Christmas Shopping

[Miles]

Okay engineers I need your help. I can't use a pushbutton to engage a motor because it requires too much force (I'm using jellybeans as "water balloons" that will be propelled at the target with a rubber-band) so I'm going to use a counterweight which will lift the garage door when it's lowered. Now I just need to figure out the mechanics for releasing the counterweight.

Why not use the 'ol lit candle and a string trick? How many times ya gotta open and close the door?

Gotta open and close the door enough times to run the quality assurance tests. Gotta open it once for the opening of the present. Great idea, but how do I light the candle? Maybe I can attach a razor blade to a mouse trap, and then when the trap is tripped it will cut the string releasing the counterweight. I like fire.

[Miles]

Miles....do you have too much idle time at the present? Much like CB&B, I think I have blood running down my face from the exploding head.
I give you an 'A' grade for your ambition.
I give myself an 'A' for going to get another drink.

Hardly! This present is kicking my ass, but it's well worth it. Kelly's father is an awesome guy and he really does hate his neighbor's Santa. He's too good of a guy to actually break out the bb gun and take it out, so this will give him an opportunity to exact some revenge.

Folks, you're only given a few opportunities like this and you have to take advantage of them when they come around. I'm going for it.

[Very Duke Blue]

i am done! finished christmas shopping. yipee, hiho, woopee. done deal.

go duke!!!

[bjornolf]

Wow, that's pretty complex for a simple gift card reveal. Maybe you should just give a Lowe's gift card too with a diagram of your project and tell them to build it themselves.

That would suck. The whole purpose of the evening is creative presentation. This gift-wrap has the added bonus of Pat getting to destroy his neighbor's hideous Santa, which he can't do in real life.

You could always just make him a replica of the Santa with the gift card inside, along with a golf club, and tell him to have at it, pinata style. ;)

It's simpler, but it's much more therapeutic than just shooting it with a slingshot or bb gun.

[TillyGalore]

Miles....do you have too much idle time at the present? Much like CB&B, I think I have blood running down my face from the exploding head.
I give you an 'A' grade for your ambition.
I give myself an 'A' for going to get another drink.

Hardly! This present is kicking my ass, but it's well worth it. Kelly's father is an awesome guy and he really does hate his neighbor's Santa. He's too good of a guy to actually break out the bb gun and take it out, so this will give him an opportunity to exact some revenge.

Folks, you're only given a few opportunities like this and you have to take advantage of them when they come around. I'm going for it.

I love the idea and am sending vibes you can make it work!! I have no advice on how to make it work, just standing in your corner rooting for you.

[cl15876]

Okay engineers I need your help. I can't use a pushbutton to engage a motor because it requires too much force (I'm using jellybeans as "water balloons" that will be propelled at the target with a rubber-band) so I'm going to use a counterweight which will lift the garage door when it's lowered. Now I just need to figure out the mechanics for releasing the counterweight. I had thought of using a mousetrap but it may be too bulky.

The problem is that Santa's face is front of the area where the garage door will lift. That means I can't have anything too thick behind the face/target or it will prevent the door from lifting. I suppose I could build a track, much like a real-life garage door, but that seems like a lot of work.

Here's an illustration (semi-exploded) showing the position of the posts, target and garage door. Any ideas would be welcome.

Miles, instead of using the motor to open the door which is a cool idea, have you considered the possibility of just having the door magnetically stay closed and when the santa face is hit, it pushes a switch that releases the magnet causing the door to flip open with a little spring assembly or even top weights inside at top of door causing gravity to flip the door open outward from the bottom up towards the stakes when the magnet is switched off.

Here is a way to make a battery operated magnet and you could test it over and over, but I'm not sure off the top of my head whether this will give you the strength to hold the door shut until the switch is hit, but inexpensive to try. You just need to obviously push the switch again to turn on magnet and push the door down to catch manually when repeatedly testing.

You just need a wire, bolt, battery and on/off switch for your mechanism.

1. Using your long wire place the bolt in the center of the wire and press the wire just under the head of the bolt.
2. Start coiling both ends of the wire in a compact fashion to the other end of the bolt.
3. Connect one end of the wire to the positive end of the 9 volt battery
4. Connect the other end to the (on) portion of your switch.
5. Connect a second piece of wire from the other negative terminal on the battery to the on (off) portion of your switch.
That's all, now you have an battery operated switch magnet.

I'll think about some other ingenious and low cost solutions to offer up on the DC powered hobby motor, but how are you thinking of opening it and automatically stopping it without the use of sliding track and I'm thinking you'd need a stop and start sensor also to engage when the door reaches the fully open state.

[Miles]

Wow, that's pretty complex for a simple gift card reveal. Maybe you should just give a Lowe's gift card too with a diagram of your project and tell them to build it themselves.

That would suck. The whole purpose of the evening is creative presentation. This gift-wrap has the added bonus of Pat getting to destroy his neighbor's hideous Santa, which he can't do in real life.

You could always just make him a replica of the Santa with the gift card inside, along with a golf club, and tell him to have at it, pinata style. ;)

It's simpler, but it's much more therapeutic than just shooting it with a slingshot or bb gun.

Interesting idea. A few problems though:
1. I lose the association of shooting santa with a bb gun or water balloon slingshot
2. It would be painful to recreate a hideously realistic santa face
3. I've seen enough America's Funniest Home Videos to know that pinatas are bad ideas. ;-)

[Miles]

Dad and I figured it out. We're added a hinge, about 1.5" from the top of the garage door, then running a 2" screw through the foam core and fixing some weights to the end of the screw. We'll design a little eyelet with a pin that provides resistance to keep the garage door open. Drilled a hole through the pin and ran some fishing line through it and will attach it to the deadly end of a mouse trap. Mouse trap goes on a ledge behind the the Santa face. When target is hit, trap is tripped pulling the pin out which in turn will let the weight drop the top of the door.

We ran some tests and it'll work. We built the base, routing out a 3/16" channel for the house frame to sit inside, and we created the ledge, hinge, eyelet/pin system. All that's left is to procure a mouse trap, assemble, run quality assurance tests, complete ninja photoshoot and then make it pretty.

We're building from this scale model.

Hell yeah.

[DevilAlumna]

Dad and I figured it out. We're added a hinge, about 1.5" from the top of the garage door, then running a 2" screw through the foam core and fixing some weights to the end of the screw. We'll design a little eyelet with a pin that provides resistance to keep the garage door open. Drilled a hole through the pin and ran some fishing line through it and will attach it to the deadly end of a mouse trap. Mouse trap goes on a ledge behind the the Santa face. When target is hit, trap is tripped pulling the pin out which in turn will let the weight drop the top of the door.

We ran some tests and it'll work. We built the base, routing out a 3/16" channel for the house frame to sit inside, and we created the ledge, hinge, eyelet/pin system. All that's left is to procure a mouse trap, assemble, run quality assurance tests, complete ninja photoshoot and then make it pretty.

We're building from this scale model.

Hell yeah.

That. Is. Awesome.

[knights68]

Why not use the 'ol lit candle and a string trick?

Gotta open and close the door enough times to run the quality assurance tests. Gotta open it once for the opening of the present. Great idea, but how do I light the candle?

Use a match! lol

OR....
Use the entire matchbook, ala "Stalag 17"??
Place a lit cig in matchbook, place matchbook and cig around string or fuse to light candle.... wait for cig to burn to the matches which will, in turn, set off the matches and viola.... candle lit.
Sure, it may take a little longer than "apply match to wick" but dang it's fun!!! And a great way to clean out your junk drawer full of matchbooks and wooden matches and the sort that you have had around forever!

[Miles]

Gotta open and close the door enough times to run the quality assurance tests. Gotta open it once for the opening of the present. Great idea, but how do I light the candle?

Use a match! lol

OR....
Use the entire matchbook, ala "Stalag 17"??
Place a lit cig in matchbook, place matchbook and cig around string or fuse to light candle.... wait for cig to burn to the matches which will, in turn, set off the matches and viola.... candle lit.
Sure, it may take a little longer than "apply match to wick" but dang it's fun!!! And a great way to clean out your junk drawer full of matchbooks and wooden matches and the sort that you have had around forever![/quote]
I admire your desire to use fire! I'll go with mouse trap system

[Very Duke Blue]

Dad and I figured it out. We're added a hinge, about 1.5" from the top of the garage door, then running a 2" screw through the foam core and fixing some weights to the end of the screw. We'll design a little eyelet with a pin that provides resistance to keep the garage door open. Drilled a hole through the pin and ran some fishing line through it and will attach it to the deadly end of a mouse trap. Mouse trap goes on a ledge behind the the Santa face. When target is hit, trap is tripped pulling the pin out which in turn will let the weight drop the top of the door.

We ran some tests and it'll work. We built the base, routing out a 3/16" channel for the house frame to sit inside, and we created the ledge, hinge, eyelet/pin system. All that's left is to procure a mouse trap, assemble, run quality assurance tests, complete ninja photoshoot and then make it pretty.

We're building from this scale model.

Hell yeah.

[Very Duke Blue]

one christmas, i got tired of the kids shaking, feeling and trying to figure out what their presents contained. i had a plan:
i used only 4 rolls of paper, 1 for each kid. no names were on any presents. i mixed them up under the tree. it blew their minds. no one guessed how i could tell who's presents were who's. it wa fun.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

one christmas, i got tired of the kids shaking, feeling and trying to figure out what their presents contained. i had a plan:
i used only 4 rolls of paper, 1 for each kid. no names were on any presents. i mixed them up under the tree. it blew their minds. no one guessed how i could tell who's presents were who's. it wa fun.

How diabolical!

[TillyGalore]

one christmas, i got tired of the kids shaking, feeling and trying to figure out what their presents contained. i had a plan:
i used only 4 rolls of paper, 1 for each kid. no names were on any presents. i mixed them up under the tree. it blew their minds. no one guessed how i could tell who's presents were who's. it wa fun.

My mother has wrapping paper selected for each of us. Guess that is her being OCD, bless her heart.

A few years ago, I picked up a present that I knew was mine, might have been the wrapping paper, and due to the shape of the package I guessed it was a checkbook and replacement checks to a checking account my parents opened for me. I was kidding, okay hoping I was right. The package turned out to be an ipod.

At a holiday swap party a few years ago, I picked up a present and joked that it was a coffee maker. Imagine my surprise, and everyone else's, when I opened the present and was correct. The person who brought in the present was shocked and kept asking me how I knew. It was a guess, but the box did look about the right size of a coffee maker box.

[cl15876]

Dad and I figured it out. We're added a hinge, about 1.5" from the top of the garage door, then running a 2" screw through the foam core and fixing some weights to the end of the screw. We'll design a little eyelet with a pin that provides resistance to keep the garage door open. Drilled a hole through the pin and ran some fishing line through it and will attach it to the deadly end of a mouse trap. Mouse trap goes on a ledge behind the the Santa face. When target is hit, trap is tripped pulling the pin out which in turn will let the weight drop the top of the door.

We ran some tests and it'll work. We built the base, routing out a 3/16" channel for the house frame to sit inside, and we created the ledge, hinge, eyelet/pin system. All that's left is to procure a mouse trap, assemble, run quality assurance tests, complete ninja photoshoot and then make it pretty.

We're building from this scale model.

Hell yeah.

Miles - nice job! I would like to see real pictures and possible movie of the quality assurance testing trials! Not to mention Pat trying to hit the Santa with the jelly beans! Your present is going to be #1, hopefully, Kelly or anyone else (but Dad and all of us know) because this one will be hard to top!!!