Greetings! In the 11 days since the last installment of “Building IT” a lot has happened but that doesn’t mean that the work has stopped. Building IT is quite a project. almost to the same level as the first pneumatic clown prop that I built. In some ways IT is a step back. When I retired in 2008, I thought that Halloween was going to be great but it wasn’t. I had “Jack” but the clown prop that I built was a horrible failure. For one thing, I started too late. The clown was supposed to come out of a box. It used and electric actuator that didn’t work well. He was slow and boring. Even so, the Halloween was still fun. I still had my trustworthy “Jack.”
I would put “Jack” the talking pumpkin out every year.
Jack was easy to set up and store. He consisted of foam and plastic pumpkin, a speaker, a microphone, and a 100 Watt voice modulated light bulb. On Halloween day I would pull out a single cardboard box and find my PA amp. I covered a tall speaker with an old moth eaten tablecloth so it could double as Jack’s stand. Jack would sit on his speaker by the door and I would talk to the trick-or-treaters thought he PA system. I could see them through a darkened window and a microphone placed near Jack allowed me to hear them. Some kids would come back after Trick-or-treating just to talk. Jack has been with us since the seventies. We moved to Tucson in 2000 and Jack came with us. The kids that used to talk with Jack on Halloween night in the early 2000’s are now bringing their kids but it’s not just Jack anymore. Jack has friends now!
Building IT is quite a project and projects need to be divided into individual tasks. Some tasks are easy or familiar because I’ve done them before. Some tasks are unfamiliar and challenging. These are the “hard stuff.” On the other hand, there are familiar tasks that must be accomplished first. For example, I’ve built props in the past and building a box is something that might be considered easy or familiar. However I can’t mount the linear actuator which is rather challenging without the box to mount it to.
Today’s hard stuff is adding a voice to IT which involves using a couple of circuit modules that I’ve never used before. ***work***work***…I’m back and it wasn’t as tough as it could have been. The Adafruit Audio FX sound board and the audio amplifier worked just as advertised. What’s next?
The IT build continues. I spent some quality time in my workshop today and got to fiddle a bit with my newest Halloween prop. It is usual for these types of projects to break things first and I had to tear up my new clown decoration. It was necessary to remove his “bones” so that the arms would collapse when sinking into the toilet. It took a bit of work but I got it to function. It’s going to take some finishing work but at least now I know that what I’m trying to do is at least possible.
I had to counter balance the toilet lid. The automotive power antenna that I’m using to raise the clown isn’t very strong. The clown’s head will push the lid open. A cord attached to the clown’s neck will make the lid close down when the antenna retracts. It would have been easy to use the clown decoration as it came out of the store if I didn’t require it to pass through a toilet seat but the seat was available and my builds are more fun if I upcycle or at least save material from going to the landfill. Besides, I think the toilet seat adds to the idea that the clown resides in the sewers.
The normal (starting) position of the clown will be standing in the toilet. Once triggered, the clown will drop down and make room for the jumping spider to slide over the toilet seat. It will then jump at the observer. You can see a video of the clown sinking and rising 
It looks a bit like I’m building an outhouse. I had a good building day. It started with drawing up plans—the best laid plans of mice and men…as they say.
The first priority was to get an overall size for the box. The prop will contain a clown that ducks down in a toilet seat. It will also include a jumping spider that I bought from the Spirit store. The front of the prop will have the toilet seat and clown. The rear will have the jumping spider. The height of the box was determined by the dimensions of the linear actuator that will lift the clown and toilet lid. The width is determined by the size of the jumping spider’s base and the length is determined by the distance that the spider will move forward before it jumps at the viewer.
I had enough 1×4 lumber on hand to build the frame like structure that will hold the toilet seat. Once again the compound miter saw came in handy along with the biscuit joiner. I applied glue and went out to do other things.
Everything was going so well up to this point but it was time to prove out the old adage about “best laid plans.” Adjustments will have to be made. Originally, I was going to have the spider come out of the rear of the prop at an angle but trial fitting the remaining components and considering the strength of the automotive radio aerial that I’m using as a linear actuator, caused me to revisit the plan. It’s not unusual, of course. Also, I know with confidence that I can make a Spirit prop move horizontally since I built a doghouse for a jumping dog prop that I bought from the Spirit store in 2015. Besides, it will make the build simpler.
The final steps will involve automating the prop after all the parts are assembled and manually tested.
This should be the first part of a series. Here are some of the items I’ve collected 
so far for the build:
Now I have to review the situation and make sure that all the rash things that I said when the failure first happened are fair. I’m a scientific Skeptic and would like to think that I judge things fairly. In my first “
Today is Labor Day. It is the traditional end of summer and a chance to escape from reality, apparently. In Atlanta Georgia people attend 
most of the attendees and the crowd at Burning Man is a bit younger. I might be getting 
too old to attend that event but as I write this, I’m reminded that I didn’t report on the one national event that I did attend—The 
Of course my pathetic little R2 looked small compared to their highly detailed full sized models but they put it on display front and center.
I took a stroll out on my favorite path yesterday. In an effort to keep myself fit (and sane) I try and walk four miles per day. Lately, I’ve settled on a path that runs around the whole of Tucson. It’s called The Loop. Mainly it is a bicycle path but it’s also for pedestrians. It has the advantage of being away from vehicular traffic. It is well maintained and I particularly like the fact that it has trash cans located along the path. 
It’s back to the workshop and I couldn’t be happier. Years ago right after retirement, I drew up plans for a workshop. It is 12 x 24 feet, attached to the house, and finished so that it matches complete with cement tiles and stucco siding. There are French doors on both ends—one set opens to the front yard and the other opens to the back yard. There are no windows. Instead there are two 3×4 foot skylights. Sitting next to the holes in the ceiling are two 4 bulb high pressure fluorescent light fixtures that provide lighting when the skylights can’t. A large number of wall sockets are scattered around the workspace 4 foot from the floor. Most important for a Tucson based workshop is the 220V AC/Heat unit mounted high on the wall.
LEDs or other electronic components are usually bought in bulk and on-sale. Surplus houses often have a wide variety of useful stuff but you can’t guarantee that it will be always readily available. So FedEx, USPS, and UPS trucks often visit my house throughout the year and stuff starts to stack up. Regular readers of this blog know that I built 
Finally, I was able to sit down and concentrate. The resulting owls may be part of a computerized display or they may be placed in random locations. I haven’t decided yet but they’re cool and I’m ready to move on to more challenging builds.
We are indeed living in “interesting times!”
Normalcy returns. Yesterday, the Sears repair technician came to the house with a new compressor for my Kenmore Elite (LG) refrigerator. He left a mere 3 hours later and my behemoth stainless steel kitchen decoration has the potential once again to be a useful appliance. Of course, it won’t be fully graduated to that status until the ice maker bin is once again full of those half-moon shaped gems that make life in the Arizona Desert bearable. Tony, the very courteous and understanding Sears technician sublimated my pure hatred of anything from Sears and anything made in Korea into now guarded optimism that, at least for a time, life in the Lacey house can resume as before.
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