I've been messing about with the laser cutter.  Work has been busy over the last few months and we recently moved and are still trying to get organized, so in between work and projects (usually in the middle of the night) I try to refine my skills with the laser.  Recent work on that has led to the attached photos of a doorway.  I designed this in Inkscape (a good, free drawing program) and cut it out of Polybak and a Fiber One cereal box.  Polybak is a resin impregnated kraft paper used in furniture manufacturing, available by mail order at https://distributorservic

I have always wanted to add sounds to my layout and have been looking for a DIY approach, so I could have maximum flexibility.  I came across micro MP3 players on a website (usually in the context of an Arduino) and decided to see if I could make it work with a microchip.com microcontroller (in this case, a PIC16F15356).  I got it to work, which was pretty amazing.  The little MP3 player cost a whopping $1.89 from ebay and the microcontroller rang in at about $0.75,  The most expensive part is the micro SD card, but I think I might have a better solution for that . . .

First time I've ever tried to do this, so please let me know if I'm going about it all wrong!

Thought I would make a post about scratchbuilding this small workshop:

For the record, this is the very first complete scratchbuild I have ever done.  Ever.

CREATING THE DESIGN