Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Controlled Chaos: Etch-A-Sketch Coffee Table”.
This is my etch-a-sketch coffee table. The concept is really simple: you can draw on it just like an etch-a-sketch by rotating these knobs, a steel ball, bearing moves around in the sand, drawing a pattern kind of like what you’d see in a zen garden and to erase it all you have to do. Is give it a couple smacks on the side to build this table. I started with a piece of plywood that was just the right size. I didn’t even have to cut it.
I got it the right size from the hardware store i added to the bottom of that. The kind of bearing system that i made out of some chopped up pieces of pvc, a bolt and a few washers. This would allow the strings for my cable system to move freely. These strings were put in place. Some steel bars attached to them to move on my axes whenever i pulled on the strings and a little sliding piece connected those steel bars and acted.
As my central point where i would mount a magnet that would allow my steel ball bearing to move through the sand above the table after i got the strings and the axes in place, i added a kind of lip around the entire edge with a one inch Piece of wood, this would allow for a gap for the sand to sit on the table and the steel ball, bearing to move around on top of that wood that had a nice finish on it and cut it to the right sizes just to box. Everything in and make it look pretty, then i drilled through the entire thing and placed these dowel rods to be my controls with a furniture foot mounted to the top of those, because i thought they looked pretty a piece of plexiglass finishes. The whole thing up to give the final result. This thing is incredibly fun to use, but it will not turn you into a good artist. This was supposed to be the likeness of our maker faire robot, although it is difficult to discern. Luckily, it’s easy to erase one of the most fun parts of a do-it-yourself project like this is, of course hopping into the comment section and saying: why didn’t you do this or you could do this it’s great, but i think that i can make you work a Little bit harder by going through this whole project, really quick and pointing out the obvious things.
So, let’s rip it apart. Let’S start with the plexiglas. This is a thin sheet of plexiglass. It’S not perfect. Ideally, you’d want to use real glass. I got plexi because i was thinking about drilling holes in it for these on both sides and drilling through a sheet of glass without a drill. Press is a huge pain of the butt.
Ultimately, though, it would have been better off with a sheet of glass. Instead of plexi, this edge finish is horrible, i mean i could have at least removed. The sticker white sand would have been so much prettier, but all the local stores were sold out and i got impatient. I used poplar because it was dirt cheap. It was already beautifully smooth and i didn’t have to do anything to it – to make it look at least passably. Okay, i know leds are all the rage, but the truth is a t8 fluorescent bulb would have been more diffused and probably prettier. Putting sand on the post worked great, however, over time it’s going to destroy the string and that sand is going to rub off and get all over the floor. A rubber sleeve would have worked just as well lasted much longer and not destroyed the string.
These slick little pvc sliding sections here worked pretty well for this purpose, but they added friction that was unneeded. Ideally you’d use, an actual pulley even using strings in the first place. Wasn’T the best idea, as you get closer to the table, it sags, meaning your magnet is less effective and it doesn’t work as well. So you have to maintain constant tension on it. That’S why i have these springs even with the springs. It doesn’t work as well. In the middle of the table, ideally, you build a rigid gantry kind of like a cnc mill or 3d printer. You could even motorize it.
I had thought about motorizing it and even bought some motors that cheap drill that i used for the camera slider was to motorize this, but ultimately the idea of just being a big manual etch-a-sketch is what i liked. So there you go, there’s a list of things that you could do better and should do better. I want to hear what else you got you .