Well there's your problem!

Posted on September 17, 2014 in Tech, Tinkering, Man Shed.

Damaged and torn gear from one of the AR Drone props.

I'm no expert in the dynamics of flight, but I'm fairly certain that the props are supposed to turn.

Last week my AR Drone took a nose dive into the curb of a pavement, before pirouetting through the air to land on its feet. It's not uncommon for the drone to bounce around a little if it crashes with an odd angle, the flexible props usually bounce it harmlessly off walls, etc.

As the drone sat there I thought how lucky I was that it finished on its feet, and that I didn't need to go flipping it over again. I presses the Take Off button and watched as three of the four props turned, realising there was a problem I stabbed for the Emergency cut off button, but not before it flipped itself over and onto its back.

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SHED 1.0

Posted on February 08, 2014 in Man Shed, Arduino.

My automated sockets relay wired into the Arduino

For a while I've been working on building a set of Internet enabled sockets, with the goal of being able to control everything in my shed from my phone, laptop, or from a set of sensors and switches.

I had my first successful test a short while ago.

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The Man Shed - Workbench

Posted on August 06, 2013 in Man Shed.

The entire completed workbench.

My man shed got its first important feature this week; my Dad and I built a workbench from an old fire door.

We started by measuring up the door, and stripping off handles, hinges and bolts. After we cut the legs to size, we carefully slid the door into position, and propped it up.

After a little preliminary drilling, we screwed the door to the legs using some rather hefty screws. Then we screwed the legs to the exterior walls of the shed, to stop it from moving.

The desk was rock solid, but obviously needed some kind of cover to hide what was quite an ugly door.

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