Up, not North

Pianocade post-mortem: lessons learned starting a maker business

March 6th, 2013 § 20

Six months ago I launched my first commercial project: the Pianocade synthesizer. Several months behind schedule and significantly above budget, I’ve finally managed to ship all the preorders. Needless to say, things did not go as planned.

If you’d asked me a few weeks ago whether I would ever do this again, I’d have laughed (and then maybe cried a little). But as I finished off the last few units, I started thinking about how much I’d learned from the experience. I was surprised to find myself getting excited about giving it another try and seeing if I could make things run more smoothly. I’ve even, heaven help me, started designing a completely new product!

In the meantime, I hope others can also benefit from some lessons I learned while turning my hobby into a business (or at least have a laugh at my expense). » Read the rest of this entry «

Introducing The Pianocade: an Open Source Chiptunes Synthesizer

August 21st, 2012 § 0

It’s been a long time coming, but I can finally unveil the product I’ve been working on for months: the Pianocade, my first foray into the world of commercial Making! Inspired by my experience working on the Nuit Blanche Chiptunes concert last fall, the Pianocade is a programmable synthesizer and MIDI controller made to look, feel, and sound like vintage arcade games.

Photo by Jay Shuster

I would’ve loved to have run a Kickstarter campaign to sell the Pianocade, but unfortunately Kickstarter restricts it’s projects to those based in the United States. There are international alternatives, but I decided instead to do it the old-fashioned way, so I’m taking preorders myself. Order one now, and tell all your friends!

The Pianocade is 100% open source hardware, firmware, and software. All the code, schematics, and PCB files will be released when the product ships (if not before). In the meantime, I’m happy to answer any questions either here or via email at info@pianocade.com.

Interview on The Agenda With Steve Paikin

July 8th, 2012 § 0

It’s been a long time since I’ve written, but rest assured it’s because I’ve got a big project in the works that will be properly unveiled soon.

In the meantime, I was interviewed about the “maker movement” recently on The Agenda With Steve Paikin. As always with interviews, there are things I wish I had said or said differently, but overall I think it went well. (I don’t know for sure, because I refuse to watch myself on video.)

About the experience: Steve Paikin is incredibly affable, his staff are all lovely, and the day after the piece aired a stranger on the street said “Hey, you were on The Agenda last night! Good job!” which was pretty neat.

3D-printing and lost wax casting: Question Block cufflinks and crowbar pendant

February 6th, 2012 § 6

I’ve made another round of digital-to-silver jewellery: a pair of Super Mario Bros. cufflinks and a pendant for my crowbar-loving wife. For my last jewellery project I had Shapeways manufacture cufflinks directly in sterling silver, but for these pieces I did it a little differently: I had them 3D printed in plastic, used the plastic prints to make molds, had them cast in silver, and hand-finished them. I couldn’t have done the casting and finishing without the help of my friend Norah Kerr, who held my hand through the entire process.

Keep reading for the full breakdown of how I did it, more pictures, and source files for the 3D models. » Read the rest of this entry «

Nuit Blanche Chiptunes

October 2nd, 2011 § 0

Last night I had the pleasure of co-curating an all-night concert of Chiptunes music at the TIFF Bell Lightbox as part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche. (Clearly, I’m not too great at this whole “promotion” thing: note that this happened last night.) Nonetheless, it was an amazing event, and I’m so happy to have had the opportunity to participate. Thanks to all our amazing artists, TIFF staff, and volunteers!

My main role was in designing, manufacturing, and building small noisemakers to give out to the crowd. There were four different colour-coded notes, and during one performance the audience was prompted with coloured cards to play along.I was surprised and delighted by how popular the boards were; we gave out all 150 of them in a matter of minutes, and people were asking for them long after they were all gone. It seems there’s an untapped thirst for simple noisemakers; that might be something I have to follow up on in the future…

The circuit is just a simple 555 astable oscillator, with different resistors on each colour to create a different note. They were assembled in two marathon soldering sessions at Site 3, where I was joined by several student volunteers from Ryerson’s New Media. My eternal gratitude goes out to them! You can take a little peek behind-the-scenes in this video:

Quick and dirty Arduino kiwi drive robot (controlled by Wii nunchuck!)

July 10th, 2011 § 3

Months ago, for a larger project that is currently languishing in my “when I have time” pile, I built a very simple Kiwi-drive robot. Since it likely won’t be “finished” for a long while (and has been sitting in my trunk for weeks), I figured I ought to at least document it.

Very briefly, kiwi drive is a “holonomic” method of moving a robot, which basically means it can move in any direction without having to turn first. It accomplishes this using three omniwheels mounted at the points of an equilateral triangle. With some vector math, you can find rotational speeds for each wheen such that the robot will move in whatever direction you like. I won’t go into the theory too much here, but here are some diagrams and here’s some math (via).

In the video I’m controlling the robot with a Wii Nunchuck. That’s because my 14-year-old cousin was hanging out at the shop when I built it; he saw the controller in my parts bucket and said “you HAVE to connect the nunchuck to the robot!” So I did. I used Tod E. Kurt’s breakout board and example code.

The robot is dead simple. It essentially consists of three different parts — a microcontroller, omniwheels, and servos — and it took about five minutes to put together. Keep reading to learn how it works and download the code. » Read the rest of this entry «

3D printed CCTV surveillance camera cufflinks

June 17th, 2011 § 0

I’ve been meaning to try 3D printing for a while, but when I heard that Shapeways had started offering sterling silver as a material printing option I finally decided to do something about it: I made myself a pair of cufflinks. (More photos are available on Flickr.)

I wasn’t really planning on posting about them (at least not yet), but since they’re getting some coverage under my Shapeways username, I figured I ought to at least mention it. You can buy a pair here. The pictures show them printed in unpolished sterling silver. Stainless steel is much cheaper, but I’m not sure how much detail will be retained in the print.

I’m really happy with how they turned out and I already have a bunch more 3D printed projects in the works (some of which involve the video game references that I know you love), so stay tuned!