- I intend to make a video that shows me creating a working project.
- I will post the video on the element14 Community by the submission deadline
- If my video is one of the top 10 finalists I will receive $500 for my video
Hello all of the element14 Community, my name is A.J. and I have been around electronics for a very long time. My background basically started with the older computer variety of 386s and working on them to find the vintage parts at the time to make them work again. I was always in the computer repair field for some time and had and had a big fleet of these old systems including my old IBM PS/2 model 70 let alone my dad's old Commodore SX-64 which I had decked out with 300bps modem and working GEOS OS which I was very proud of and though was pretty amazing. Most of the experience that I have has really come from my dad, he's been running an RF radio communications shop for now closer to 50 years and we are still engineering lots of Kenwood NXDN repeater systems and now even trying with DMR (Digital Mobile Radio). It was likely only a matter of time before the electronics bug was going to rub off on me seeing that the computer repair field was rather saturated and not much was coming from it.
I wanted to learn electronics back in 2008, though I had the practical experience with my dad for some time now, and I formally tried with DeVry, but unfortunately that fell through. By 2011 I had settled on the Cleveland Institute of Electronics with their Bachelors of Electronics Engineering Technology program and slowly making progress to achieving that in a formal sense. Outside of that, most oft the projects I have made are inspired by things I have liked or just find plain interesting to do. Many were based on Adafruit, which was the first hobbyist site I came across and was able to make and replicate some of their projects, if not putting my own spin to them. Still the best one on my own that I am working on on and off definitely is my UAV Tricopter which I am thankful had worked and left the ground. More shaking down is needed, but I am glad I just got that far.
With work for my dad full time, I am also part of the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, and sometimes do carry out support missions for the station where I am currently. So far that does entail being a communications watchstander, which is basically alerting the crew to emergencies on the lake to answering phones and piping messages in a basic sense. I have been with them for nine years going on ten in September of this year, but the good thing is that I will never be rotated out and likely be the history of that station.
So with that small introduction there, what project could I likely make? Well I do have the parts for one so far and it would be complex.
I had bought a resin fiberglass shell and the aluminum back-plane for an original Ghostbusters proton pack.
This has been in my closet for quite some time, however, I have the 3D printed parts I have made plus the working MP3 sound triggering boards to the LEDs and associated sound effects to play when triggered
I don't know how original or if this is something to be allowed, I just know it's laying here on my floor as we speak and I feel would be and excellent project to do, document and film seeing most videos show-off such a project but do show how to make one if one were to do this for a cosplay event or some sci-fi con. I believe I could do this within the two weeks mentioned. It should be a fun build between the 3D printing, wiring and soldering of electronics and let alone some of the programming for the sound effects to all interconnect to make a working proton pack.
