclepong I started working on a second arcade machine at the end of 2008. As usual it’s taken far more time than I ever imagined, but finally there is a working prototype!

After the effort of getting something that works I’ve just taken it all apart to pack and take to Makersfaire UK next weekend in Newcastle. Taking it to pieces I managed to drop one of the circuit boards and break an (unused) bit off! Moving any kind of handmade project is a real trauma. If you are around come along and see if I manage to get it back together and working again!