Lazy Hikers don't walk, they ride the chain!

Well, it's been like smashing my head against a wall on the Hiker game for Molson/ Coors. The design was based off of early sketches and collages of what it was to look like. Originally the reference was an icy, almost vertical wall, but we had to adjust the size and angle for transportation logistics. So as the 3d model was massed and ready to go...........a revised drawing came in with enough changes to head me back to the drawing board. We'll still drive the hiker with a chain, and he'll still have the same number of checkpoints, but now it's a grassy hill, with the Coors mountains in the background. They also want the "Coors Light Mountain Survival" logo on the flat portion the man will travel. This messed up the existing chain layout. So the last few days have been spent at the computer again, incorporating everything that has changed. It's one of those things that by moving one piece, just a little, it has a chain reaction to the rest of the pieces! Oh well, we do love a challenge!!

I was able to re-purpose the gear sprockets, and move them to their new location on the board. The Logo is offset to the right to allow for the mountainous hill that will hide the hikers return to the starting line.

I drew a grid plane in Hexagon that will become the base mesh of the game surface. The cylinders, and the belt shape that runs up the side and the top, represent the volume of the little vagabond hiker that will endlessly hike this hill. This is so when I mass the terrain, I can be sure he will have ample clearance to get around. I exported the logo outline from Corel as a dxf, and imported it into Hex as a position holder. The horizontal and vertical lines were used as alignment reference. It's crucial that everything be as accurate as possible at this point! The same went for the track and sprockets. All DXF's, exported and aligned to the base mesh. I will eventually do the same for the little "X"s as well.
We have been busy cutting tons of stuff for the other sign shops in the area, so I'm not as far along on this game as I would like, but we will be heavy into the fabrication come Monday when it's all drawn and the layout clearances all work together!
8)
JO

Trivia Hiking!

Our current build is a table top game for one of the large brewery companies here in Canada.
Basically they wanted a cool looking system that would have people answering trivia questions.

This is a VERY basic massing model, and the real version will be quite a bit more detailed.
The concept is that a person would answer questions, and upon getting the answer correct, the host would press a button, making a little hiker man ascend to the first checkpoint. This process continues until he reaches his destination cabin at the top of the hill. Once inside the cabin, he'll track through the mountain, unseen, until he pops out the base camp cabin at the bottom of the hill, starting the game over. Each checkpoint will have a light that comes on when he gets there. The electronics are dead simple, so there will be very little to go wrong, as it travels around the country. It will also be encased in acrylic, to avoid the temptation to grab and touch elements on the hill.

We have decided to drive the hiker with a #25 roller chain, locked into a track, under the base.

I wasn't able to get any in-stock chain, but the bearing company I ordered it from was able to provide the chain and sprocket specs for me. I turned this into a 1 to 1 scale drawing so I could figure out exactly what the length and distance for the track needs to be.

Using the sprocket drawing I created, I was able to get a lock on how the track would travel around the game base. Because the chain can only flex in one direction, it's critical that the track up the mountain be as planer as possible. We'll landscape around this fact, making the base a little more interesting than in the massing model. We're running the whole thing off of a low voltage 12v system, so it will also be very safe!

This is going to be a little design intensive for the next little bit, but it should be a lot of fun, times 2 games, equals even more fun!
8)
JWO

The Power of the Beaver!

 Machining of the beaver plaque took around 2 hours total on our little Techno. This included roughing with a 1/4" ballnose, finishing with a tapered 1/8" cutter, text cleanup, and finally a cutout pass.

One of the processes I taught in Indiana was the text cleanup process that removes the jagged edges around text and components. The jagged edges can be the result of the resolution settings in Aspire 4 when the model is first created. Our little Techno is moving pretty quick, considering the z axis is actually moving up and down due to the underlying texture that was applied in the model.

The cleanup pass was done with a tapered 1/16" ballnose cutter. The difference between the bottom text vs. the upper text is night and day.

Due to the beaver head being quite thick, and keeping the whole relief in a 2" thick slab of HDU, it left the rest of the plaque a little thin. Not really a problem, as I had always planned on using 3/4" MDF as a backer plate. The weight of the MDF made the plaque feel really beefy! It also allowed for easy mounting to a wall. (Hopefully they WANT it on their wall :)) We used a urethane glue and clamped it over night.

Once the glue had dried overnight, and some little parts were further cleaned up, we got a couple of good coats of exterior acrylic primer applied.

 The entire sign was then sprayed out in a very shiny brass color. When we apply the glazes, the base color can get pulled back quite a bit, so the brighter the better right now!

Most of the metallic colors we use are the Rustoleum Metallic Accents paints. Readily available, and amazing metallic for a water-based paint. The first glaze coat was done with the classic bronze, and once that was dry, the rich brown was added for the final darkening.

Once the 2 glazes has dried, the plaque looked great!

 I decided that I wanted to add the polished metal look to the text and borders, just to add some bling!
This was done in our usual way with the metal powders buffed over gloss black. And as this is in inside sign, I didn't have to clear coat any of the metal. The Pearl-ex powders are guaranteed not to tarnish, so any indoor handling wont leave finger prints. Woo-Hoo!

We presented the plaque at lunch while we were at the little restaurant, and I do believe that they loved it. It will be interesting to see where they hang it!
8)
JWO