I added wheels to make it really easy to move. There are 5 total – 1 for each corner and 1 in the center. I’ve done this with other heavier furniture in our house too.
The doors
I made the doors by making 3 levels:
1×2 inch pine boards, arranged in a rectangle
Add wire mesh
1×2 inch pine boards, arranged in a rectangle going in the opposite direction
Here is a little drawing showing the steps coming together:
The ramp
I originally made the steps of the ramp using a small dowel rod. Unfortunately the rabbit broke (or ate) them. I later switched to 1/2 inch strips of wood that are much better.
A hay bin
A good way to encourage your rabbit to use their litter box is to provide some hay near it. Rabbits love to sit and nibble on hay while using the facilities.
The hay has lots of small pieces that fall through most of the hay holders sold in stores. So I made one that provides a small shelf to hold the small pieces.
Extra water
I try to encourage our rabbit to drink out of a bowl. Since this thing is in my living room it’s a lot quieter if he avoids the noisy water container. However, the container is a great backup which gives him multiple options for water.
On Finishing
This was a fun project to build. I had to be rather secretive about it, so after bedtime I was heading out to my freezing garage to work into the night. I had some setbacks, but was able to overcome them and learn something in the process.
Most of all, I don’t have to go outside to feed the rabbit. He’s often watching us eat dinner or watch TV. It’s not something my kids can forget about in the backyard.
I made a working Gondola (Ski Lift) for toys as a yard decoration.
I had the idea deep into Christmas season last year. I thought it would be easy to design some sort of ski lift as a yard decoration for Christmas.
It’s much easier to view the entire process using the original album. If you are more interested in setting pictures, then by all means check out the album!
For this post I want to expand more on some of the challenges I had and how I overcame them.
I broke down the project into smaller pieces, and arranged them by difficulty. Some of these things I could do in parallel, or switch between if I got tired of one part.
the towers / base
the motor
chairs
the roof
The towers
I knew if I was going to get anywhere, I had to have a good spot on which to work. I had to build a platform that would hold the two towers that were going to hold each end. I knew I wanted the thing to be about 10 feet apart, so I needed to build them that far apart too. This meant that I could build the entire thing in my garage – very convenient.
I came up with a good design for the towers based on my fence. It’s a picket fence with vertical slats that are about a 2×4 width apart from each other. The towers are 2 2×4 boards that fit between the slats on either end of the fence. I use bolts to hold them together to the fence. I built the base in my garage to be able to hold them.
The motor
The motor was, by far, the hardest thing for me to figure out. I have very little formal knowledge about motors and electronics. I’m more of a string-it-together hacker than a cad/design planner. The hardest thing was that there was no place I could go and buy this thing off the shelf. There are plenty of websites, but for someone new to this they tend to be overwhelming.
I wrote to some hobby websites, forums, maker groups and machine shops. I didn’t get far with any of them.
I started by taking apart things that I fought might work. Here are some things I tried:
motor from a breast pump (not powerful enough)
electric blender (idea was good, not powerful enough)
a blender (this is where I learned some types of motors do not work with dimmer switches)
I considered a couple of motors online, but they would have required a machine shop to make everything fit
I finally turned to craigslist and wrote to someone who was selling small motors. He put together a motor/control setup for me.
The motor works by friction. A wheel on the motor rubs against the gondola wheel and makes it turn. I made a custom mount out of wood to hold the motor, and used a nail to make a pivot-point. This way I can adjust how close the motor is to the wheel. I kept the connection solid using a turnbuckle. It allowed me to dial-in the friction and keep it there.
A good shot of the turnbuckle making sure the motor is making good contact with the wheel.
If I had to do this again, I should try a lot harder to get the chain to work. I had a hard time finding a sprocket that would fit my chain AND work with a motor. I still hold on to the notion that there was a magical fix out there.
Chairs
I had high hopes of making very fancy chairs for the lift. I ended up going through many different versions.
My biggest issues:
Too heavy: heavy chairs would weight down the line and it would slip off the main wheels and fall on the ground
Too floppy: if the chair rocked around too much it might catch on something and jam the entire thing
I came up with a list of some basic rules:
The wheels on each tower have a lip, so the chair has to come in at a right angle so not to interfere with the lip
they had to be stable, i.e. little to no wobble
strong enough to hold a small toy
it had to be removable if possible – at some point I have to store this for next year!
it had to look legit
I used a lightweight wire that is almost the same as that used in clothes hangers. I tried the solve the lip and stability issues by angling the wire around the edge of the wheel. I also tried to keep the weight of the chair centered so that is below the line.
I added some dashes to the picture below to help you get an idea of what I’m talking about.
the Roof
The roof serves two purposes – keep the motor dry, and look good.
After considering a few different designs, I decided to go for something like a lodge. My neighbor had an idea to use ceder shingles that we glued onto a simple roof base that I had built. The effect looks neat, and everything stays dry since it’s using real shingles.
In hindsight
I put a lot of time into the motor. I am very happy that I found a solution, because for a short time it was starting to look like I wasn’t going to find a solution at all. However, I still am fighting the feeling that I can use the bike chain to drive the wheel. The friction model sometimes gets a little stuck, and the solution is to add a little more power. Which in my opinion makes the thing turn a little too fast.
I think incorporating the fence might have been a problem. I was afraid that the gondola might blend in together with the fence too easily. They are both brown and the towers do not sit too far above the fence. I’m still thinking that it might be better to just install 2 poles in the yard for the gondola and not use the fence at all.
the END
I had a lot of fun with this project. It was challenging and gave me something to do in my spare time. I’m already getting excited about what to do next!
I built some temporary walls to create an office in my basement.
The Back story
I was renting a small office for contract work, and decided to move home to save some money. The only available space was our unfinished basement. It was too large to keep warm in the winter, so I came up with an idea of creating cheap walls to make a room.
A small office in the basement also had the advantage of creating 2 layers of separation with the house. It’s too easy for someone to accidentally open a door during an important meeting. It’s much harder to open the door to the basement, walk down the stairs, wander over to the corner office, and peak inside.
The wall material is a cheap lightweight sound proofing material called Homasote. It’s a very lightweight highly-compressed paper-mache material. I found a bunch at my local used building materials store.
Step 2: measure your height
I measured the height of the basement ceiling and made each wall an inch shorter. I also made sure I could move them in, out, and around the basement without too much trouble.
Step 3: the frame
I built the frames using 2×2 wood boards. I constructed a simple frame around the edges and then screwed the Homasote sheet to the frame.
Putting it all together
I struggled for a while with how to hold the walls in place. I didn’t want them to fall over. In the article they used furniture levelers, but I found them a little pricey.
My solution was to build a couple walls at right angles. I then made sure any straight wall was attached to a right-angled wall. In places where a wall was a little wobbly, I wedged a piece of wood perpendicular between the ceiling and wall.
A right-angled wall. For this one I used hinges.
What about a door?
There was no way to create a proper door, but I came up with a good solution. I left a door-sized gap that would serve as the entrance, and hung 2 wool blankets on either side of the doorway. This made for a rather heavy blanket door that did not let in any drafts.
Heat
The basement wasn’t heated, so I used a strategy involving 2 electric heaters to keep warm:
A radiator-style electric heater provided most of the base heat. I had it hooked up to an industrial timer that would turn on the heat a half hour before I started work.
An electric fireplace heater that had a temperature control and remote. I used it to dial in the heat a little better, and as a bonus I had some fake flames to look at for some ambiance.
The office worked very well over the years. I even incorporated a portable air conditioner. Often times I would come up to grab a snack and my wife would remark that she didn’t even know I was home.
If you are looking for a cheap way to create some separation in a room, this could be a good solution for you.
I’m sorry to report that Good To Go have updated their website and it has broken the app. I have been in contact with them about a promised API, but it appears one is not in the works. Sadly, I had to unpublish the app.
I included it here because it was a great experience to build and release the original application.
Where did this idea come from? I came up with the idea for this app while crossing the SR 520 bridge, which is a toll road. All tolling is handled by an automated system that is linked to an online account you setup with the State of Washington. You can read more about the program
at http://mygoodtogo.com . You sign up for an account, and provide a credit card to get started. When you cross the bridge (or another tolled area) their system reads your pass and deducts the toll
from your account.
I had read some stories about people who had racked up large fines for failing to notice they had outstanding tolls and fees on their accounts. I decided to double-check my account, but couldn’t remember my username or password. It would be ok if it happened
once, but every time I wanted to check my account I would have to go through the process of forgetting my username or password and having to reset my account.
So I built this app. It allows me to quickly view my tolling activity without having to reset my password. Now when I want to quickly review my account, I can just open the app and refresh for my most recent activity.
It has also saved us money. We had a car that had problems with a sticker pass. The system would recognize the pass but someone at Good To Go had to visually confirm the toll via a photo. It’s called a photo enforcement fee, and you get charged an additional
25 cents for each time it occurs. It happened so frequently that it became cost effective to get a new pass.
How long did it take to build? I think it was about a year. It was done in my spare time, and I allowed some other interests to get in the way if needed, like painting my fridge to look like a TARDIS.
What’s your status? I’m a full-time contractor, so I was looking for something to do on the side for fun. I don’t do any advertising for my apps, and I feel if I was ever going to look to do this more seriously it would be beneficial for me to keep publishing apps.
What got you into Android development? Honestly, I couldn’t afford a computer from Apple. I did some robotics development a few years ago that I very much liked. The same bug that might render a web page incorrectly might sent your robot into a ditch. Android development reminded me of that past, so I wanted to explore it further.
What challenges did you face with building the app?
My other apps were Activity-based apps, and I wanted to play with fragments. It was a bit of pain, because some things I knew, but not enough to do everything I wanted to do. So I was making jagged progress – some things came quickly, others moved forward like a snail.
InApp billing was a little bit of a pain. For starters, InApp billing needs more real-world examples, and the ability to debug a beta APK with InApp billing enabled
The technique to implement a Navigation Drawer changed half way through my development of the app. Honestly I’m glad I put the time in to change it because the new way is better.
It seems petty, but would it kill Android Studio to allow you to set a breakpoint on an empty line? I mean that I want it to stop before the next executable line. Android Studio will let you set the breakpoint on an empty line, but completely ignores it come debug time.
What’s next? I have a few ideas rolling around in my head, and some friends with ideas of their own. My biggest fear is that since I’m doing this myself that I’m missing out on the collaborative learning I would get if I was working with a team.
I made my fridge into a TARDIS! I know that you can buy kits to do this, but I decided to try to make one. I used packing paper, some paint, and lots of measuring.
Colors:
Blue: Empire Fleet Blue, Flat (from Lowe’s)
Black: generic poster paint, Flat (I’d suggest not using poster paint – it’s water soluble
White: semigloss White
Fonts:
Gill Sans MT (POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX)
Gill Sans MT Condensed (POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX (on side))
Times New Roman (POLICE TELEPHONE / FREE / FORE USE OF / PUBLIC)
Gill Sans MT (ADVICE & ASSISTANCE / OBTAINABLE IMMEDIATELY / OFFICER & CARS / RESPOND TO ALL CALLS)
Calibri (PULL TO OPEN)
The finished product!I had lots of packing paper from past Amazon orders. I rolled them out on the floor and painted them with a small roller. I found a couple suggestions for colors, and took the easiest one. Lowe’s “Empire Fleet Blue” in flat.Hanging the first paper on the fridge. I made some guides to help make the different panels. I had a couple reference models in my house which I used to determine rough dimensions.A closeup of the window guide.I used magnets to hold each panel in place, then taped the edges with black tape. I originally wanted to take the door handles off, but I couldn’t figure it out and decided against it.I used the guides to trace an outline of each section.My neighbor had a laser level, which I decided to take advantage of when trying to line up the panels on both sides.After all the outlines were traced, I cut out the windows on my guide to help make the individual windows.First windows painted! I decided I liked the translucent look and did not add any extra coats.I figured out the font for the top (Gill Sans MT), and then printed out the letters on my printer. Once I had the sizing, I used an x-acto knife to make a stencil and traced them in the right spot for painting.It took a while – it turned out I needed 2 sets of stencils, one for each side. Since it wasn’t as wide, I had to use “Gill Sans MT Condensed” for the side.By the time I got to the sign, I just researched the fonts and printed them on paper that I cut to size. I used spray glue to attach it. The fonts I used were: Times New Roman, Gill Sans MT, and Calibri.I decided to add the St John’s Ambulance logo as well. I found a bunch of examples online.The finished product! It took much longer than I was expecting, but it was something artistic to do when I needed a distraction. Maybe we’ll find more room in there for milk now?The base blue paint is rather sturdy. Unfortunately I used some poster paint for the black, so it is not exactly water safe. I used a semi-gloss white for the letters/windows, which gives it an ever-so-slight glowing effect next to all the flat colors. K9 approves!
