Stop Motion Animation

Happy belated New Year! One of my resolutions is not to promise that I'll blog more. There are a lot of stuff I could write about but I choose to be lazy instead.

Anyway, we spent much of the holiday break in Toronto. We visited the Ontario Science Center where we played with stop motion animation in a hands on lab. Jade was really interested in animation and she wanted to do more. I promised her that we could it when we got back to California. When we got back home I looked for a few packages for the Mac and the best one I found was iStopMotion. It's really simple to use (even a 5 year old can use it) and it produces great results. The product has many tiers including a home, prosumer and professional versions. The home version is about $50 and has all the features you need to create stop motion animation. I imported the clips into iMovie for editing and adding the soundtrack.

I experimented with the set up using a crappy Logitech web cam since I didn't have a FireWire cable for my DV camera. Once I figured out how all the pieces fit together, I set up a table top animation studio in the living room. I showed Jade the basics of using the software and let her go. The film above was done mostly by Jade with a little help from me. Jade and I worked on the two characters at the beach but Jade did the other clips herself. Sound track by Buckethead.

Chain Guide Adaptation for the Trail-A-Bike

We have a 7-speed trail-a-bike and since Jade learned how to shift we have been experiencing the occasional dropped chain. The problem is that the combination of a bumpy climb and Jade's down shifting will cause the chain will pop off the front ring and get caught between the ring and the chain guard. When that happens, I loose my "auxiliary motor" and have to tow 70 lbs of bike and child up the hill.

All summer I have been trying to figure out a solution short of purchasing a commercial chain guide system - which is about the same price as the trail a bike. Specialized has the Hotrock 20" which includes a low cost OEM chain guide. I tried to get one in the after market but Specialized or any other vendor offers it.

A couple of months ago, I bought a used Hotrock 20" but the bike is a little too big for Jade. With a little engineering, I moved the chain guide to the trail-a-bike and now we have a great solution for dropped chains! We're going to test this out this weekend.

A chain guide on a trail-a-bike is pretty bad ass!

Dirt Cheap Mobile Audio Video

Last Sunday we got stuck in that hellish traffic jam on I-80 West on the way back from Tahoe. It was the first real snow this season and chain control and speed limits were in effect. This was also the end of the holiday weekend and people were returning from Reno and Tahoe. According to Caltrans, 1 in 4 drivers on I-80 have never driven in the snow. So speeds were slow and we were stuck on 80 for a few hours.

Jade had not got her proper sleep since Turkey day and had been a little whiny over the weekend. Being stuck in traffic was looking to be a nightmare. Fortunately for us, I found a dirt cheap way of creating a mobile audio/video entertainment system.

I used a video iPod, a set of portable Altec Lansing iPod speakers, a DC to AC power inverter and couple of bungee cords to create a audio/video system on the headrest of our Subaru. It's a great thing that I keep a power inverter and plenty of bungee cords in the car. I bought the Altec Lansing inMotion IM3 portable speakers back in May for my NorCal camping trip and I continue to find new and exciting uses for them. I used the red bungee cord to attach the speakers to the headrest. The iPod is docked to the speakers through the interface at the bottom. This interface also holds the iPod in place and was not designed to withstand the vibration from stop and go traffic. I uses the blue bungee cord to secure the iPod against the red bungee cord and this stopped the vibration. I connected the power adapter to the power inverter which was plugged into the car DC outlet in the cargo area.

I had the insight to download some preschooler TV shows like "Wonder Pets" and "The Backyardigans" from the iTunes Music Store before we headed up the mountains. Jade knows how to control the volume but she still doesn't know how to operate the iPod. The result is that Jade was cheerfully amused for a couple of hours while we were cursing Californians who cant drive in the snow.