I hate to drop at the last moment but I have several family related things to deal with so I'm not going to finish in time. (That and I seem to have this damnable plague that makes me just want to lie here and try to breath through the ick.)
I'll still complete it and post but it definitely won't be in time to win the contest. Sorry. :-(
Just slap some paint or bits on that sonic and jump in!
Look, mine has no electronics yet, it's still "unfinished' in my mind but it looks 'done'. I will give up a detail that I had a devil of a time on. One of the things I have is from of all things a cigarette lighter. Well it's not on the build yet and you'd never figure it out, but part of my emitter will eventually have it. There are these lighters I found in my cigarette shop that have little LED lights in them. $1.69 so I bought a couple. When activated they pulse red, green and blue and then flash really fast for couple of seconds and then repeat. Mine is made though you can't see it to contain two of these LEDs. Eventually that is.
Thing was trying to run the bits up in the emitter was a motherf*cker. I actually got it working but then I broke one of the legs on the LEDs. And took them out until I find a solution. And when I had them in I didn't take into account how it would interfere with the spring inside. But the hour I actually had it working it was awesome to me. If I'd had a sound chip in, well...
You'll never, ever be able to guess from looking at it and my girlfriend laughed and laughed when I showed her how I'd gotten the spring action to work. The main body inside is a toilet paper holder. Everyone has one of these in their house I'm sure. Those two plastic tubes one smaller than the other with a spring inside. I doubt anyone can guess which one is mine because you can't see any part of the mechanism anymore. But the spring that makes it snap in and out was a big problem I was never able to overcome because it would pinch the wiring inside when compressed. I've tried every kind of tubing to make a guard for the interior and nothing I have quite works from found items.
And I haven't bought a spare CO toy yet for the sound chip for mine so no sound, but that hardly matters because this is all for the look and feel at this point.
But it looks 'finished' so what the heck, I'm in.
I have an ENORMOUS pile of stuff on two tables that I just the other day bought plastic bins to finally start sorting and storing all the pieces and bobs into because this mess of 'sonic' parts is an eyesore supreme. I realized this was the first time since January I didn't wander around the store looking at plastic cutlery handles, nightlights, bits for ceiling fan pulls and all the other aisles that I've wandered look for that bit that would spark my imagination and be the perfect thing for my build. My girlfriend and I spent hours in February looking around the big Hobby Lobby store in Jackson, MS, her for arts and crafts stuff and me - sonic parts. At one point I was looking at the little streetlamps for in front of a dollhouse. Some very interesting bits for an emitter head, but EXPENSIVE. "I'll just put that back". Funnest trip ever though. We had a great time and now know where EVERYTHING is in that store for sure.
Not one thing I bought that day made it into my build. But I did find a poofy white feather for a dollar and made a quill looking pen out of it in five minutes that she couldn't stop laugh at.
Truth is for all that casting about, my sonic still has really only the bits I started with back in February building. I wish I'd taken progress photos, but really the assembly basically consisted of actually gluing rather than just dry-fitting the bits together. It took me the LONGEST time to decide to actually GLUE because every day I'd think, "don't commit, you haven't found the perfect bit for this end or that or in the middle" for the longest time.
Thing is, I bet the best outcome of this whole 'contest' will be that we will all put up photos of how our different sonics were done, and in twos and threes we'll go "I wish I had thought of that" and we'll swap ideas, maybe trade excess or spare bits or knowledge and we'll make some even more awesome custom sonic afterward.
I think mine has one or two bits that are clever ideas, but the execution is lousy. I damn near took my thumb nail off at one point making the emitter when I had the Dremel going full bore. Those things can KICK! So the emitter doesn't satisfy me, but I can take another stab at it later.
I really hope someone says "Elvis, why don't you make these mods to it and that will make it better." That's the very best 'prize' I could win from the experience.
eek
