At the heart of oomlout lie a lot of spreadsheets. We're not proud of this fact, but we have decided to start embracing it. When agressivly spreadsheet'ing it's often neccesary to have many sheets open at once. Having outgrown dual monitors we searched for a solution. Finding nothing easily purchasable we decided to build our own dual monitor stand.

(more details and how to build your own: oomlout.co.uk/?p=429 )

We spend a lot of time around oomlout HQ shopping online. We've recently taken a shining to 360 degree product photos and wanted some of our own. So we fired up the laser cutter and made ourselves a stepper motor controlled Lazy Susan.

For more details and file formats visit: oomlout.co.uk/?p=413

While we have lots of problems at oomlout HQ many of them are a bit too complex to solve so we find ourselves dealing with the smaller ones. Today we tackled the proliferation of mugs in our kitchen (growth can be difficult).

We scoured our local thrift shops for weeks but sadly no mug trees, so we bit the bullet. The result a lovely usefully mug tree made from MDF with only two unique parts. Hope it can help other peoples kitchens feel as organized as ours.

Tired of our projects getting finished and being nothing more than a mush of wires we decided to design ourselves a box. After many iterations we've settled on one that requires just over an A4 (letter) sheet worth of acrylic and four nuts and bolts to assemble.

(For all the details visit our blog oomlout.co.uk/?p=369 )

Parts:
ADBO-01 x1 Back Plate (3mm sheet stock)
ADBO-02 x1 Face Plate (3mm sheet stock)
ADBO-03 x2 Blank Side Plate (3mm sheet stock)
ADBO-04 x1 Wire Side Plate (3mm sheet stock)
ADBO-05 x1 Arduino Plate (3mm sheet stock)
BOL-05-60 x4 5mm x 60mm Bolt
NUT-05-05 x4 5mm Acorn Nut

(For all the details visit our blog oomlout.co.uk/?p=369 )
(For additional files and formats visit oomout.com/ADBO )

A fun and simple holder for your various reeled items (we recommend using it for wire).

A simple piece of Acrylic with bolt holes to secure an Arduino and space to attach a 400 point breadboard beside it.

(it seems silly but they're really helpful)

(shameless plug)
We like to describe ourselves as a plucky little design house. We focus on producing delightfully fun, open source products.

Don't have access to a laser cutter and in the UK? We've opened up our web shop.

http://www.oomlout.co.uk

(we also sell other lovely Arduino bits and bobs)

In honour of Thingiverse Thursday here's a design that has been sitting on our hard drive for a little while.

Its a simple little box that makes wiring up an 8 x 8 LED Matrix easy. It uses the MAX7219 (or 7221) LED driver chip from Maxim and uses the Matrix library in the Arduino library.

For Details on how to wire up and program try:
arduino.cc/playground/Main/MAX72XXHardware

A small video of it scrolling a Valentines day message:
flickr.com/photos/snazzyguy/3277618701

A few pieces that make connecting your fun electronic bits to your lego bits easy.

Perhaps one of the funnest projects we have attempted around the .:oomlout:. offices. A five degrees of freedom robotic arm. While we have spent many hours twisting knobs to move pop cans from one point on our desk to another sadly it has not progressed much further.
The main reason for this is the sum total of math knowledge around the oomlout.com offices is about 4 (don't ask us to show our work on how we calculated this) so inverse kinematics is well beyond our reach.

We are releasing it in an imperfect form in the hope that the clever Thingiverse denizens will be able to make it better.

Why this isn't quite ready for sale:
-We lack any inverse kinematics program which makes moving the arm intelligently nearly impossible.
-Without software limits on the servos it is capable of stripping the low cost hobby servo motors (this is alright for testing as they are only five dollars) (we have stripped two in the life of our arm and both happened when we were asking it to do silly things) (this can be fixed by upgrading the servos)
-We haven't completed the 3d model or assembly instructions just yet, but by studying the photos it is possible to assemble. (think more jigsaw puzzle than lego set)
-The gripper, lets just say the gripper needs a little work.

That said it is an amazingly fun toy to play around with, and a good starting point if anyone has ever had a desire to make the perfect robotic arm (it is open source so you'd be free to make and sell your own)

(shameless plug)

For more details about becoming a Robotic Arm Developer visit our blog
(http://www.oomlout.com/blog)

Long have our business cards languished face up on tables. They have cried out, "why not tilt us slightly so we may be better seen". We have finally answered their call.

A quick little project where each length of wire represents one days worth of page views.

For all the details visit oomlout.com/blog

A Chair with a bit of a back story.

In the interest of putting off our real work around oomlout we set ourselves a simple challenge, make a chair. What ensued a day (well we're a bit disappointed as it took closer to half a day but we digress) where we went from figuring out what size a chair should be through computer drawings, cnc cutting and finally assembly.

(shameless plug)
If you'd like all the details they can be found on our blog:
oomlout.com/blog/

Very similar to my previous Switch box ( thingiverse.com/thing:231 ). But this one uses some slide potentiometers I picked up recently, it also includes a mount for an Arduino to minimize the volume of wiring.

Some example software of how to hook it to your computer:
instructables.com/id/How_to_Make_a_Little_Switch_and_Potentiometer_Box_/

(shameless plug)
oomlout has started blogging oomlout.com/blog/

A simple little box to contain my dual nixie tube driver.

(if you like the cute little nixie tubes I got my kit from ogilumen.com)

When you're building circuits on a breadboard there is nothing more annoying than having to measure, snip, and then strip both ends of each and every piece of wire.

Well perhaps there are greater annoyances but that does not mean that this problem should go un-addressed. Addressed it has become, and if you too have a few stepper motors, a hand-held wire stripper and a bunch of nuts and bolts your life, too, can become easier.

For all of you crying overkill, we do have a small ulterior motive, at oomlout.com we manufacture a number of kits that come with pre-stripped wires hence the need for semi automation. This version is the much improved brethren of version one.

Let's get to stripping. (that doesn't sound quite right)

A video of it in action;
youtube.com/watch?v=fftZq_deIls

A second video (a little shaky but better at showing the different components)
youtube.com/watch?v=hWS99SeBHX8

What it is:

A little contraption that allows you to flick a light switch on and off under the control of a micro-controller.

What it does:
You can see a video of it in action here:
youtube.com/watch?v=P0hBCdMJ96g

A desktop machine that measures out a length of sticker sheet to be cut.
(a video of it in action flickr.com/photos/snazzyguy/3182578600/in/photostream/ )

Why?
After laser cutting a sheet of Acrylic into all sorts of wonderful little pieces you are left with the problem of how to remove them from the machine. The answer lifting with a sticker sheet, this machine measures out 9.5 inch squares of sticker sheet for just this purpose.

A desktop machine that will measure out a length of wire and strip a length from either end.
(a video of it in operation: youtube.com/watch?v=F2O7kGE34EA )

Why?
To create lengths of wire that fit perfectly into an electronics breadboard. (we produce kits and you can only hand cut and strip so many wires before you go crazy)

This is also the first item in a concept oomlout.com is working on dubbed "open manufacturing". (more to follow)

How?
It breaks down into three parts
1. Wire Feeder - This feeds the wire in measured lengths forwards and backwards (uses a stepper motor)
2. Wire Stripper - This runs an exacto knife blade around the insulation of the wire twice. (uses a small servo motor and normal sized servo motor)
3. Wire Snipper - Snips the wire at the end. (uses a pair of wire cutters and a cheap handheld drill motor)

A little attachment for an Arduino Controlled Servo Robot - (SERB) that allows it to carry along a small netbook (ie. Asus eeePC), Making the programming options endless.

Get it Working
For details on how to connect your robot to the internet using Processing visit:
instructables.com/id/How_to_Make_a_Web_Connected_Robot_for_about_500/


Arduino Controlled Servo Robot
Or if you like the Arduino Controlled Servo Robot - (SERB)

You can Build your own:
instructables.com/id/How_to_Make_a_Web_Connected_Robot_for_about_500/
or
thingiverse.com/thing:209

Or purchase a lovely kit with everything you need to build your own:
store.oomlout.com/arduino-controlled-servo-robot-serb--kit1.html

(shameless plug)
To discover more delightfully fun open source projects try:
oomlout.com

A little box for holding 5 potentiometers and three switches. Making it super easy to add inputs to your next Arduino project.

A fun little open source Arduino powered robot to play around with.