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Kit Log #008: Partial progress on Super Bright Lights

Kit Log #008: Partial progress on Super Bright Lights

by | Dec 12, 2019 | News, Progress Logs

We received the components for three Super Bright Lights kits, except for the LEDs. The packing list is complete, except for the 3D printed enclosure and the fasteners. Apparently we have not yet designed an enclosure for this board. Looking at the other Bowies around, the backs of this board was covered with electrical tape with the rest exposed. Guess we never got around to it then, but now is the time when we need to make it.

The progress today was measuring out the wire, cutting it, packaging the three kits. We then moved on to the motors. The progress on the motors today was: 1) taking count of the pieces needed to print before proceeding, 2) measuring the wires and cutting it. A few steps were written on the Bowie Brain Kit assembly instructions. More will be written tonight, following this update.

As you see, there’s only 1 image in the gallery, however there are actually 5 images to show. During the day, time was spent on trying to make media uploads to our website more reliable. Behind the scenes work that doesn’t directly impact the kits, but is still necessary. For example, when trying to upload the 5 images to this gallery, none of them worked the 1st time or 2nd time, giving an obscure ‘HTTP Error’ – which is without an error code. Currently 80% of the time used to make these updates is spent on figuring out how to upload images without error, which doesn’t lend itself to quick logs. Enough errors, gotta go work on the enclosure now. [Edit: Just made it work and all 5 are uploaded.]

Kit Log #007: Lists, Preparation

Kit Log #007: Lists, Preparation

by | Dec 11, 2019 | News, Progress Logs

The log for today brings lists and preparation, not so much any hands-on electronics. Today we caught up with the Bowie Power Pack kits by making the packing list, and printing it for all 10 kits. As well, there is the wiring diagram that is included. Most of the time when making the packing list goes in to cross checking and making sure multiple lists are up to date – between excel, the packing list, what was actually packed, and scribbles across various sticky notes. As well, the packing lists have images of each part, and making or finding those images takes time.

Today also meant that since the Power Pack kit is nearing completion, then we can look at one of the next ones, which is the Super Bright Lights kit. Parts were ordered for this. Preparation started by checking and improving the bill of materials and making the packing list. The next one after Super Bright Lights kit will be the Motor kit, some preparation went in to this too.

Juggling back and forth between excel, pages, photoshop, 3d printer slicers, and finder can sometimes be chaotic. The photos below capture the seemingly un-chaotic aspect of this.

The reason why there are a few kit logs skipped (started at #003, this is now #007) is because there are a few steps in between then and now. These are:

004 = power pack assembly – gone wrong
005 = power pack assembly – right this time
006 = power pack kit packing progress

They’ll be added in some time. That’s all for now, it’s 60 seconds until “tomorrow”, and now it’s time to get ready for taking the Super Bright Lights kit assembly photos tomorrow.

Kit Log #003: Packing Bowie Brain Kit Demos

Kit Log #003: Packing Bowie Brain Kit Demos

by | Dec 10, 2019 | News, Progress Logs

Welcome to these Bowie Kit progress log updates. We’re going to show you behind the scenes of how we are progressing on documentation and preparing Bowie Kits. In this log, we are packing the Bowie Brain Kit. What we did was organized all the components necessary for a Bowie Kit into a box. We also found packaging for the boxes at Dollarama that would fit, the colour was a pleasant surprise. The labels were made by laser cutting bristol board and taping them to the box. The delicate components are placed inside the bottom enclosure. The Bowie Brain circuit board is added on top, then the motor connectors. The top enclosure is added, and this then gets wrapped. After that, it goes into the box. The packaging fluff stuff is recycled from Digikey. The loose components are labelled and go in to yet another recycled Digikey bag. The packing list is then added on top, with some more recycled packing fluff stuff.

Check out the photos with captions below in the image gallery to see the process of packing of the kit.

 

That’s all for now. We’re starting the kit log at #003, but there were a couple of steps before this one. We don’t know how long it will take until the kit is finished, so that’s why there’s space for 999 logs in the numbering of the title. Hopefully it won’t take 999. The logs are to be written quickly, like as if it were a captains log on a spacecraft during a long journey. Stay tuned for more kit logs. We will probably have a contest at some point to guess how many logs it will take until *everything* for version 1.0 is on the store.