Sunday, 26 February 2012

ArduRoller, now with Sugru bumper

Arduroller, enjoying its new Sugru bumper.
I haven't worked on ArduRoller much recently -- I've been distracted by other projects and moving house.  Just to get back into the swing of it, I decided to add a bumper.  Pretty essential in my new apartment, which has hardwood floors.

I used Sugru to form the bumper by hand.  I laid out some masking tape horizontally below where I wanted to put the bumper, just as a guide.  Then I rolled a sausage of Sugru and applied it in the gap.  I used my fingers and a clay cleanup tool to shape it and burnish it smooth.

The Sugru is still drying (it takes 24 hours to cure completely) so I haven't tried it out yet but it was a pleasure to work with.  A bit like soft bluetack, just a little bit of a chemical smell and just the right level of stickiness to stick to the piece and not to your hands.  Hope it stands up to the rigours of being a bumper, the ArduRoller tends to hit with a lot of force when it falls over!

My next planned mini-project is to add remote control to the bot.

Saturday, 31 December 2011

The set is completed

Completing the set

The set of purple meeples I had made for Katie via Shapeways arrived.  I'm pretty pleased with them!

As before, the models are open source on Thingiverse and they're available from my Shapeways shop.

Saturday, 17 December 2011

Completing the set

Since the small meeples were such a success, I decided to make matching pieces for the extensions that Katie and I play.  There's a barn, cart, large meeple, mayor, pig and builder.

They're available on Shapeways and Thingiverse.

Tuesday, 13 December 2011

Shapeways delivers

Meeples with heart

Meeples with heart, a photo by fasaxc on Flickr.
The set of 8 purple meeples with love hearts I ordered for Katie just arrived. She's thrilled with them and I'm very pleased at how they turned out.

The 3D model is open-source.  And I've made them available on Shapeways (for free).

Friday, 25 November 2011

Next project: Meeples with heart

Katie and I enjoy a good game of Carcassonne but the basic set has no purple meeples, a big omission (according to Katie anyway)!

This Shapeways meeple model, personalised with a heart should do the trick...

Purple meeple with heart