The Rusty Rocket

It has been over ten years since I rescued a very sad looking 1958 Raleigh Lenton. I found it at a show where a farmer was having a clear our and despite the bike being rusty and absolutely covered in muck, grease and even straw, I could definitely see the potential. I got quite far with the restoration, stripping it all down, sanding and painting the frame. Progress stalled for a number of years due to frustration if I'm honest. You see, when restoring an old bike such as this one there is one thing that is really annoying. If you have to replace anything one it, it won't fit. This bike was build using imperial measurements and modern day parts are metric. It was so frustrating. I've always loved the front lamp, more so because the mouldigs for the brackets are made into the frame. The lamp and bike were literally made for one another. Unfortunately over time, I've lost the rear lamp but I know it's around somewhere. Note the lightening bolt dust cap that I 3d prin...

My niche online radio show, Number Station that I started a few months ago  broadcasted it's 22nd show last weekend. I'm still really enjoying it as it has started to get me talking more about topics I'm interested in rather than just scanning the bands to pick up any amateur radio and shortwave transmissions. I'm taking a break from it over the summer and normal service will resume again soon but in the meantime, you can listen to archived recordings and explore more of what the website has to offer here . One particular topic that is proving popular with listeners, is the subject of Numbers Stations. I've been slowly piecing together elements from previous projects of mine to help people put together their own Number Station for fun here , where information about these stations, where to listen for them and how to broadcast your own signals can be found. I also touched upon encryption and had a go at writing my own Enigma machine to allow people to encrypt and br...

I have been slowly building another cabinet in order to showcase my Game Boy game once it's published. I have previously made arcade cabinets before but they've always been rather basic as I was learning as I went. I wanted this new cabinet to something a little special. My Game Boy game, Squirrel Falls , is based in a cute woodland village and I wanted the design of the new cabinet to reflet this.  With all my arcade cabinet builds, it is the monitor that governs the size of project and I have an old square monitor from years back, which has the perfect dimensions to run an emulated Game Boy game. Next came the control unit and I wanted this to be a little different, something a little different to the usual joystick and buttons and so I used the control unit I designed and laser cut recently, ( the design files you can download here ). Once I have built the main frame, using the remains of a previous telephonic project (that happened to be the perfect width to house the monit...

I've been wanting to build a simple controller console that will allow me to play my Gameboy games that I make via an emulator. This is the current design. The front panel comprises of the four directional buttons (I opted not to include a joystick be went with the buttons instead to keep the design really simple looking) as well as buttons A and B. On either side of the console unit the Start and Select buttons can be found. I expereimented with a couple of layout arrangements and this proved the best so far. I constucted the console unit with the help of Boxes.py , an online generator for laser cut boxes. It is by far the most useful tool I've come across. I then used Lightburn to finalise the design by including the necessary holes needed to the arcade buttons. The Lightburn files to build your own can be found here .  As to the buttons and the controller board within, this was your usual arcade controller kit that you can pick up quite cheap. A simple search online reveals ...

I've found that over the years, some of my larger builds, especially the ones that contain electronics, don't survive the winter months being stored in a cold garage. I've recently started to fire up my cabinets again after the winter, thes include my large Gameboy, the Crazy Taxi arcade stand and my Zoltar cabinet. The large Gamboy build hasn't made it and I'm working through the issue in the hope that I can get it up and running soon. It also looked like my Zoltar cabinet suffered the same fate but after looking at the (awful) wiring, I found there were a couple of loose connections. The Crazy Taxi arcade stand worked first time. It all runs off an old PS2 console and they're built like bricks. I'm very fond of my Zoltar cabinet and really proud at how the two of use have been to events , telling people's fortunes but also he's been educating people and children on creative coding, which I love. My favourite fortune teller is getting tired and if I...

My game, Squirrel Falls is finally over the finishing line! It's been hard, if I'm honest. Hard because, like with any project, the novelty and excitement of starting it soon disappears when the real work and the tedious task of producing documentation begins, and it was the same in this case.  Sourcing artwork for the game box and documentation was equally frustrating. My drawing skills aren't up to it, so I set about asking friends but sadly no joy. I contacted the local schools and colleges too but nothing. In the end I had to check with my publisher that it was OK to use AI to generate all the artwork. They were fine with it and so I used Midjourney to help me. It took a while to practice writing the prompts to get somewhere close to what I was after but I'm really happy with the results. Some of the artwork can be found on the game's page here . I really want to thank everyone who took the time to repeatedly test the versions of the game as it evolved and prov...