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It gets pretty cold where I live, to cars have block heaters. It gets pretty cold where I live, so wresteling with stiff cold cables while wearing mittens is no fun. Usually the plug from the block heater just dangles out from under hood or bumper, and you need to wrangle both it and the extension cord to plug it in. Also, the plug swings around and scratches up your car.

I 3D Modelled a body for a standard replacement plug, 3D Printed it and replaced the plug on my car with this.

We set up the electronics for a display for St. Andrews Heritage Centre where the visitor presses a button to listen (and feel) what a herd of buffalo would sound like as they approach and pass by. We set up an MP3 board and connected it to an arcade button that was installed in the display panel.

The museum has a virtual tour of this display.

The operator of an escape room asked us to set up the electronics that would run a number of LED candles on a cabinet. If the candles were blown out in the correct order, the cabinet would unlock, and if they were blown out in the wrong order they would eventually re-ignite.

The customer supplied the LED lights and I carefully disassembled them and decided where best to tie into their existing setup to (a) detect whether they are still lit and (b) power them and turn them on and off as needed to reset the puzzle after a period of time. I programmed an Arduino to loop through a cycle of re-setting the candles to all on and wait for one to be blown out. If several or all were blown out in the right order, the arduino would cut power to a magnetic latch on the cabinet. If after a certain delay the puzzle was not solved, all the candles would be turned back on and the program would loop through again.

My Suzuki SX4 didn't get very warm inside during really cold winter days, so I made a panel to cover the air intake. The car's front always looked like a face to me, so it got a smirk out of the deal, too.

I took a frontal picture of front of car, did a Shape Extraction, and added a smirk that fit the face of the car. The shape was too large to Laser cut, so I CNC Machined on the ShopBot out of a styrene sheet I had around, and added the smirk by Vinyl Cutting it and applying it to the sheet. It was attached with velcro to be able to remove it in the summer. The front lasted for several years; it eventually chipped a bit but was still installed when the car left.

The Critical Care and Medicine Database wiki has been the centralized documentation for the Critical Care and Medicine Database since 2009.

We had initially requested a wordpress site from our IT department, but when we explained what we were trying to do they told us that Mediawiki is a much better fit for us.

Most racing shells for rowing have built in shoes to keep ones feet in place to control sliding the rolling seat back and forth during the stroke. The fact that they are built in is problematic for several reasons: one must do something with the other shoes one brings, the built in shoes are a large size to accommodate most people, and one usually risks stepping in the duck poop on the dock with ones socks getting in and out of the boat. Since I already have clip-in shoes for my bike, I wanted to use the same system for my rowing shell. I designed and built a mechanism that connects to the built-in foot stretcher mount, but instead mounts bike pedals that the shoes can clip into.

This is a foot stool I 3D Modelled and CNC Machined. It is a slot and tab/hook design where some of the slots are intentionally slightly misaligned so it holds together as a tension fit and doesn't require any glue to hold it together. This was one of my first projects at North Forge Fabrication Lab.

The Critical Care and Medicine Database Set of MS Access programs is an example of how you can build a bridge with a Swiss army knife when that is the only tool you are allowed to use.

The Critical Care and Medicine Database has been around since 1989. It was originally stored in a DOS program. When that was no longer viable, work place politics meant that the only tool available to move it into was MS Access. Over the last 15 years this has turned into a set of collection tools, data processing tools, batch and VBS files to accomplish scheduled tasks and more. The system has about 20 users and is documented by the CCMDB wiki.

It's a complicated beast, but it runs reliably and continues to be used and updated regularly. I can't decide if I should be proud of it or embarrassed by it.

I wanted stand for my shampoo bottles so I can stand them upside down (like the condiments at Burrito Splendito) so I don't have to wait for them to run to the top of the bottle. I also wanted to play with a laser cut tab and slot design in acrylic.

I 3D modelled the rack and then laser cut it. The rack has been in my shower for several years and the idea works. Some of the contents of the bottles actually separate a bit because they never change orientation, so this setup has a drawback, but not nearly enough so to give this up.

I hate the smell of dish gloves that got wet inside and didn't get a chance to dry because they were just thrown in that cupboard under the sink, where they also look messy.

I thought hanging them over the drain pipe might be better, but that's hard to get at and they are still flat so they still don't dry right.

So I built a rack that clamps on the horizontal drain pipe that is otherwise just in the way of everything under that sink. This has been installed and working under my sink for several years now.

Also see Instructable.

A customer was updating an outboard motor from gas powered to electric. They wanted to re-use the old gearbox and propeller shaft, so they needed an adapter plate to top off the old bottom-end and mount the electric motor on top. We 3D scanned the top of the old motor, turned the point cloud into a parametric model using Geomagics DesignX re-engineering software. The customer then had the part milled based on the model.

An organization uses LimeSurvey to request feedback about events attended. This stores data in a per-survey format. They wanted to automatically mail out attendance receipts to participants based on receiving such feedback.

I created an MS Access database that accesses this data, turns it into a per-participant format, populates a report and then emails it to each participant.

A draw back of this system is that it creates such a bolus of email from the account of the sender that some spam filters will flag it, but it works OK for internal emails.

Physicians in Manitoba use DOCSS to submit their billing. The system requires the user to dial in on a phone and press the right phone buttons to submit the info. The process is tedious. We created an Excel file using VBA to play DTMF phone sounds based on the contents of the excel file to automate the call-in process.

need file, zipped, to have all parts together.

Actioned 2021-10-31

troubleshoot why this works over some phone lines but not others.

Actioned 2021-10-31

I made some floating nightstands that mount against the wall. Nothing to stub ones toes on at night that way.

I 3D modelled the design from scratch to see the proportions. They are built out of solid wood with mortise and tenon joinery, and each has a little Laser cut veneer inlay on it. There are retaining strips for a kleenex box so one doesn't have to fight with that when pulling one out in the dark with one hand.

I needed a font for projects like Integrity Joint that would allow routing both the letters and the surroundings in the smallest size possible for a given cutter. The limit is that the cutter has to fit both the insides (black part) of the letters, but also the outsides and islands of the letters. I could not find a font that is optimized for this, so I created a set of vector letters. You can download them at Media:CNC_alphabet.svg and use them, but please link back here if applicable.

I made did the Graphic Design for these. I then Laser Cut maple and walnut veneer and then laminated them up in an arced shape to make hat bands. It was a fun project and I learned a fair bit. I sold a few of these but decided that actually marketing things like these wasn't a career opportunity.

They are made out of three layers of veneer and strapped around the hat with latigo lace leather.

I 3D modelled the bucket of a coffee grinder and changed it so it would accept an espresso maker's pod as a receptacle.I 3D scanned the existing pod, post-processed the resulting point cloud, created a parametric model via Reverse Engineering software Geomagics DesignX, changed the model to make a mating port for the espresso maker pod, and 3D printed the resulting file.

I thought it would be interesting to have through tenons for a joint that spell out words. To CNC these parts, I needed to optimize the shapes that a router bit would be able to cut for the tenons and the mortises, so I created a Font for inside and outside CNCing. I routed some example pieces on the ShopBot, but since the tenon needs to be machined on the end face of a board, and the ShopBot has a limited z-axis height, the parts that could be made with this would be very limited. In the end I left it as a concept piece.

We have set up the Wiki to document administrative processes for the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Manitoba.

It contains a mix of structured and unstructured data. The structured data is stored in both Mediawiki Extension Cargo and Mediawiki Extension Semantic Mediawiki.

One of the features of this wiki is a role based documentation that both documents the duties contained in that role, but also information required to set up an employee new to these roles, e.g. training required or file shares or software that need to be set up. Most employees have more than one role; once roles are assigned, the empolyee's personal page will automatically list both onboarding information for the HR team and links to SOPs for the new employee in one place.

When I did my Masters of Mechatronics I wanted to do a rowing related project. I was lucky enough to find two co-advisors from Mechatronics and Psychology to supervise this project. I connected pressure sensors on each foot rack, measured the speed of the chain and the seat and the angle of the chain. This information was sent through a proprietary digital and analog to USB converter that came with its own graphical development environment. I programmed a system that would provide feedback if the foot pressure was not equal or the sequencing of the stroke was off, or if the chain angle (translating to hand levels) didn't move in a line.

I don't recall too many details, this was in 2001/2, but am hoping to find some files or photos.

We set up and did the initial data import and collection creation for a MediaWiki-based standalone (offline) kiosk for the Charleswood Historical Society. They wanted a small, reliable, and performant kiosk that was not prohibitively expensive and had capacity to add more information (including the potential for audio and video) in the future.

We set up a display for St. Andrews Heritage Centre that reads out the children's book "The Orkney Gruffalo" in Orkadian while displaying the images from the book. We set up a Raspberry Pi with a display and an arcade button, so that when the button is pressed a video of someone reading the book would be played.

The museum has a virtual tour of this display.

The Selkirk Marine Museum asked us to set up a display about Range Lights, maritime navigation aids that help a vessel stay in a channel. We set up an Interactive Display that uses an Ship's Wheel , which lets the user control a display created in Pygame on a Raspberry Pi that simulates steering a ship to bring it in line with a set of range lights.

I built a gadget that gives the user a cue on an LCD screen and then measure the time between the cue and when an acceleration sensor is moved, plus how quickly it accelerates.

I built the electronics using an Arduino and programmed it to provide the cue, detect when sufficient acceleration has happened to consider the sensor moved, and display the delay and amount of acceleration. I designed and laser cut the case.

The St. Andrews Heritage Centre asked us to build the electronics for a display where the visitor would be able to listen to the awful noise the ungreased wheels of a Red River Cart would make as they turn.

To make it a bit more interesting, the noise would be triggered by turning a model wheel mounted to the physical display, as supplied by the museum. We set up a hall sensor circuit to detect the wheel turning, and an Arduino to detect the hall sensor signal and use this as a signal to start playing a the squeaky wheel sound on an MP3 player.

During the initial discussions about this display we also built the prototype of a wooden, analog foley device to make wooden squeaks. The museum ended up building one of these as well for the display.

The museum has a virtual tour of this display.

A cottage owner has been having trouble with people breaking into his remote, off-grid cabin while he is away. To make matters worse, the trail cameras that he set up to capture images of the thieves are found and stolen as well. This project's goals are to provide a low-cost solution that is both resilient and functional.

The system is built primarily around the ESP32-CAM variant of the Espressif ESP32 microcontroller, which are inexpensive yet quite capable for this purpose. There are several roles for the microcontrollers based on their location and available power:

• A dormant camera that "wakes up" when triggered, like a trail camera
• An always active camera that continuously records to an SD card, like a dash camera
• A microcrontroller that doesn't have a camera but monitors an area and triggers other cameras that do

We are also creating several kinds of enclosures for these devices as well as building them into other objects like logs. Other enclosures are very inexpensive "dummy" enclosures that are meant to deter and distract from the actual enclosures that contain electronics.

While there is no mains power, the site has ample 12V power available at the cottage. Unfortunately, there is no power outside the building itself. Small 1-2W solar panels and lead-acid batteries are being used to power devices at remote locations, and for high-value enclosed locations (i.e. inside a locked shed), lithium batteries will be used to reliably power cameras if they are disturbed.

An antique car collector wanted to replace the rubber mats on the running boards of his car and asked us to help make a mold for this. He provided an original of the mats. We then created a 2D Graphic Design required to make tool paths for CNC Machining. We then made a negative mold of the mat on the ShopBot out of acrylic.

I forgot to take any pictures of the finished mold, hence the toolpath only in the image box.

We set up a display for St. Andrews Heritage Centre that demonstrates how the early Metis community in Manitoba had to choose between more traditional activities and the ones desired by the developing settler communities. These activities were sometimes overlapping in time and distant in location, and so incompatible with each other. We set up an Interactive Display with arcade buttons to let a museum visitor choose a collection of activities. If the visitor chooses activities that are incompatible, the display would flag this and explain the reasons. While no one is using the display it would just display photos from the era.

The interactive display uses Pygame on a Raspberry Pi to receive input from the buttons and display to a computer screen.

The museum has a virtual tour of this display.

This ship's wheel is an independent component of the Range Lights Interactive Museum Display for the Selkirk Marine Museum. When the wheel is turned it generates "R" or "L" key strokes.

A similar setup could be used to turn other wheel, handle or general physical object movements into keystrokes to input into a computer or simulator.

I wanted a collar for my medium size dog that had enough of a stub end to work as a leash, so that she can keep it on at the off-leash dog park without, I don't have to carry it and yet still meet the requirement of having a leash along. I have started to use it also at other times when I want to have some extra control without the inconvenience of a leash.

I made a soft shackle that I can just slide open to slip over the head, and that then slides back shut.

Here is what it looks like with the leashy end scrunched up:

I finished off the loose end with some heat shrink tubing that I wrote our phone number on before I shrunk it for some cleanly written fine print I could not have written that small.

This wiki is both a content management system for our protfolio, but also a demonstration of some of the solutions that can be built in a wiki.

The wiki has a front facing portion, and an internal side for shop notes and unfinished projects that should be of no interest to anyone but us. The internal portion is made to be accessible while logged in only via Mediawiki Extension Lockdown.

The Mediawiki Extension Cargo is used to store some parts of the site as structured data so it can be re-used elsewhere. All the projects are stored in the Project Table using Template:Project, which encodes the data in a way that allows other pages like Project Types to list them. When a project is added or edited, the other pages update automatically.

Mediawiki uses a markup language that can be a bit confusing, so Mediawiki Extension PageForms is used to facilitate editing of the project pages in Form:Project. Only logged-in users can edit the pages, but any viewer can see what the form looks like, e.g. follow this link for the form for this page.

The St. Andrews Heritage Centre wanted a battery operated display for a stained glass panel that would fade on lights and play church bells when a rope is pulled. The light then dims back down and the church bells end after a period.

We set up the mechanism to pull the rope to trigger a hall sensor, which is read by an Arduino. The Arduino then provides a PWM signal to an LED driver to fade on a string of LEDs, and starts to play an MP3 file of the church bells. The display is powered by a USB battery pack which

The Selkirk Marine Museum asked us to build the electronics for a display where the visitor would pull a rope, and one of four steam whistle signals would randomly play. The physical part of the display would then help the visitor to understand what the whistle signal meant.

We set up the mechanism to pull the rope to trigger a switch and programmed and installed the electronics to play the sound.

When we first set up CCMDB wiki we were not aware of Mediawiki's ability to handle structured data. So, we set up templates to format data, but didn't enforce the use of these templates strongly. When we decided to move the wiki to a more structured format to facilitate the use of Mediawiki Extension Semantic Mediawiki and Mediawiki Extension Cargo, we needed to go over hundreds of pages that had almost the right info, but not quite.

We used AutoWikiBrowser, which is a desktop based software that pre-loads wiki pages (saving ~5-20s per edit) based on a filter and then facilitates or automates the editing of those pages based on rules. We used it to standardize the use of templates that had changed over time to the format needed to generate the structured data used in the new extensions.

Rowing Canada Aviron contracted us to design and produce a tabletop training exercise kit to use in the training of all rowing umpires in Canada. We produced about 20 of these over the course of 2 cycles over 5 years.

We set up durable tabletop maps for a classic 2000m rowing course and for coastal rowing that is run more like a sailing regatta, and a kit of acrylic scenario markers to simulate scenarios an umpire might encounter during a regatta.

I reviewed videos and photos to understand what this would actually look like. Then I 3D modelled the belly of a rowing shell and the blades of some oars and 3D printed them. I Laser cut (or rather engraved) the shapes of the waves around the shell and the oars out of a sheet of translucent acrylic. I glued the 3d printed parts on the bottom of the acrylic sheet. Then I built the body of the lamp, and installed RGB LEDs against a randomly reflective background out of crushed up aluminum foil. I then programmed an Arduino to create the appearance of the change of colour and flickering under water in the LEDs.

This was mostly built as a curiosity, and a study on how to combine mediawiki with physical computing, which could tie into physical Office Automation.

A tape measure rigged up with a Raspberry Pi using Python and a servo, which scrapes a specific mediawiki page for a number and rolls out the tape to that number.

I like to use hand planes for Woodworking. I have a few of them. They rust fairly easily, so they can't live in my garage. I also damaged some of them when they have dropped off my bench during a project because they didn't really have proper place. So, wanted a rack that I can easily move in and out of the house, hang on a French cleat while it's inside, and stand up on the floor or the bench when I am using it.

I built this out of reclaimed wood from an old bed frame and some scraps of hardwood I had around for the brackets that hold in the planes. The frame uses dovetail joints. The finish is boiled linseed oil.