Skip to content

19. Invention, intellectual property and income

Motivation

I can be short. I love opensource. The majority of program used during this academy are free and opensource and during the way i watched numerous tutorials in which people explain there skill. Sharing is knowledge. This has not always be the case. At one moment i had a design on which i was proud and considered unique. In my ambition to mak a living of it i did check ways in how i could use a pattern to protect my idea. In the end i run a contest with this design on instructables in which i explain the steps and won my first computercontrolled machine. A home lasercutter. After this i became interested in computerdesign and maching. If i did not provided the concept opensource my life most probebly looked very different. And i love my life. Most of the time. The other times i am stressed.. :)

Doing this academy had one sole purpose. Learning new skills to make me more complete as maker. And same works for my final assignment. I want to create something that challenge me on many aspect that i learned (and still learning) during fabacademy.

Licenses

This project i like to share as open source as possible. With my specific creative common license you are allowed to use my final project and tweak and improve the concept. The license i use for this purpose is Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) I further implies that you can use this concept also for commercial purposes as long you give appropriate credit to the author and respect the license.

cc logo
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

licence Overview of the conditions

On the website of creative commons you can find all their different types of opensource licences

Licensing software

I would love to see people tweaking the code and make other movements and reactions possible. I will program the lamp to be shy and introvert. Please alter the code and put it to the test.

For the code used i want to apply GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE This means similar to the previous license that you are free use and improve the code as you like. When distributing the changes you need to show the source code.

gnu Like the philosophy of this license

Distributing the design

What i mentioned in the introduction. My main motivation was to gain knowledge in the thing i love. Making. I do not have commercial purposes for my design and at the moment i am not planing to reproduce the final assignment. All the files will be on my academy site and feel free to recreate this design.I would love to hear though if someone like to make it.

Tool of choice for editing

To make my slide and video for the final presentation i will use kdenlive. A open source video editing program to create your own movies. The program seems straight forward and easy to use. To get started i watched a tutorial

You can download the program for different operating system. I work currently with windows 10. Had to install a beta version 19.04.1. When installed and trying to upload a video i encountered the first problem. I recieved a error that the file could not be opened. After quick problem solving i found the solution on this site. The first time i had to open kdenlive as administrator and then i was able to upload my files. This only have to be done the first time. After that you can just open Kdenlive and upload the videos.

laserstair You can add video by dragging the file from the folder

(

presentation from Rutger Oomkes on Vimeo.

)

Time management

The time to create our masterpiece has come and there is little time to achieve lots of things including documenting the process to there. I the past months i did some minor test and tried to figure out how the light should be designed, which motors to use, how to interact and how to incorporate electronic. I did make a start with designing the frame but now it has all come together. To achieve all these thing in a short time time management is essential. I can not work with a hourly schedule to accomplish this task but i do have a clear understanding of the different parts that need to be done.

In my experience thing take always longer then expected. Sometimes because of own mistakes or sometimes because of errors in the process. Software that does not work, a 3d print that does not work straight awy, breaking milling bit with the pcb, debuggin etc.

I am eager to get the design ready as quick as possible. The construction of the servo’s installed in the arm is ready. My first priority is to create a heavy solid base so i can start testing the servo’s. When this is done i try to make the 3d printed headlight to be able to place the RGB led’s. In the same time i want to design the pcb board to be cut by the roland milling machine. My goal is to have the external design and pcb board ready and soldered by beginning next week so that i have one week the time for the electronics and coding. Which is for me the most challenge part of my final assignment.

A other challenge will be keep on documenting the whole proces. I find it easier to document when i am designing or programming since i am behind the computer working. When fabricating, soldering, testing, assembling, or troubleshooting it is much harder to do. This being said i learned from the fab academy it is crucial to keep doucmenting. First the information is still fresh and because of the constant time pressure falling behind in documenting is very hard to gets up.

I am motivated to finish the coarse and because of other obligations i like to finish as quick as possible. To achieve this i need to use these last two weeks also for intergating the feedback of my local and global instructor. the moment i receive feedback i want to reply to the feedback as quick as possible. Preferably even the same day.

The last two weeks i will take video’s and picture to use for my final presentation. The weekend before the nineteen i like to have the presentation video and slide done for the most part so that the last days i just have to add some addition information. A lot to do in a short time. Got to go. Back to work..