Bill Ball
wjball.bsky.social
Bill Ball
@wjball.bsky.social
Life-long maker and tinkerer. #making, #makerspace, #makerfaire, #3Dprinting. Retro futures, industrial design, and maker of gadgets for people who haven't forgotten to play. Projects: http://www.tinkerfarm.net.
Ask Longfellow?
January 3, 2026 at 12:57 PM
The pair proved popular at the recent Rochester Maker Faire. Now I am working on building out the selection of period-correct games you can play on it. Lunar Lander anyone? Eliza?
December 26, 2025 at 2:35 PM
This was the advertising image from 1970 that totally sold me on the design. Of course once I saw the tulip chair in the ad I had to get a cheap repro of that to go with my terminal (I will skip the disk packs, etc).
December 26, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Those are great. we use them as distance sensors in our mini sumo robots.
November 2, 2025 at 11:54 AM
The coin cell provides about 16ma to the flying saucer with nothing else in the circuit. I put in a resistor to dim it somewhat (and mounted it backwards). I'm thinking about some sort of tiny pot for brightness control or maybe a LDR in a voltage divider as crude auto dimming.
September 23, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Those look great! I've been doing a much more stripped down version with just pin backs for lapel pins and a coin cell. I've gotten a couple full days out of the ufo on the first battery and counting...
September 22, 2025 at 10:55 PM
Actor James Garner leads the pack of Formula Ones in the 1966 film Grand Prix
September 20, 2025 at 11:43 AM
attracted to the insects that are attracted to the lamp, I would guess.
September 10, 2025 at 11:29 AM
$369 each vs $6 for 2 (plus jumpers). I think I'll stick with the traditional ones and save the blinky lights for the projects I build on them.
September 9, 2025 at 4:07 PM
BoB finished this out with a snowflake effect palm rest and some nifty software. www.youtube.com/shorts/cmsYV...
naught nice machine (WIP)
YouTube video by BoB LeSuer
www.youtube.com
September 6, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Unfortunately, neither Whizzo nor my goth-bot Cuddles have been successful in competition.
August 12, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Your maps are very interesting. And thanks for putting me on to the NFIP interactive mapping source while looking at relocating to a flood-prone region (Annapolis area).
July 10, 2025 at 11:29 AM
The final version is more egg shaped but with careful indents to encourage the fingers of variously sized hands to grip it securely.

I try to make the electronics of these projects as visible as possible to inspire conversations about making at events.
June 26, 2025 at 7:16 PM
The next versions were designed to be gripped or wrist worn since the light cube responds to vigorous movement and shaking. But people at our recent makerfaire revealed that this was too cumbersome and slow to adjust to hand size differences.
June 26, 2025 at 7:10 PM
At this point the hardware is ready save for the acrylic palm rest for scanning. My friend BoB will do the software and provided fresh muffins and a quick game of Fyra at the handover.
June 4, 2025 at 4:25 PM