projects

drawing machine arduino drawing machine

objective plotters seem to have vanished in many professional environments. most drawings are printed on inkjet or laser printers. that is unfortunate since it is quite mesmerizing to watch a flatbed plotter bring a technical drawing to paper. cheap homemade plotters are quite popular among makers. these devices require a computer to send motion commands […]

synchro drive robot

objective the objective was to build a low cost robot drive system by using mostly 3d printed parts and standard stepper motors. several motion systems for the positioning of a robot exist. among them are systems that use ackermann steering, differential drive, synchro drive, mecanum wheels, omni wheels and others. the synchro drive is what […]

bear on snow pile, non-circular gear

objective to design a non-circular gear model of a bear on a snow pile (sort of). prototype the prototype of this gear consists of several parts. all parts were 3d printed on an fdm 3d printing machine using pla. the bear gear can be rotated via the knurled knob on the backside. the bear drives […]

coinscansmall raspberry pi 3d coin scanner

why a 3d coin scanner? i’ve always been fascinated with coins. the images on coins are often very intricate and the metallic shine makes especially unused coins very beautiful. coin faces are sort of 3d objects compressed into an almost 2d representation with little loss of perceived depth (the coin design process might actually most […]

jet boat jet boat

objective design and build a simple rc jet boat using mostly 3d printed parts. design this is already the fourth design iteration of my rc boat project. the first two worked great in the bath tub. in the real world though the jets sucked in air and consequently lost thrust. the third iteration jet works fine […]

dakota yellow c-47 dakota, rc plane

historic the douglas dakota is an airplane that is well known in switzerland due to a plane that crash-landed onto gauli glacier in the bernese oberland in 1946. to this day remains of the airplane are occasionally recovered from the glacier. some of them are on display in innertkirchen. the dakota existed in several variants (c-47, […]

webcam raspberry pi webcam

objective online cameras are great. an up-to-date view often helps others in decision making when planning outdoor activities. most commercially available ip cameras are expensive, do not allow full customization, are big and some even require a subscription to access past data. a raspberry pi with camera is a viable alternative. the pre-installed python environment […]

sno explorer sno explorer, tracked rc vehicle

objective design and build a tracked rc vehicle using mostly 3d printed parts. prototype a new law regulating the use of larger rc quadcopters is looming over rc pilots in switzerland. this made me think about how i could reuse larger brushless motors in the future since i have many heavy models that will require some […]

historischer markt aarau 3d coin scanner

objective build a cheap 3d scanner to scan small objects, such as coins, at a very high resolution. scanning principle the scanner projects light onto the surface of an object such that it is partially illuminated. the transition from bright to dark is analyzed and a 3d section of the object is reconstructed via triangulation […]

switzerland european union switzerland – european union gear

objective the intent of the project was to develop an app that creates non-circular gears. the switzerland – european union gear demonstrates what it can do. prototype the prototype of the switzerland – european union gear consists of a 3d printed “swiss gear” and a laser cut internal “european union gear”. for simplicity the gears […]