User:Mathw

I came for the 3D printer, but fell in love with the laser cutter.

Projects

Makeney Morris Coasters and Badges

My morris team like shiny things. Engraved perspex coasters look pretty awesome with our logo on, as does plywood.

Current status: getting a friend to re-set the logo artwork for me so it's absolutely perfect. The imprecision in it never mattered before, but the laser cutter's too good.

Tenor Recorder case

My tenor recorder is nice, but came in a case with a stupid coating which rubs off inside bags, on other recorder cases, on recorders and so forth. It's wrecked enough stuff and I'm sick of it, so I'm going to design and build myself a new one out of 6mm plywood with some internal padding. I'll probably laser cut it, then glue it, screw hinges on etc.

Current status: design

Wind Controller

This is my big long-term project. I have had a couple of wind controllers (or electronic wind instruments) over the years, but never really felt any of them were entirely perfect. It's not going to be easy, but I'm going to try to make my own, bringing some electronics together with my programming skills and some fabrication for the enclosure etc.

The first prototype/experimental system will be based around the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B I already have, which will provide more than ample computing power. Once I've got some switches hooked up to the GPIO pins I'll be working on some software to detect key combinations and generate notes in response. I also need to find a suitable breath pressure sensor, and something that will allow pitch bend.

Completed Projects

Tak Set

Cheapass Games worked out a set of rules for the fictional game Tak, from Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles - that world's version of chess or go. They published the beta rules for free and ran a Kickstarter, but I thought why not make my own set.

The board is laser-engraved, the pieces are all laser cut, and I'll probably keep coming back to this one with different piece shapes etc.

Current status: complete. Need to play it for a while and see if I want to make another set or change any parts of this one.

Pipe Dream Projects

Northumbrian smallpipes

Is it possible to make an acceptable chanter on an Ultimaker? Can I model such a thing?

Me

I'm a computer programmer, I practise Aikido, play the recorder, viola da gamba and fiddle, sing, dance the morris (Cotswold style), cook and read a lot of books.