atoms&electrons

One of my favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone is “It’s a Good Life.” In it, Billy Mumy plays a 6-year old with godlike powers. Anything he can think of he can instantly materialize and transform, whether they be objects, animals or even some unfortunate people. Whether it’s a gopher with two heads, a jack-in-the-box toy made out of one of the neighbors, or an impromptu snow-storm, all Billy has to do is imagine it and it happens.

I have many random memories from my childhood – one of them is the time my mom and I tie-dyed some T-Shirts together.

The sentence that you just read, while being completely true, is also potentially a shining jewel of disinformation. Having read it you may have imagined me and my hippie mom barefooted and doing our tie-dying, stopping only to flip over the Janis Joplin record that was playing. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Following up on my flea market score earlier in the weekend I decided to assemble my treasures into something useful…or at least just into something period. By the end of Sunday night I was the proud owner of a 1-axis CNC plotter. It completely automates the process of drawing straight lines along a fixed axis :).

The eventual goal is to build a plotter/CNC that is actually useful, but you’ve got to start somewhere.