The Christmas spirit is strong with these two

I've always wanted to make a Jedi costume. There, I've said it. Can't fly your geek flag any higher than that. I don't belong to any sort of Star Wars fandom guild, nor do I care to join one, so that pretty much narrows down the opportunity to wear said costume to Halloween. Problem is, I usually wait too long and any involved costume idea is relegated to the following year which then repeats itself unto infinity.  This year was no different but at least I was motivated enough to start researching the idea a little. At the time, I was also brainstorming Christmas card and Santa suit bar crawl ideas. That's when a vision of the Santa Jedi hit me. Take the getup Obi Wan wears in the prequels, color it red and that's pretty much what the typical Santa wears minus a little fuzziness. So it was early November and the Santa Suit Bar Crawl was on December 1st. The race was on. Not only was I going to made a Santa Jedi costume for myself, I roped my wife into the idea as well. Her desire to make me happy apparently has no bounds. BTW, The picture above was used in our Christmas card.

Your basic Obi Wan Jedi get-up has 6 parts.  This doesn't include his light saber which I will discuss later.

• Knee high boots
• Thick Utility Belt and Obi combo
• Baggy Pants
• Under Tunic
• Outer Tunic
• Tabbards

I sourced the knee high boots and baggy red pants from Amazon. They were surprisingly high in quality for the money. The boots came with a fabric shin guard that was held on by three straps.  I liked the way the extra piece looked but not the way it was loosely attached and allowed to shift around. I used black fabric tacks to secure it in place  and hot glue on the inside of the boot to make sure the tacks didn't go anywhere.  My wife already had some fancy "on the town" boots so that worked out nicely.

The faux leather belts were not going to be as easy to acquire. I had to make my own but got some great tips from this tutorial (warning: PDF link). You can get a great idea of what I did from the picture below. An essential tool here was the leather punch kit I picked up from Amazon for about 5 bucks. You're basically hammering a large hollow nail through your desired material. Definitely took a bit of practice on some scrap but once I got the hang of it, smooth sailing. Much of a typical Jedi outfit is borrowed from traditional Samurai attire so with this in mind, the belt is often worn over an Obi or formal waist sash. This was relatively  easy to make from a long rectangular swath of fabric.

The Jedi tunic is basically a shortened bathrobe so I bought a bathrobe pattern, left off the belt loops and added a little trim to the sleeves and hem. I wanted my wife and I to have slightly differing costumes so I gave her red trim around the collar and lengthened her robe to resemble more of a dress than tunic. I also left off the tabbards to give it a more feminine look.

Ah the lightsaber, an essential part of any good Jedi costume. I already had a rather inexpensive Darth Vader replica hilt with telescoping red saber and was actually playing with it when I got the whole costume idea. Like I said, it was kinda cheep so a little modification was necessary if it was going to be ready for prime time. The main problem was brightness. The stock incandescent bulb and AA batteries weren't cutting it.  I needed something with a little more kick. I completely disassembled the saber and gutted the housing.  I replaced the battery pack with a 900 mA hour lithium polymer battery and the bulb with a 3 watt white LED. I easily upped the perceived brightness by about tenfold. It may have been slightly overkill considering the large slug of  aluminum necessary to help dissipate the heat. I also painted the inside of the hilt white to help channel the light into the saber portion. This new excess of light was also a problem for the fogged plastic window about half the way up the hilt. Too much light was shining through the window so I made a custom PCB that blocks the light and replaces it with six small red LED's that scan back and forth.  Definitely adds some cool factor.  In a mostly dark room, these bright red fully extended sabers really made the costumes look legit.

The only thing really missing from this ensemble is the full length jedi robe. With a little more effort I could have pulled something together but ultimately decided against it  for a couple of reasons. It probably would have been to cumbersome in crowded bars and the rest of the costume looked so good, I didn't want to cover it up. That and the cost. Man, decent fabric can get expensive!

Sometimes you feel like a nut.

This Halloween costume idea wasn't an original creation. The concept came from internet research but I executed the design and construction. The cutting and sewing was pretty straight forward, however I do have a couple tips that seem obvious after the fact. Firstly, where men are usually roundest around the chest and stomach, women are typically laid out in different proportions.  Keep this in mind whilst essentially making a fabric tube.  Secondly, my initial design called out for cutting the small "Peter Paul" lettering out of fabric.  If you want to keep your sanity, do not attempt such a thing.  I made a stencil and used white fabric paint. If not pressed for time, I probably would have laser cut some 1/32" acrylic for the stencil but exacto-ing out some card stock did the trick.  Here is a bonus tip... hot glue! I tried attaching the larger brown letters with spray adhesive but that basically turned into really weak velcro.  Hot glue is your friend. If you don't already have a dispenser, I'd highly recommend picking one up. I personally like the 1/4" sticks the best but I do more fine touch gluing so that makes sense for me.

I get a kick out of putting together coupley type costumes. The trick is finding something that has most of its impact together but still works well on its own. My favorite part of these costumes was the public discourse they inspired. Almost everyone we passed by had a very strong opinion on what candy they liked more. I brought a bag of Almond Joys with me just in case they didn't see things my way ;)

Electropong is going to change everything

I've been playing beer pong for the better part of 20 years. During that time, the tried and true setup and rules of the game really haven't changed that much. Why mess with a classic. Sure there have been many variations on the table used, certain house rules that one needs to entertain, and everyone has there own style of toss; but the core essence of the game has stood the test of time. I'm looking to shake that up a bit.  Introducing Electropong!

Feel like playing beer pong during the winter months but your brew freezes before you get a chance to throw. Wanna play inside but your significant other will raise hell if you get beer on the new carpet. Tired of wondering what germs you're passing around drinking out of the same cups everyone else is. Electropong may be just the game you're looking for.

Alright, I'm not here to give you the sales pitch, I just thought it would be neat to build an electronic beer pong game. It's very much like the electronic darts game machine you might find at a bar. Two teams play on one unit and hit the "swap team" button to cycle their turn. The color of the cups and the LED display keep track of which team is currently throwing. Each of the six cups has a RGB LED embedded inside and a hole at the bottom so a 40mm ping pong ball can pass through it. Under the cup base, the enclosure houses six IR interrupters, a 9V AC/DC power supply, a custom LED driver board (recycled from an old project) and a custom PCB that controls everything. In addition, there are three arcade style buttons on the front face that also have RGB LED's lighting them up. The display in the back is an off the shelf Betabrite scrolling LED matrix and above that are two mini beacons I got from Woot! The control board has a PIC18F6622 micro-controller that reads in all the IR interrupter inputs, talks to the LED matrix display, does PWM for the LED drivers, toggles the beacons and keeps track of the game play. I think that pretty much sums up the hardware section.

The real magic happens in the software. You can play games on Electropong that wouldn't be possible with the traditional setup. For instance, a popular game with my guests has been "king of the hill" where teams go head to head on the same board and try to be the first to light up three cups of their color. This game tends to go faster than regular pong and is a good fit for people who want to play a quick game and get back to the party. I'd still like to add one or two more games so if anyone has an idea, please leave a comment.

The construction of this game definitely wasn't without it's challenges. An un-tethered Solo Cup with about two ounces of beer in it sitting on a wet surface has some mechanical dampening properties that are difficult to simulate. At first, the cups on Electropong were rigidly fastened to the base with four screws. This caused the ping pong balls thrown at them to ricochet off dramatically. Turns out, the necessary shock absorption system was built right into the cups themselves. About a quarter inch of the outside diameter of the cup base sits squarely on the ground while the rest of the base is raised about an eighth inch. The screws attaching the cups were pressing this raised portion down so backing the screws out a little allowed the cups freedom to pivot a bit. However, in doing so, the imprecise holes I made in the cups allowed too much movement and they ended up not lining up correctly.  I fixed this by laser cutting a donut shaped spacer that fits in between the screw heads and the bottom of the cup. This locked the cup in place and still allowed it to pivot, effectively dampening the force of the ball against the cup.  The second significant challenge was reigning in the size of the unit, especially the height.  If the cups were offset too much from the table top, they would look awkward and the game-play would suffer. However, I still needed to concoct a ball return system. I ended up cutting away some of the base and putting the ball return ramp in its place. Had to go back to my junior high school trig skills to figure out the angles. I was very proud of myself.

Purists will object to certain aspects of the game that have been taken away like the rush of having to drink from a selected cup but I think I have made up for that with the additional games and the spectacle of lights. I don't want to compete with the traditional game, I want to add to it.  But hey, my party guests really seem to like it. I guess that's what matters most.

Oh, one more thing. There is a reason the cups are black. Aside from the obvious styling advantage, I needed to go with black so the light from the LED wouldn't bleed out through the cup. I initially wanted red cups but any hint of red light would make them glow like a lantern. And I think black makes the game look cooler, what do you think?

Networked Betabrite and a better party music solution

Home-brew Ethernet to RS-232 converter

For a recent party, I was looking for a better solution to my current audio setup and happened across a reconditioned Apple Airport Express on the web. While it has many features, I primarily wanted it for streaming music via iTunes on the ol laptop to my stereo receiver over the home network. With WiFi enabled I can locate the computer anywhere in the house I want. And I can control the playlist with the remote app on my iPhone. Got it, hooked it up, and everything worked great... but something was missing.

For the same party, I was planning to set up my Betabrite scrolling LED sign to display a few generic messages such as the contents of the kegerator and a couple birthday wishes.  I quickly realized how boring the repetition would be.  You really must have continual content updates to keep the public's attention. Hmmm, maybe I should heed my own advice with this blog ;) I've seen other people scroll twitter updates and directed text messages to their betabrites but I don't currently have their programming chops so I opted to gobble up some local data.

I thought I would be neat to combo the new sound system with the display and scroll the currently playing song title and artist on the betabrite.  I had two weeks before the party, plenty of time right? There were challenges.

Challenge number one, hardware. In a nutshell, I needed an Ethernet to serial (RS-232) converter so I could connect the Betabrite directly to my router.  You can buy a quality unit for around a hundred dollars but a quick trip to the spare parts bin yielded a bounty that would get me most of the way there. The heavy lifting is done with a Lantronix XPORT Embedded Ethernet Device Server. I'm a big fan of these little guys.  It has many features but for this project I only utilized its UART (serial) output. On the PC side, you can use vendor provided software to create a virtual com port eliminating the need to fool with setting up a socket connection. The XPORT outputs TTL level signals but the betabrite sign requires +/-15V (RS-232) so I needed to gin up a proto board with a level shifter on it. As luck would have it, I made such a board for a previous project.  After tossing in a 3.3V linear regulator to power the XPORT, the hardware was complete.
 
Challenge number two, software. This was by no means trivial, I dabble in the medium at best. From a past project I already had a little C++ code that talks to the serial port so I decided to start there. The next logical steps were to gather up relevant information from iTunes, format said info, and write it out to the Betabrite. On a Mac, interacting with iTunes is native but Windows plays with iTunes a little differently. It uses the COM object interface to handle the data exchange. Thank goodness for Google and online example code.  The only real trick was setting up the Visual C++ dependencies correctly and getting all the various updates and whatnot working.  Looking through forums for semi-useful and somewhat relevant information is tedious. I'll provide the code and environment setup instructions upon request.  Writing to the Betabrite also proved to be a bit tricky. I had the programming guide along with some sample scripts but I still had to snoop the serial data from the vendor software to figure out the ins and outs of the protocol. You can never underestimate the importance of a good technical writer.

Having the Betabrite display update with the currently playing song turned out to be a hit with the party goers.  I'll have to make it permanent fixture for future gatherings. Maybe I can even get some tweets up there next time.

You say potato, I say evil

I implored onto my friend, and that day's frymaster, that there was evil in the bag of smiley face potatoes he was preparing to dump into the cauldron of boiling hot peanut oil. "Nonsense" he exhausted as droplets of the oil nipped at his un-gloved hand. He would be sorry...

Learning to surf in Barbados

Surfing has always been an activity I've wanted to try in my adult life.  A major stumbling block in this endeavor, up to now, has been opportunity.  Unlike skiing, surfing isn't something the novice generally designs a vacation around.  At least I've never thought about it.  I live reasonably close to the Delaware and Maryland Beaches but body surfing and sun soaking has always been the name of the game out there. That and I have yet to witness people getting any sort of instruction on the beach. Trust me, a good lesson is key.

Deb and I took a trip out to Barbados recently to visit a friend and stumbled upon a little free time during our last day there. Actually we had the whole day to ourselves and I pushed for surfing lessons pretty hard.  My wife was quite nervous about the idea partly because she didn't know whether she could do it or not. I'll give you one guess who the better surfer turned out to be.  It must be because she's shorter. By the way, this video is pretty much all you need to know about Barbados.  Remember what I told you about a good lesson. Well, the instructor is a big part of that. I can't imagine a better guide than Jonathan (Jona) from Barry's Surf Barbados Surf School.  He had us up on the board almost immediately.  It was apparent after watching other instructors on the beach that we lucked out.

I picked this video because I think it best captures the proper technique to successfully stand up on a long board.  That and it's the only video I had. The hardest part for me was remembering to look up toward the beach.  Your tendency is the check out your feet placement after standing up but that will almost assuredly put you in the ocean. I'm a little wobbly there at the end but to my defense, it was my third time out that day and the sea was rough my friends. Well, rough for a land lover. Definitely something everyone should try at least once.

My first foray into the modern cooking movement

Holding steady at 140° F

I started cooking a lot more when I met my wife. And by that I mean I helped her when she cooked. I was still a relative novice but wanted to learn. The really tricky part was figuring out where to start. We realized early on that our styles where quite different which led to a few clashes in the kitchen.  Mostly because I asked way too many questions. Deb cooks more on taste and feel and I want to know what's going on under the hood. I discovered a book called Cooking for Geeks which, as you can probably tell, spoke to me immediately. It dives into the chemistry and physics of cooking right away and delivers it in an easily understood manner. I was particularly enthralled with the chapter on Sous Vide cooking. Not only was the science noteworthy but the hardware involved was also of particular interest to me. Unfortunately the cheapest commercially available unit costs in the range of $400. Okay, I was gonna build one before I even knew the price tag.

Sous Vide, pronounced "Sue Veed", is a way of cooking food by submerging it in a very accurate temperature controlled water bath. The food is vacuum sealed in a plastic bag to keep the water out and keep the moisture and aromas in. This method eliminates any chance of overcooking the meal and ensures that it is heated evenly throughout.  You get a perfectly done steak or piece of fish every time. More about that later though.

With pretty much all of my projects, I like to start off by scouring the internet to get a good idea of what's already out there. I found this little gem on Make and figured it was a great place to begin. The design revolves around a PID controller which continually reads in the water bath temperature with a k type thermocouple and cycles three heating elements either on or off based on the current temperature, rate of temperature change and distance from desired temperature.  Normally it would be a lot cooler if I made my own controller but for $30, it was hard to beat the off the shelf unit they spec'd.

Sheet Metal Work

I was't a fan of the enclosure they used so I leveraged my meager metal working skills and made my own.  Making cut outs in 1/8" aluminum is not fun. After cutting a series of smaller holes on the drill press, I filed down the inner edges to make them flat and smooth. To make the box, I bent all the side walls toward each other and used epoxy where they met on the inside to secure them in place. More grinding was necessary to round off the joints.  This was the most time consuming portion of the project. Took a few iterations of sanding and priming to get the edges just right.  I was quite please with how they turned out.  Like the paint job?  Gotta thank my pal Tommy S. for the inspiration. How better to paint a slow cooker than with racing stripes. Check out the nod to the French racing blue Renault Clio 182.

I think it's time to talk performance and results. The controller and associated thermocouple kept the water bath temperature within two tenths of a degree of the set temp.  That's more than accurate enough for the purpose of this machine. And when heating up room temp water, it can add enough energy to increase the temp of about two gallons of water approximately 2°F per minute. That's not great but considering the water coming out of the tap can reach about 130°F, you really don't have to wait too long.

Perfect medium rare steak

I decided to start the real testing with something easy, a couple of 5oz filet mignon steaks. Flanked the meal with some roasted yukon golds and sauteed broccoli. I set the immersion cooker at 140°F, vacuum sealed up the meat (covered in a little garlic, thyme, olive oil, salt and pepper) and let it cook  for an hour and fifteen minutes. As a result of cooking at a relatively low temperature, the browning reactions normally associated with a steak will not take place. This is easily overcome with some quick searing action on a smoking hot cast iron skillet. Around 45 seconds a side should do it. As you can see in the picture above, the steak is cooked evenly throughout. I also verified with a thermometer that the meat was a perfect 140°F. A little moisture was left over in the bag but not enough to really matter. The resultant steak was extremely tender and juicy.  

The obvious drawback to this style of cooking is the long cook times necessary to neutralize any bacteria present in the food. Bacteria will die within minutes at 160°F but it takes considerable longer at lower temperatures. There are many guides available to aide you with these calculations. I don't mind the long lead.  My thinking is, where's the fire baby? Life is to be simmered and enjoyed.  Sous Vide isn't for every meal but it does add another interesting preparation option in the kitchen and a good one at that. I'm looking forward to further experimentation and more delicious food.