Atleast it looks cool.

We completed our first test of the entire assembly. The x and z axes are working great but the y axis is horrible. First, it would only go down, then when we got it to go up it would sometimes slip. Once we got those problems fixed, we realized that when the sled would move up and  then down and then back up, to what should have been the exact same position,  it was about 5% lower than the origin point. We think we have a solution, but only the next test will tell.

First Full Assembly Test from tim williams on Vimeo.

BOOM!

This is the first test with the x axis and y axis working. It has 2 problems.
1) Its lying on the floor (because we haven't build the legs yet).
2) The little Y axis sled can only go in one direction right now because of a.... mmm.. I'm going to call it a technical issue.

The writing's on the ground. from tim williams on Vimeo.

machine draw lines good

It draws about as well as I construct sentences, all not good like. I also just couldn't come up with a name for this post. It is by no means a "first test" because this was just a marker stuck to the sled with tape and glitches. Work continues to improve on this thing. 

p.s. Why is it so ridiculously difficult to format the text around these photos!?!? A simple text wrap is all I want. 

I am predicting that we will have some stuff done by the end of the week.

In 1895, when Louis Lumiere was testing his first movies, he said that it was, "a scientific curiosity with no commercial possibilities." I kind of feel like maybe what our machine is becoming is something similar. Probably not to the success of film, but definitely a scientific curiosity. 

Sqwiggle Maker

The question, "so what are you going to do with the machine?" keeps coming up. Doing our best impression of Lost season 6, we will now begin to answer this question for all our fans (are there any?) and ourselves. Heres what I call SqwiggleMaker 1.0. It takes images and converts them into horizontal sqwiggles directly corresponding to the grey scale of the image. 

Babies First Step

Babies First Steps from tim williams on Vimeo.

The x-axis is complete(with the exception of a couple tweaks). Heres the very first movements of the sled as it moves along our short track. Maybe we will have an image created by it soon!

Axis Completed from tim williams on Vimeo.

1 more step

We keep making small steps towards completion which is the only way to imagine finishing it. Otherwise, theres so many steps  involved that it becomes overwhelming.

x-axis magic from tim williams on Vimeo.

Construction of Moving Parts

   Above is a shot of the digital model showing how the vertical Y-axis slides along the horizontal X-Axis. From there, a "sled" will climb up and down the Y-Axis painting a pretty picture, most likely of rainbows and sunshine. Below shows how we design this stuff. You can see the X-axis we have already made with a piece of trace paper on top of it where we are literally drawing our next step.