Flicker, flicker!

The dreamachine is finished - at least the cylinder is, I have yet to put the apparatus together and test it (and I will leave that until after dark, for optimal effect). I used Paul Cecil's plan as a guide, although I drew my own version in Flash for neatness (and to save printer ink - why did you colour the bits to be discarded in solid black, Paul? lol...)

The flash took maybe 15 minutes, the hole cutting a total of probably ~2.5 hours, and the reinforcement (not part of the plan) another 1.5 or so. Not too bad, although the blister on my thumb wishes to comment otherwise. I promised more photos, so here they are...

Ongoing hole cutting - it occurred to me that it would be much easier to score the holes through the guide paper then remove it and go over the scorings without the paper in the way, rather than trying to press hard enough to cut the card fully first time. G'duh.

The completed cylinder (stapled together), but as the inset shows, not very circular. I decided to build a circular base plate to regularise the shape.

This proved taxing when I realised I had no compasses - so I ended up going for a very old-school method. All in all, I was pretty pleased with the result, shown below:

I added 2cm tabs round the edge and cut the base out, then used tacks to approximately secure it to the cylinder - the erasers are seating the tacks so I can move the thing around without them popping out.

I taped the base inside and out to secure it, but the shape of the top of the cylinder was barely improved. I was rather glad at this point that I'd drawn around the base before attaching it in case I screwed it up somehow - I could use the second circle as a top plate without needing to return to bits of string. I nearly managed to do exactly that before remembering one has to hang a lightbulb through the top, so a brief quest yielded a teacup of sufficient size to draw around for a central opening.

Finally after attaching the top piece it's finished:

I was rather pleased the reinforcement circles fit so well - the top is a little cramped (odd, since it was the larger circle) but for the products of a rough pi * d in my head, they were rather good. The cylinder is now round enough to roll for a good distance in a straight line, which is good enough for me.

I'm looking forward to giving this a whirl tonight. >:D

On a side note, I've started another modafinil experiment... it seems less effective than when I tried last year, but that's n=1 at the moment obviously. We shall see.

Peripheral comment: embedding images in Blogger doable, but tedious and lengthy.