hey Simone hey Adam how are you you can
hear me loud and clear
yeah excellent the signals coming
through fantastically I'm not looking at
a house boat anymore am I
no I'm fortunately at my office but it's
pretty cool - is it nighttime is it dark
outside yeah it's cold dark and
depressing welcome to Sweden is it like
Let The Right One In is that what it's
like all the time
yeah but with less teeth so you've got a
project you want to you've got a project
I don't know anything about it except it
fits on the heads I think you're really
gonna like this one so the idea is you
know like beer helmets yes I know here
your hands on a helmet and I was
thinking if you could do that but
instead of beer you have popcorn so
basically I made this and I want it to
like it has like a little pipe so it
kind of funnels the popcorn down to your
mouth and it detects if you open or
close your mouth and I made this very
scientific drawing okay so it's a tube
that feeds popcorn what does it do it
one at a time you know I kind of wanted
to just be a lot of popcorn that it's
just like way more than you can actually
chew it occurs to me that the movies
that we eat popcorn like we put as much
into our hand as we can and we can you
just like yeah we like shove it all the
way in there I don't want to take the
hand side of that equation so you just
need to like open your mouth popcorn
comes in and then you're all done just
chew and swallow and what's the
mechanism by which the popcorn comes
down the tube I don't know yet I'm
thinking because like popcorn are not
very nice to work with this that's I
think most of all it just looks really
neat but I'm thinking that probably some
sort of motor with with like a little
motor blade thing going on that just
like kind of pushes it down through the
pipe or you could do it like
electrostatically which I think will be
pretty cool you know there's also using
the venturi principle what is that if
you if you have a tube and you put
popcorn at
one end of the tube and at the other end
you drill a hole and you put an air and
air blower and place out that air
blowing out of the tube will draw air in
the other side that's the venturi effect
I think maybe that's a good setup
because then I'm worried if you have a
motor that that's just gonna crush the
popcorn exactly and you want the pocket
these popcorn are delicate you want them
to but again it's like it's almost like
a blower is pushing popcorn into your
mouth every time you open I need to take
this off I can't take myself seriously
when I wear this that is I think you're
gonna need bigger repositories for the
popcorn though yeah because these are
gonna run out really quickly
yeah those that's like four mouthfuls
and what we're talkin about
yeah um so so what what part of this do
you want help with what do you what are
you thinking about so my thinking most
of all one thing that I need to decide
is if we want the helmet to pop the
popcorn as well or if it's okay that it
just dispenses it and and I got these I
got this like hot air popcorn popper
because I think like having really warm
oil on your head is not a great idea so
I think maybe that's one route to go but
then I think like maybe it would also
just be cool if it had some sort of
sensor by the mouth and it just
dispenses popcorn I think that's pretty
good enough - I think you're right I
think it's best to localize the problem
and make it a popcorn dispenser rather
than a all-in-one all-in-one yes so what
I would need help with is just to make I
want to make two popcorn containers that
could kind of fit on the helmet and
would also have these pipes coming out
of them and and just kind of I don't
know how you would do that vacuum older
more all right so you got a helmet
you've got the buckets for popcorn and
it needs to be pretty light cuz it's a
lot of weight to put on the head yeah
maybe the first thing I can do here is
vacuform a pair of popcorn holders and
while you're problem solving the the
delivery of the popcorn because the
delivery will dictate how the popcorn
distributor gets to the buckets right
yeah because I think that that I just
want to kind of also see what the best
way of monitoring if the mouth is open
or not is
just check out what census you would
want to have for that and also just
hooking up the electronics that
dispenses the popcorn be it a motor or a
fan or there is another way to deliver
which sort of a long and you might like
this is suppose that the that there's
two deliveries for popcorn and they hang
here and when you open your mouth one of
them moves over or and basically it's
just a swing but when it's over here
it's popcorn loads into it and it comes
over here to deliver and then it comes
back and then the other one is also
doing the same thing so that they can
base it it's actually two plastic hands
yeah two plastic plastic scoops right so
that every time they go back to the home
position they load with popcorn and then
they cuddle you and shove it in your
face I really like that it would look
like but I mean I like if it would
actually look like hands because then it
would look like a like a combination of
a beer helmet but then also one of those
clap helmets right all right I'd like
applause helmets so anything would be
nice just two plastic hands and just
shove them into your mouth all right a
lot okay so I'm my first step is to make
you some hands make hands and send so
once I finish the hands let's get back
on skype and I'll get those to you and
we can figure out the next thing for me
to help you with yeah that sounds great
and I'll look into different sensors
that can kind of or maybe you just want
it on like a regular basis or like
repeatedly go and feed you the hands
well but what about what about a laser
with a with a light diode right here so
that when you open your mouth you
actually you break the beam and the beam
laser beam would look cool right laser
then there's like ah every time you open
your mouth the most annoying like
theater visitor ever everywhere yeah I
love this idea I've got my marching
orders I will get going on these hands
and we'll talk in a few days yeah cool
talk to you later Adam awesome
thanks Simone bye-bye but okay I gotta
gather some parts we've got to make a
hand
yeah it's that sign it comes around and
feeds popcorn I know how I want to build
the hand I know how I'm going to attach
it to its stem I think I know how it's
gonna tip but I have to get these
relationships right so I'm gonna gather
some things in order to flesh this out
on my workbench
sorry Simone that's gonna be you
just for the time being
excellent okay this is just to get us to
a point where we can start mocking stuff
up but before I even start mocking up
the mechanism I need the hand and this
is this is gonna be interesting
all right we're gonna vacuform this hand
I hand-built this vacuum former over 24
years ago Fon Davis and I were each
building vacu formers at the same time
and we were copying this one that our
mentor Mitch Romanowski had which is
really nice but you can't ever find them
so we both made them in red containers
okay so a quick primer on vacuum forming
with vacuum forming one takes a sheet of
plastic like this a thermoplastic this
is styrene ABS also works but styrene is
the most common you clamp it into a
frame you heat it with a heating element
and then you turn on a vacuum and the
vacuum sucks the hot soft plastic over
form that's actually perfect this is
pretty much exactly what I wanted out of
them
now the plastic is rapidly cooling but
it's still kind of soft so you don't
want to pull a form out just yet I can't
believe I've never used this vacuum
former on tested before that's crazy
I'm very sorry about that so there you
have that is a vacuum form of a
fiberglass hand now getting your thing
back out can sometimes be a bit of a
challenge but not this time because I
haven't let it go too far around rink
now I've got a hand
that's the popcorn delivery device and
it's superlight
that's really important I don't want
something heavy hitting it in the face
and I don't want Simone's
servo to have to handle something super
heavy
so lightness was a factor the vacuum
form was the solution okay I may do one
more pull of this hand and a slightly
hotter plastic so that gives a little
more detail but this will be fine for
our testing purposes okay so that's
about right this is where Simone's
trap doors for popcorn are but when this
spins around on its pivot here don't
even down here don't it doesn't get
anywhere near her even like that so I
think I need a bent rod of some kind
she's got room here to mount this
off-center yes give me a second
we're bringing in all the mobile
stations on this one so Simone expected
that she was driving the the hand
mechanism with what she called d-rod
which is simply quarter-inch rod with a
flat milled on it and I can mill a flat
on this but for right now while I'm
mocking this up I'm gonna use some much
softer milder steel this is hot roll
pencil rod quarter inch pencil rod and
you can buy this for really like pennies
at the at the steel yard and it's one of
my bread-and-butter materials for
fleshing stuff out the center obviously
this can be moved oh I might be able to
make this adjustable I think I can
actually make this so that it's
adjustable
I'll experiment with it right now but I
might be able to make it super
adjustable so that she can get it and it
fits her face exactly that would be
really cool okay
okay hey all right
that I'm really pleased by that I'm
really pleased by that it's almost like
I want it to tip wants a tip so how do I
make a tip well I can give it a bias
like I can put a second barrier here and
put a pin between them but really that's
really kind of nailed that right off the
bat
okay
so what if right so it doesn't mind
being there like that and it doesn't
mind being turning but as soon as it
gets close it turns look at that okay I
can't quite fix this whole mechanism in
place for Simone but I can send her
these parts made well with attachments
and multiple mounting points so that she
can get these relationships right but
that seems to me like that's working
pretty well
popcorn opens up into the hand the hand
turns around and turns and feeds the
mouth that might be some of the fastest
prototyping I've ever done I know it may
look to you like that happened fast it
feels to me that I could have invest to
Simone so here's what I've got
officially this is a hand it's been
vacuformed over a mannequin hand it is
made of white styrene plastic I'm going
to send you several blanks of this so
that you can cut them out as you need
them this mechanism is the hand is
mounted on a pivot that pivot is mounted
on a dog leg to arm to your hat to that
space where you're going to mount the
servo so it would sit there underneath
your popcorn the bomb-bay doors would
open release the popcorn into the hand
and then the hand would come around and
when it reaches this right orientation
where the string is pulled taut the
string moves the hand and allows you to
eat the popcorn don't get me wrong I
think it's going to be messy but it's
going to be cool
awesome alright Simone here's what I've
got for you the original design you saw
with a dog leg of pencil rod attached to
my hand mechanism spinning around and
feeding I have now made instead of MDF I
have made it in UHMW bearing material
with a nice nylon screw there I've given
you three holes one two three so that
you can put your dog leg in any one of
them for distance and use this thumb
screw to tighten down on it
aha isn't that nice here's the spring
mechanism which actually makes it return
and here is the hole through which
you'll attach the the high-strength cord
and I'm gonna send you a couple dozen
feet of this cord so you've got it so I
haven't trimmed this hand I've left it
mostly untrimmed so that you could play
with it you'll see I've attached it here
with some 440 screws and I've also
included a couple of other uncut out
vacuum-formed hands for you to play with
in case this one messes up I'm also
sending multiple dog legs of different
lengths the last thing I've done to
these is I've actually milled a flat on
the top part of the dog legs so that you
can use them with your D rod and you can
get a nice set screw on there and it
will register yeah okay I think that's
everything you need good luck thanks
Adam so I have the hands I have the
helmet and I have these trapdoors that
I've started making and basically
they're gonna have two metal plates that
we're going to cut out right now and
they're going to be attached to the side
of the helmet and then open and close
releasing the popcorn so I have this
sheet of metal that we're going to cut
out and put in the bottom of this
okay so now we have the two trapdoors
ready they're not very precise but I
think it's gonna be good enough as small
as long as the holes in it or smaller
than the popcorn and the next step is
gonna be attaching them to the helmet
but the idea is that we're gonna have a
motor in between so we're gonna have a
motor that's a servo motor that's facing
it has AZ d schat facing downwards and
then we're gonna have the trap door
outside so that one's gonna rotate the
hand and also open and close the trap
door
okay so now both of the motors and the
tractors are in place and I'm thinking
the next step is probably attaching the
hands and trying to get like the hand
moving to work with the trap door
closing I haven't really figured out how
to do that yet because it pretty nice
sound I haven't really figured out how
to do that yet so I'm a little bit
nervous about the step because it might
turn out that it doesn't work but let's
try it out
essentially it works really well I'm
kind of surprised this III would be be
fed the only thing is that I'm thinking
about is how I make this this turn also
somehow close the trapdoor moving just
attaching a string to I've jumped bowls
through but I'm thinking maybe just
attaching strings to these bowls that I
drilled and having them like somehow
pull them up might work out let's try it
out
break away this is getting pretty heavy
like it's it's a good thing that popcorn
is is very light in itself because
otherwise I would need to get some neck
exercise before I bring this went to the
cinema
I just really want to try this out now
the next step is gonna be connecting the
microcontroller that is gonna control
how the motors move so I made this like
little shield to - just a regular
Arduino Uno where it's like very basic
but it just lets me connect to servo
motors - it
oh I think it's ready to be tried out
I'm just gonna start off with using it
on my head without the popcorn I have no
idea how it's actually gonna dispense it
all short I mean they might just all
fill out at the same time or none of
them fall out or I don't know and my
blood sugar is getting pretty low so I'm
excited about eating some that's a test
for this first I just love the look of
this me too oh gosh okay am I ready for
this amazing oh yes I do let's pick this
fucking popcorn all right
it's like it's throwing it at your face
that's so funny I can think of no better
way to inaugurate you into tested Simone
than that build we are clearly going to
make many beautiful and pointless
machines together welcome to testing
