Mostly printing stuff out, but nearly finished something...

Open University studying...

The work I put into my last assignment paid off, as I got 92% on it. I'm quite pleased with that. Especially since my last few have been coming in around the 70 to 80 % range. Not quite happy with that. :/
All I have to do now is complete the last study Unit and then it's on to revision for the exam in June. I'm starting to get nervous already.

Ponderings...

I think I'm going to start pushing my knowledge into robotics more now. It's always been in the back of my mind, thinking of the way things would work. I've even written a few little programs. But they've never gotten past the "hmmm" stage. Which essentially was just a wireframe model sitting there shaking slightly.
I'd like to have something, a project of sorts, to take with me when I go to university eventually. A kind of 'offering' to show that I'm putting the effort in. :)

Printing things...

Four largish prints for MyMiniFactory's Wonderland project.

Aborted print of a decorative column.

I seem to have done mostly printing this week, when I wasn't at my part-time job. I haven't taken any proper photos of them yet. Above are the ones I printed yesterday and today. The Roman chap on the far right is going to get printed again due to poor detail levels.

I've got one more to print tomorrow. A deathmask of some dude. There where a total of six print jobs that I picked, but I had to abort one of them as the walls of the model where too thin. I thought my printer could handle it :p

Depending on the usage of material for each of these prints I may end up being very selective of the print jobs I choose to do (or even stop all together), as MyMiniFactory seem to be lowering the payment again. Considering that we're only printing these once, they could pay a bit more. After all, I've got to cover material usage costs, not to mention saving up for repairs and the long-term of getting a new printer.

I'll see how things go.

Patreon shenanigans...

I completed my first draft of the Meggcha Suit project by applying a pose and then uploading it to Shapeways to check costs and printability.

Crouching egg, hidden shoe

Unfortunately there where a few little issues with the model, nothing major and easy to fix. The big problem is with the cost to print. Wayyyy too much.

I think what I'll do is create a range of poses for the full size model, including multi-part (What I'd be doing when I test print it), which I'll make available on my Patreon page as a $3 reward.

And for Shapeways I'll create scaled down versions of each of the poses, so that they can act as little tabletop models. The egg would be included :)

I may even try for a colour print version.

This should be a workable compromise in terms of costs; And the scaled down versions would be available as part of the reward too.

Hopefully it'll all be done next week.

deviantArt..um...ings...

Here's a link to it's page.

I submitted another drawing to deviantArt on Monday. Just me practising using colours. I thought I'd do a coat of arms shield thingy...with an axe on it. The colours where picked using an app on my phone, from various things around my dad's greenhouse.

Due to my colour-blindness I've never really played with colour or even bothered to learn techniques for painting. So this is a bit of a steep learning curve for me.

I'll keep at it though, as I enjoy the drawing side of it anyway. :)

Thoughts on the future of robotics...

...just a brief thought on how robots will play a part in future everyday life; I've heard over the years, from films, people and friends of how having general-purpose robots doing everyday tasks would ruin life for people. Taking away jobs and such-like...and my thoughts on this...as a possible way of easing this particular problem of job losses, is that the government/s would need to bring in some sort of legislation that would put people first.

For example; A company would declare that it has a work-force of over a thousand people. It could rent/own robots to do their jobs, but only until a person is available to do that job.

This way if a person is off sick or on holiday, their robot 'stand-in' would take over their role, until they're fit to return.

I suppose rules against robots being brought in during strikes would have to be sorted out.

Start-up companies could benefit, as they could declare more staff than they could afford and bring in robots (That's assuming the cost ratio of person/robot is cheaper to use robots).

It's quite shaky reasoning, and maybe a bit naive sounding. But I thought I'd let this pondering out into the world :)

Anyway, must be to bed, I've studying to do in the morning...