Robots & Dinosaurs is located in 10/27 Bank st, Meadowbank . We’re open Saturdays from about 11am and some weeknights, but you should check by asking on our mailing list.
Creating a GPS Treasure Box
Andrew did a write up of one of his projects that we would love to share. We wish you all a happy ❤️Valentines Day!❤️
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Many years ago I came across the idea for a GPS treasure box, from a post originally by Kenton Harris (I think - apologies if it was somebody else). Some called it a reverse geocache too, but in simple terms, it’s a locked box that only opens at a certain location.
The idea behind the box was a very simple interaction - one button, and a screen. The process would go like this:
- Press button
- Screen lights up, and GPS begins scanning
- Screen tells you how many attempts you have left
- Once GPS has location, the distance from the target location in kilometers is shown
- One attempt is removed from total # of attempts
- Screen turns off
Eventually, the target location would be found (and the box unlocks), or the attempts will run out and the box will be sealed shut forever!
Inspired to create a fun adventure for myself and a friend on a weekend in Spain, I ordered all the relevant components including GPS module, Arduino Uno, batteries and a servo motor to lock the box. This was back in January of 2020.
Ah, how times change…
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Fast forward to January of 2023. I’d moved back to Sydney years prior and still had all of these components sitting around. I knew I’d get to this project one day.
I came across a local makerspace with access to a laser cutter. This was the missing ingredient I needed - not only were there the facilities I needed to create the treasure box, there was also vibrant community of people who had done similar things before.
I started out by gathering some code to power the project, and thankfully found a number of helpful repositories on Github.
I was able to clone one, and adapt it to the paricular hardware and display I was using pretty easily. Annoyingly I had to learn all about Baud rates and GPS modules - but I’m glad I did as I’m sure it will contribute to projects in the future.
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At long last, the finished project was here.
Not too shabby I thought, but it was time to put it to the test.
I enlisted the help of my girlfriend. We began at home and she pressed the button.
As a guess, she told me to head to Pyrmont, an inner-city suburb. So off we drove.
Getting warmer! And still with heaps of attempts left.
With the sun setting, we headed to a nice spot in Rose Bay, by the water.
It was close enough to continue on foot, so we decided to put the dog in a backpack (I didn’t realise prior that he was not allowed in Sydney Harbour National Park, so I hope this was an OK compromise! Apologies to the national parks service).
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Here, my true colours were revealed. I’d actually added some extra code into the mix - getting the box to ask a very important question on my behalf.
And sure enough, the box opened on cue, revealing an exciting treasure hidden within!
(Source: andrew.pizza)
Yes, we are still alive! We just suck at writing stuff.
So, like all groups, we are terrible about updating our website.
Let this be a record that despite us not updating the website, we have been going strong the last 7 years , being open every Tuesday and Saturday (lockdown excepted) and having the space filled with creative people making stuff & having fun.
Hopefully we’ll update more frequently over the next 7 years, but in the unlikely event we don’t, please come say hello anyway.
Here’s one of our recent projects for ref. A glowing DnD dice tray.
Fairies Don’t Poop
So if you’re after a weekend project, and you need to placate tiny humans, you could do a lot worse than a Fairy Cottage.
A fairy cottage is like a dolls house except you don’t play with it, you put it somewhere and invite fairies to come and live in it by being quiet and going to sleep.
I’ve taken the concept and made into a night light using an Arduino and a set of addressable LEDs.
it’s powered by a USB wallwort and each room will randomly light between 5 and ten minutes. Theoretically it might not light at all, but statistically it should turn on at least one room after a while.
Here it is:
read on for build instructions
TempClock
Kris finished a project!
I needed a device that would show the temperature in the house, outside and in the kids’ room. It should also have the time. We only need it at night and we need it to be very dim. After a loooooot of prototypes this is what I made:
Lasercut Settlers of Catan
Hi All, Gav here!
At the space recently we’ve had a few rounds of Settlers of Catan. People seemed to like it, so I figure we should have a set living on a shelf in the workshop. Some late night lasering later, and we have this:
At the request of James, this version has recesses to hold the roads and cities in place, so that his more… enthusiastic… rolls don’t knock over the board:
All the wood is bamboo ply, lasercut. The hex tiles are lightly sanded and given an acrylic paint wash, before being given a clear gloss. The base has a Jarrah stain (Yes, I know it looks terrible where the glue wasn’t sanded off enough), and I might end up clear-coating it later.
The settlements and cities have their own little silhouettes, and I made a holder for each player’s unplaced pieces:
Files are up here if anyone wants to make their own:
Stained Glass Workshop & Kiln Work
Hi All, Gav here!
You know the space is no stranger to eletronics, lasers and 3D printing, but that’s certainly not all we get up to.
Recently, I got a bunch of glass tools, and a bunch of us have been having fun making stained glass pieces, as well as doing some kiln work. Here’s a few pieces we made:
It’s a rather addictive medium to work with! There’s a huge range of colours and effects you can get. Stained glass is quick to get ideas out with, but for more intricate stuff we can use a kiln to mix and fuse pieces together.
Glass cutting during the workshop:
The pieces laid out and ready for copper foil to be added. The table is actually a light-box, which helps positioning translucent glass for various effects:
Also that table isn’t just a slab of egg-crate. According to the vendor, it’s a entire sophisticated glass cutting system, and it comes with a 50 page manual showing how to set up templates for various angles, reliably repeating cuts, etc. A few of us have ideas for giant hexagon themed pieces, and that’ll make doing hundreds of pieces a tad easier…
The space already has a large kiln, but for testing ideas and various glass combinations, I recently bought a microwave kiln. This allows small glass pieces to be slumped, tacked or fully fused together. Here’s a pieces ready for firing:
And some pieces we finished earlier:
Most of these are just playing with settings, rather than being a particular design. By controlling the time of firing, we can select how much the glass fuses or slumps together.
I’ve left a big selection of the specialist tools and glass stock for people to play with. If you’ve got an idea for a fused or stained glass piece, feel free to have a go!*
(Get one of us to show you how to handle & cut glass safely, of course).
There’s also a prize for the first stained glass Robots and Dinosaurs logo to be made :-)
Mardi Gras lights!
Ada, Tim and everyone who was around at the time helped out a regular who runs a Mardi Gras float. Thanks everyone for the spectacular lights!
This is a stand for hatpins, the deadly ornament women used to secure their
hats to their heads in the nineteenth and early centuries. The long pin is
very Titanic, made to fix a giant hat to bouffant hair, but the others are
probably from later, as hats got smaller and hairstyles simpler.
I needed a way to stop my hatpins from stabbing me, so when I got my hands
on the simple 3D design program at tinkercad.com, i designed one. This is
based off some silver versions from the 1920s.
It got scaled smaller than I intended, so it would fit in the machine, but
it still does the job!
