afraser-kruck

I won a nice mug prize pack and received a lot of positive feedback :) The Instructable went viral and hackaday liked it saying "It’s a build of a kind we haven’t seen before". In any case, I think you might enjoy seeing the device in action at a music festival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ8HX-S4fEM some really funny reactions. Cheers!

I was working on ways to make it project, but found that it is really fun having to look down the barrel. Lining up correctly is easier 5' or father away as the light spreads out, but it will work right up to the CD. And if you think about it, it also makes a lot of sense from an energy point of view. With the current build, you get bright vibrant focused colors with a tiny flashlight. If we were projecting onto a wall, you'd need a super powerful light and big battery/fan like other projectors.

Thanks! I added a video of it in use at a festival. See step 1. It's pretty fun :)

Just to clarify, it does project some, but you get the crazy effects when looking directly into it. You can see the crazy patterns at least 20 feet away if you are lined up. Projecting through it might be possible with some modifications, but you'd need a very powerful light source & battery to project anything of a significant size. Something like a standard video projector. I've added a video to step 1 showing it in operation at a festival. I'm still planning to use it for Halloween. I'll probably aim it at people because it's great fun to interact, but I might have it slowly panning back and forth or have a "stand here" sign.

Please post pics/videos when you do! I'm still recovering from the festival. Me and the kids had an amazing time, but we've still got to unpack and stuff. It will be a week or two before I get to play with RGB light sources, but I'm crazy curious!!!

I'm at a music festival until Monday so I can't check for sure, but I think it was "Float". Search here https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music?feature=blog

I agree!!! I'm actually really excited to try an RGB light with this. Combining a color shifting light with a motorized slide... it has to happen. I did try it with a pure red light and I only saw the red part of the rainbow during all the sliding. I think you'll be able to choose which ring or rings of color you want to see. I just got some neopixels. Do you think they would work? Our did you mean a quad lead RGB LED?

I'm out at a festival right now. I'll do some detailed measurements when I'm back and I'll post here.

Thanks!

Thanks for the kind words. Glad you like it!

Awesome! One thing I was thinking about doing for my next T-Rex build was to glue all the head layers together with white craft glue *before* cutting. Still use bricks to hold the layers together tight while drying. Once it was dry, I was going to try using a jig saw to cut all the laminated layers in one go to save time. If you try it, please let me know how it works :)

Good luck in the finals!

You're welcome. Good luck in the finals!

This is a great instructable. I'm shocked that this build didn't make it into the contest finals. Maybe the wrong crowd? If it were me, I would have put it on the podium. Cheers!

Cool idea. Thanks for sharing the build :)

I posted a video (at the top) that shows some of the fun we had playing :)

I've also created a community post to gather ideas on how to improve the game:https://www.instructables.com/community/Jurassic-Spark-kids-game-how-to-distribute-fun-mor/

I had not thought of that. What an interesting idea! Teams are a well known concept and could definitely help shift the focus away from individuals. In the games that we played, kids definitely helped each other out, but I didn't get the sense that they felt like they were part of a team. THANKS!

Hehehe. I will definitely accept bribes for the locations of batteries :) I like the idea of having a more straight forward option for younger kids. Maybe there could be another tangible item other than the batteries that the smaller kids need to transport from one spot to another. Let's call them widgets. They can see the widgets, but need to navigate a field of dinosaurs to accomplish the task. Then they can still have fun and get a feeling of accomplishment.

Hello! I would love some feedback on whether I've included too much detail or if it is OK. Without knowing who is reading the instructable, I find myself wanting to explain a lot of things that may be obvious to readers. I don't want to bore experienced builders, but I also don't want to skip details that will help others avoid my earlier mistakes.All constructive feedback welcome!https://www.instructables.com/id/Jurassic-Spark-Giant-Biting-T-Rex-Build-Game/ Thanks!Adam

Thanks! I wonder if you could do paper mache on the outside T-Rex head layers to give it a real 3D look without adding too much weight? A mix between the 2D T-Rex head and the angler fish pinata?

I agree! We ran two normal games (about 20 minutes each) and then the kids *insisted* that they get to be dinosaurs :) It was clear the 7 adults were not going to win against the 20 dinosaurs (we left the T-Rex out) so we made another rule: frozen explorers can also be freed after counting to 10. This version of the game needs more tuning, but was still fun. One of the largest areas for improvement was that the kid dinosaurs would often surround an adult explorer that had a battery to trap them. This slowed down the game action. Maybe there could still be an adult T-Rex that will eat explorers AND small dinos? That way they can break up a situation like this in a fun way.

It was! I wish I could create and play positive games with kids full time :)

This is awesome!