Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Making Fun: Sneetches Machine”.
In his story about the sneetches, dr seuss demonstrates the absurdity of prejudice and discrimination. At my house we read the sneech’s book often, but i figured it would be fun and possibly educational to have a more tangible manifestation of them. I contemplated several methods of adding and removing the stars, such as dry erase, markers or washable stamp pads. Mechanical methods seem prone to error, though i decided it would be simplest to have an electronic star that i could just turn on or off enter the attiny 85 microcontroller to remotely control the star we’ll use a system with which most folks are familiar, infrared each sneach Will choose a random star state when it’s turned on both the star on and star off machines will be nothing more than fancy housings for a constant beam of infrared. When the sneech passes through each machine and senses, the infrared, it will toggle its star and then stop sensing long enough to get out of the machine before toggling again.
To start, we’ll need a source of infrared light modulated at 38 kilohertz to trigger our sneach’s ir detectors. I happen to have this board sitting around in a robotic car i built if you’re short on parts or patients. A television remote control will also work in dr seuss’s book. The machines are quite convoluted and consist of multiple levels.
My design takes some artistic license. Simplifying the path of this niche down to a smoothly lined inner track made from a plastic rain gutter rather than fiddle with a conveyor belt and elevators. We’Ll move our sneetches through the machine by putting the entrance higher than the exit and shaking them through. We could draw up detailed plans, including all dimensions, but since the rain gutter is the basis of each machine, a rough sketch will be enough to start and we’ll trace and measure parts as we go so with a fair bit of cutting gluing, nailing, sanding and caulking. We are finally ready to paint our machines. The infrared led must be mounted such that its beam will hit the ir receiver on each passing sneetch.
We need to make sure that the infrared signal doesn’t leak out of the openings, though or it will trigger sneetches that are not in the machines. I found that a piece of gaffer’s tape below the led kept the infrared signal from bouncing all the way out, someday i’ll write, a poem on the wonders of hot glue. If dr seuss had had blinking leds, i’m sure he would have used them. We could just mount the machines on a slope and declare them finished, but the book specifically mentions bonking, clunking, burking and jerking a mechanism to accomplish that will not only make the machines more authentic but more fun as well.
I cut a pair of cams out of plywood as well as mounts for a shaft that will connect them to the crank that turns them. We can achieve a nifty alternating action. By setting the cam’s out of phase the entrances will be hinged on the uphill side. So they remain relatively easy to access, while the exits are bonking and clunking. With our sar on and star off machines finished, all we need are some sneetches to send through them. My preferred material for this sort of off-the-cuff manufacturing is expanded.
Pvc sheets, i use the cad program to create a template for drilling and cutting a glue. Stick is just strong enough to hold the template on, while still being easy to wash off later, it’s safer to drill all the holes in the big piece before cutting it into smaller pieces. I think of my scroll saw as a poor man’s laser cutter.
The sanding takes longer than the cutting plastic easter eggs will make excellent housings for the electronics to make the batteries easily replaceable we’ll incorporate the joint as well when the led inside the sneetch lights up. We want a star shape to show we’ll use black construction paper to keep the light from hitting the parts that are not a star to hide the inactive star on sneeches without stars, i found yellow post-it notes the same color as my yellow sintra, hot glue, bonds. Well, to both of these materials there’s an assembled version of the sneetch circuit.
I showed you earlier. The parts will just barely fit in the egg. The power switch peeks out a hole in the back.
The eggs happen to let enough infrared light through that we can mount our ir receiver inside without cutting a viewport once the electronics are mounted. These spindly bird blades are going to need help holding everything up it’s time for a test run when this niche was powered on, she randomly decided to have no star on her belly, we’ll send her through the star-on machine to give her a star. Look at that now she has a star. Perhaps she’s changed her mind, though, and already wants to get rid of her star into the star off machine with her, and now she is starless. The sneetches can teach us a valuable lesson and also happen to be fun. The whole family can enjoy scrounge yourself some parts and make your own while you’re at it see what other of dr seuss’s thing with jigs you can bring to life. Just promise me, you won’t make the super axe hacker .