New project!

instead of doing my english homework, i decided to make something... so i decided to make that LED cube i have been thinking about building since the beginning of the year

I created a template for my LED's to get them all even

By soldering the cathodes together, i can multiplex the LED's

Me on the GoodMorning Show

I was flown up for an interview on the GoodMorning show in the holidays :) Pretty sure only old people watch it... but hey

Finally! Project Complete!

Looking Pretty tidy...

Before sending my project away to Brightsparks, i figured it needed a little cleaning up. So i did!

I screwed everything in place, which seems much stronger that hot glue :P

This was to align the arm when it moves down.
An alternative was to add another servo, but this was cheaper and easier

A little hidey-hole concealing the electronics

The wing-nut calibrates the height of the solving arm.

His name is George. He likes solving cubes.

ITS ALIVE!!!

well, its working at least... and heres a video to prove it!

Flippy Flippy

As for flipping my cube, i now have a solution! At the moment its a bit jerky, but at least it's consistent in flipping the cube.

pretty happy with the results, but eventually  i'll try to create a more fluid motion.

Progress...

So after a bit of hot glue and popsicle sticks, i have somewhat of a working prototype:

It is a bit different to my original idea which was to have two robot hands... that seemed to be to difficult without buying expensive claws, so heres a quick video of my new design working. So far all it does is spin one face, but that will soon be addressed.

I will update once i have something to show for my efforts, currently I've just got ~1000 lines of code

Just a snap of my code in my preferred text editor (Sublime Text 2)

After a few grueling hours at hardware stores and even a specialty nuts and bolts store, i managed to find some threaded rod and a slew of different sized washers nuts and bolts. A couple of hours of build time and I've constructed the frame:

Heres the frame of my Prusa, patiently waiting for parts to arrive...

Unfortunately it is proving quite difficult to find the appropriate smooth rod needed for linear bearings in Christchurch, so she's just going to sit there looking pretty until i can source some. (the alternative is 30 USD + 30 USD shipping, which is a bit of a kick in the butt considering the idea is to construct this as cheaply as possible)

Once i have the smooth rod, i'll just be waiting for the linear bearings from ebay... then the stepper motors - which i don't exactly have funding for at the moment... then the arduino and RAMPS... then the hot end... this is going to be more expensive than i originally anticipated.

Now i just need to sit back and play the waiting game.