Business Card Cases

Here are some business card cases printed by request.

The hinge nubs are made by melting/bonding raw 3mm filament into the case with a soldering iron, then trimming excess with a X-Acto blade.  This makes a solid hinge and appears to be more durable than printing the nubs.

The model can be found on Thingiverse.

More Fun with 3D Printing

Just finished designing and 3D printing a button insertion tool for a friends photo booth business.  Buttons are swapped out based on the customers request... Sepia/Color/Black & White.  This tool allows one to pull and place the nut on the button from inside the cabinet without someone having to hold it from the other side of the bulkhead.

More Nema 17 Stepper Motor Mounts

Marshmallow Soldiers

We had a great time this past Saturday at the Summer Science: Air Rockets and Marshmallow Shooters at the North Richland Hills Library made possible by the Tarrant Makers (AKA FortWorth Makerspace)  

Father's Day 2013

I was just given the most awesome Father's Day gift. My wife and son put together a custom zombie survival kit. We'll be well prepared (with candy) for the coming apocalypse.

This Japanese Multiplication Method Will Divide Your Brain By Zero [Video]

This Japanese Multiplication Method Will Divide Your Brain By Zero [Video]: "

When I first saw this Japanese multiplication method, I just couldn't believe it. Then I tried it and it works perfectly, but still can't understand how it works—or how anyone found this method. More »

Codebox: Lose your head with OpenCV

Codebox: Lose your head with OpenCV: "

OpenCV is a 'library of programming functions for real time computer vision.' An open source project supported by Willow Garage, the library contains over 500 algorithms for image manipulation, object detection, feature extraction, and a variety of other tools you can use to write programs that can 'see.'

The OPENCV Processing and Java Library, a project maintained by Stéphane Cousot and Douglas Edric Stanley at the École Supérieure d'Art d'Aix-en-Provence, provides a wrapper that allows you to use a subset of OpenCV in Processing. In honor of Halloween, this Codebox will show you how use OpenCV to remove people's heads in real-time from a video feed. For example:

Future posts will cover less gruesome applications for this awesome library.

Installing OpenCV Processing and Java Library

The fist step in using the library is to download and install it from http://ubaa.net/shared/processing/opencv/. The site's documentation is great — just follow the steps listed on the "Installation Instructions" on the main page. Once you've followed the steps, fire up Processing, and then try out the code in the detect() example, which puts a red rectangle around any faces (frontal view) detected in the webcam. You should see something like this: